Hollaback! and Cornell University began a large-scale research survey on street harassment in 2014. The research was released in two parts: Part I reviewed data from the United States and Part II of the survey, a cross-cultural analysis of street harassment from 42 cities around the globe, was released in May 2015. Data was collected and analyzed by Dr. Beth Livingston, Cornell University ILR School and graduate assistants Maria Grillo and Rebecca Paluch, Cornell University ILR School in partnership with Hollaback! - See more at: http://www.ihollaback.org/#sthash.2a3xUfA8.dpuf

1. 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

2. 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
•

3. UNITED STATES
SAMPLE SIZE=4872

4. US: International differences
• UK, Canada, US, EU, “other”
– US age of first harassment is significantly lower than the "other" region, but
equal to the UK, Canada, and the EU
– US respondents report significantly more verbal harassment in the past year
than every other region.
– US respondents report significantly more nonverbal harassment in past year
than Canada and the EU, but the same as the UK and the other regions.
– US respondents report significantly fewer exposure harassment experiences in
past year than the other regions, and significantly more than in Canada. The
same as the UK and the EU.
– US respondents report significantly fewer groping incidents in past year than
the other regions, the UK and the EU, and the same as Canadian respondents.
– US respondents report significantly more following/stalking incidents in the
past year than the EU and the other regions, but the same as UK and Canadian
respondents.

5. US Women under 40: Age
• Age at first harassment
AGE AT FIRST HARASSMENT Percentage of respondents
<10 11.6
11-12 23.7
13-14 31.4
15-16 18.2
17-20 12.8
21-25 1.9
over 25 0.4

6. US Women under 40: Summaries
• 85% of US women report experiencing their first harassment before age
17.
– In fact, 11.6% of women report their first harassment BEFORE age 11.
• Verbal and 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 almost 80% of women having no experience
with this at all
• Half of US women under 40 have been groped or fondled in the past year.
• 77% of US women under 40 have been followed by a man or group of men
in a way that made them feel unsafe during the past year.
– A small, but significant proportion of US women have experienced this
frightening behavior more than 5 times.

7. US Women under 40: Locations
• Has this happened in certain location/under certain
circumstances, during past year? (perc saying “yes”)
Expose Grope/Fondle Follow Verbal Nonverbal
On the street 7.1 10.9 45.8 56.4 54.6
In a park 3 1.6 9.6 18.1 20.4
On public transit 6.8 14.6 14.3 24.6 30.8
In a public transit station 3.2 4.2 11.4 21.6 24.3
On way to work 3 5.7 17.1 31 30.4
On way to school 1.4 3 10 17.8 17.3
On way to social event 2.7 9.7 18.1 33.8 31.4
on a college campus 1.3 5.2 8.3 12.7 12.8
IN a well lit area 5.7 13.9 27 42 39.8
In a poorly lit area 3.9 13.8 22.4 29.8 29
In a city 15 26.7 41 54.7 53.8
In a suburb/outside of a city 2.9 5.7 15.9 22.5 23
In a manufacturing area 0.7 0.8 4.2 7.2 7.8
In a retail/sales/shopping area 2.3 6.7 15.4 23.8 24.5
Around a lot of other people 7.6 25.2 28.6 42.7 43
Alone, or isolated 4 4.9 19.4 24 24.5
Late at night 6.4 16.5 27.4 34.9 34.6
During the day 8.9 15.9 33.6 47 45.8
While dressed up 4.2 16.2 23.8 37.3 36.5
While dressed "down" or casually 11.6 22.5 39.3 49.5 47.8

8. US Women under 40: Emotions
• Street harassment of any kind seems to result in strong feelings of
anger
– Fear and anxiety are primarily rooted in the actions of groping,
exposure and following/stalking.
• Groping/fondling is the most likely to lead to feelings of depression
and 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 very small few.
• 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)

9. US Women under 40:
Behavioral Impacts
%of respondents saying
"yes"
Leave/resign your job? 7.90
Not attend/skip work? 13.00
Refuse or not accept work/job? 13.90
Miss school or skip classes? 17.50
Be late to school or work? 34.10
Have to or want to move homes? 35.60
Have to or want to move cities? 32.10
Not go out to a social outing or event (bar, restaurant, movies, etc.)? 54.50
Not go out at night? 69.80
Have to move cities? 7.00
Feel distracted at school or work? 57.40
Change your behavior/relationship with friends or loved ones? 34.00
Choose to take a different route home or to your destination? 85.60
Choose to take different transportation (e.g., call a cab instead of walking/taking the bus)? 72.80
Choose not to show public affection with a partner or significant other? 26.30
Take self-defense classes (formally or on your own) to protect yourself? 41.50
Carry a weapon? 41.10
Change what you were wearing? 66.20
Avoid a city or area? 72.20
Change changed the time you left an event or location? 67.00
Join a support network either online or in person? 15.80
Call the police or security? 27.60
Not socialize or interact with a person? 63.40
Avoid an area of your town or city specifically? 68.30

10. US Women under 40:
Behavioral Impacts
• These responses are simplistic in some ways, but
demonstrate the very real behavioral, social and economic
effects that street harassment can have.
• Over half of respondents noted that they changed their
clothing, refused a social event, chose different
transportation options or felt distracted at work/school.
• Some respondents notes that they moved cities or changed
jobs because of street harassment.
• Over a third 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.

11. US Women under 40:
Bystanders and Communication
• The majority of street harassment occurs without
witnesses willing to help.
– When people do stop to help, it usually has a positive
effect on emotional reactions to harassment.
• However, in general, bystanders more 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.

12. US Women under 40:
General demographic notes
• Wealth/class and race questions had to be worded to be as broad as
possible to apply to all countries surveyed.
– Thus, care should be taken in interpretation.
• Sample: Relatively highly educated, moderately economically secure, and
engaged with street harassment (63.1% have visited Hollaback! online)
• I ran ANOVA analyses (checking significant differences between averages)
comparing majority race respondents to non-majority race respondents.
– In these analyses, there were no significant differences in verbal, nonverbal or
following harassment by race.
– Non-majority race respondents reported a younger age at first harassment,
and more annual experiences of groping/fondling and exposure harassment
– Additionally, non-majority race respondents felt less comfortable talking with
EVERYONE on the list (on the bystander tab). Thus, they seemed to have fewer
resources available to them and were more likely to experience some of the
worst types of harassment, and at a younger age.
• We did not record race of perpetrators--as we did not analyze specific
harassment events.

13. US Women under 40:
General demographic notes, con.
• When running ANOVA analyzing differences between those
who have visited a Hollaback! site and those who haven't,
we found significant differences on ALL types of
harassment, age at harassment, and comfort talking about
harassment
– We cannot tell if these experiences led them to Hollaback!, or if
being active in Hollaback! made them more sensitive to
observing such experiences.
• What can we then generalize to?
– This was not a random sample, so we can say that, among
female respondents under 40 from the US, we found XYZ.
Respondents were not randomly selected, so extrapolation to
percentages in the general population should be avoided or only
carefully applied.