Street Harassment Statistics in Italy (Cornell Survey Project, 2015)

Hollaback! International Street
Harassment Survey Project
Analyses provided by:
Dr. Beth Livingston
Research Assistants Maria Grillo and
Rebecca Paluch
Property of Beth A. Livingston, Cornell University.
Do not disseminate without permission of Dr. Livingston and Hollaback.org

Procedure
• Beth Livingston (assistant professor, Cornell ILR School) created the survey
– Hollaback!’s constant feedback and guidance
– Guidance of prior research on street (or stranger) harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace.
– Survey uploaded to the survey hosting site (provided by Cornell) called Qualtrics.
• Surveys were translated, where appropriate, by volunteers from various Hollaback! sites
– Guided by instructions to ensure the internal validity of the questionnaire
– Feedback was given by Hollaback! leadership and site leaders throughout the process to make sure we were
using wording that was as broadly applicable as possible
– Reviewed by Cornell’s institutional review board and found to be exempt because no identifying information
was collected from respondents.
• Site leaders given their own links to the survey in the languages they preferred.
– They had 2 months (October 15-December 15, 2014)
– Could send the links out however they wished
– Survey was not randomly distributed to a random sample of participants, and thus cannot be generalized in
the same was as, say, a Gallup survey
– Demographic data was collective so that o a profile of respondents could be created
• Updates were sent to each site periodically to try to encourage them to reach a sample size of 100
respondents per site.
– There were 16,607 respondents across all 42 sites that participated.
– The survey was translated into 13 languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Bosnian, Croatian,
Hindi, Polish, Czech, Nepali, Marathi, and German
•

Italian Women under age 40: Age
AGE AT FIRST
HARASSMENT
Percentage of
respondents
<10 9.0
11-12 19.2
13-14 28.5
15-16 22.3
17-20 15.3
21-25 4.5
over 25 1.2

Italian Women under age 40:
Summaries
• 79% of Italian women report their first experience with street harassment
before age 17. In fact, 57% report their first experience before age 15. A
full 9% report that it happened before they turned 10.
• Nonverbal harassment are the most commonly experienced types of
harassment, and few women report not experiencing this behavior at all
during the past year.
• Having a person expose him/herself to you is the least common
harassment experience, with 76% of women having no experience with
this at all.
• Over half of Italian women have been groped or fondled in the past year.
• 69% have been followed by a man or group of men in a way that made
them feel unsafe during the past year
– 13% of Italian women have experienced this frightening behavior more than 5
times.

Italian Women under age 40: Locations
• Has this happened in certain location/under certain
circumstances, during past year?
Expose Grope/Fondle Follow Verbal Nonverbal
On the street 8.8 14.1 40.4 39.5 57.8
In a park 5.4 2.1 7.7 8.6 18
On public transit 8.3 27.1 9.9 11.9 41.1
In a public transit station 3.4 6.2 14.5 14.3 31.5
On way to work 1.5 2.6 6.8 9.5 15.8
On way to school 1.6 3.7 6.6 10.2 15.8
On way to social event 2.5 7.8 12.7 15.8 25.3
on a college campus 0.4 2.3 2.1 2.5 6.4
IN a well lit area 6.3 13.6 15.4 21.2 34.5
In a pooly lit area 4.5 8 16 13.4 20.2
In a city 16.9 31 40.7 39.5 58
In a suburb/outside of a city 5.1 6.3 15.3 13.7 23.5
In a manufacturing area 0.4 0.9 1.9 2.5 5.6
In a retail/sales/shopping area 0.3 2.5 3.1 4.1 11.4
Around a lot of other people 6.9 27.8 17.1 24 40.2
Alone, or isolated 6.8 5.4 17 12.1 20.5
Late at night 5.6 12.7 25.4 19.3 32
During the day 14.1 26 25.4 30.1 48
While dressed up 4 13 14.9 19.5 31.9
While dressed "down" or casually 14.9 28.7 34.4 30.6 46.7

Italian Women under age 40: Emotions
• Street harassment of any kind seems to result in strong feelings of anger--
but fear is primarily rooted in following/stalking and anxiety results from
the actions of groping, exposure and following/stalking.
• Exposure, fondling/groping, and verbal harassment cause depression
while verbal harassment causes low self esteem.
• A common refrain is that women secretly find harassment to be flattering.
– Although some women do seem to feel this way, it is a negligible amount
• Some women report feeling no emotional reactions to street harassment,
although they are the minority.
• It is important to distinguish between trends (i.e., street harassment has
strong effects on negative emotions) and possibilities/outliers (i.e., some
women will indeed feel nothing at all, or even flattered, by it)

Behavioral impact
% of respondents
saying "yes"
Leave/resign your job? 4.87
Not attend/skip work? 9.36
Refuse or not accept work/job? 16.10
Miss school or skip classes? 17.30
Be late to school or work? 25.67
Have to or want to move homes? 19.27
Have to or want to move cities? 19.86
Not go out to a social outing or event (bar, restaurant, movies, etc.)? 41.65
Not go out at night? 55.08
Have to move cities? 5.49
Feel distracted at school or work? 45.88
Change your behavior/relationship with friends or loved ones? 31.11
Choose to take a different route home or to your destination? 88.14
Choose to take different transportation (e.g., call a cab instead of walking/taking the bus)? 66.67
Choose not to show public affection with a partner or significant other? 19.70
Take self-defense classes (formally or on your own) to protect yourself? 29.79
Carry a weapon? 21.22
Change what you were wearing? 54.19
Avoid a city or area? 71.85
Change changed the time you left an event or location? 52.32
Join a support network either online or in person? 8.87
Call the police or security? 16.20
Not socialize or interacte with a person? 60.36
Avoid an area of your town or city specifically? 73.61

Behavioral impact
• Over half of respondents noted that they changed their
clothing, took a different route or transportation,
completely avoided an area, changed the time they left
an event, or avoided socializing because of street
harassment (or the fear of it).
• Some (a small amount) of respondents even notes that
they resigned a job or skipped work--or even moved
cities--because of harassment.
• About 26% of respondents noted that they were late to
school or work, which could have major economic
effects on both business performance and on personal
finances.

Bystanders and communication
• The majority of street harassment occurs without
witnesses willing to help.
– When people do stop to help, it is as likely to make
victims feel better as to feel nothing or worse.
– In fact, in general, bystanders often--regardless of
their intentions to help--make things worse.
• Women are more likely to talk to friends than
anyone else about their harassment experiences.
• Women feel least comfortable talking to
individuals with power or status positions about
their experiences.

Italian women under age 40: General
demographic notes
• Relatively educated (58.2% with a college
degree or higher) and moderately
economically secure
• Somewhat engaged with street harassment
(43% have visited Hollaback! online)
• See spreadsheet for more demographics

Street Harassment Statistics in Italy (Cornell Survey Project, 2015)

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