RUN THESE STREETS
Female runners are being routinely sexually harassed on the streets of the UK. Here’s what that harassment looks – and feels – like, why we’re on a mission to stamp it out, plus what you can do to help
Take a stand against the routine harassment of female runners
Choosing a busy route, only going out in daylight, forgoing shorts in favour of leggings on even the sunniest of Saturdays. These are just some of the measures female runners take in the name of avoiding unwanted attention, harassment and even assault. What’s more, we suspect this won’t surprise you.
In recent months, Twitter, Whatsapp and the airwaves have been filled with accounts of all the things women do to feel safe on our streets; an issue upon which a painfully bright spotlight was shone following the killing of Sarah Everard – the 33-yearold woman who disappeared while walking home from a friend’s house in South London in March. And while the police were quick to reassure women that such cases are incredibly rare, the outpouring of anger – plus the deaths of Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman and Blessing Olusegun – demonstrated that the threat of male violence is anything but.
Among the thousands of stories of keys nestled between knuckles was a rallying cry from female runners; a community for whom cat-calling and
kerb-crawling appear to come with the territory of pounding the pavement. To get a sense of just how big this problem is, we surveyed over 2,000 of you on your experiences of being harassed while running. One in four respondents said they experience sexist comments or unwanted sexual advances on a regular basis while out running. And for a fifth, the situation has worsened since the start of the pandemic.
This culture of fear has stark consequences. Research has shown that street harassment increases anxiety, stripping away feelings of safety to leave women feeling vulnerable. And that this fear is also keeping women like you from engaging in one of the most accessible, inexpensive and holistic healthsupporting forms of exercise there is – 11% of you told us that you’d stopped running as a result of harassment – makes this a public health issue.
That’s why, together with our sister magazine Runner’s World, we’re inviting you to Reclaim
Your Run. In the coming months, we’ll be working with women’s rights advocates, anti-harassment campaigners, athletes and women like you, with a single goal in mind: to make street harassment a crime. Look out for the ‘Reclaim Your Run’ badge on these pages and on our website and turn to page 99 to find out more about how you can get involved. In the meantime, here are just some of the things you shared with us about how it feels to go out running as a woman…