Many women don't feel safe exercising in public, but is bright lighting the solution?

Updated

During a run in the final hours of 2018, Michelle* found herself being dragged along the ground by a stranger in a balaclava. While she has found a female running group to help get back on track, she says it took time to stop fearing exercising in public.

She had a New Year's resolution to exercise more and lose weight.

She was just 500 metres from her Adelaide home and six days into her new running routine.

"I was so scared. I was grabbed from behind, which knocked me to the ground," she said.

"I was then dragged for a few metres until instinct kicked in.

"I was just screaming. I managed to trip him over somehow, I don't even know how, and then I sprinted home."

Though the attacker did not follow her home, the memories would be harder to shake.

"Stupidly, I tried to run the following day, which was a disaster and I didn't make the end of my street," she said.

"Everyone that I ran past, including an elderly gentleman walking his dog, scared me."

The next day when she reported the attack to police, she said an officer told her the incident could not have been that serious given she had not reported it straight away.

She said that reaction made her feel like she had brought the attack upon herself.

"Because I ran that same track at the same time for five days in a row, I felt I had made myself a target," she said.

For weeks, she was even chased in her dreams.

"I was being dragged along the ground … I would wake up sweating every time," she said.

Like many women who have spoken to the ABC, her fears have made exercising difficult.

"I continued running for a few more weeks, but only inside on a treadmill," she said.

A few weeks later, she managed to compete in a running event she had entered before the attack.

"I completed the event and then that was it, I didn't run for five months," she said.

Data from Monash University and Plan International has found it is not just in deserted locations where women have unsafe experiences.

Megan*, who also did not want her name to be published, told the ABC she also had an experience which prompted her to stop running, but in an even more public arena.

During a busy 48-hour endurance event in Adelaide, a man, dressed as an event volunteer, assaulted her during a "sports massage".

"He said 'come over here, there's a table' and he took me over to a table that a podiatrist had been using earlier in the day, but it was actually out of sight of the tent and fairly in the dark," she said.

"Then he started to give me a massage, but then he gave me a massage in places that I hadn't given him consent to do so."

'He started discussing my vagina and my breasts'

She said he went on to use inappropriate language.

"He started discussing my vagina and my breasts and giving me advice," she said.

"At one stage he said, 'Let me know if you have your period', because he would be happy to go and buy me feminine products."

She said she froze.

"I didn't think to scream, or yell stop or do anything like that … I just didn't know what to do."

She managed to leave and continue the course, but he tried to run alongside her and hold her hand.

When she finally got away to report the incident, she realised a number of competitors had also been targeted, and the man was asked to leave.

Organisers of the Ultra Runners SA event praised the women and said its response was part of its workplace discrimination and harassment policy, which it would continue to review and update.

SA Police told the ABC both this incident and the New Year's Eve attack were under investigation.

Like Michelle, Megan said the psychological impacts of being assaulted at such a public event had impacted her ability to exercise.

"I've always taken precautions when I run, like only having one earphone in or none at all, running under streetlights, telling a friend where I'm going," she said.

"But I guess I let my guard down a bit because it was an organised event thinking that that would be a safe place."

Both Megan and Michelle have recently sought a way back to running through a local women's running group.

Member Katherine Benson encouraged them, given the group had supported multiple women who had been through similar experiences while exercising alone.

"Knowing that they'll be frightened, knowing that they may not want to, we try really hard to make sure they do come out, we organise group runs and buddy runs," Ms Benson said.

She said it was not necessarily a guarantee women would not be harassed, with some members of the group reporting other incidents.

Michelle said despite feeling safe with the group, there had been one bad experience since joining the group, when she and another runner fell behind the main pack.

A group of men started to follow them.

"We were chased for 200 metres, being spat on and heckled," she said.

Ms Benson said incidents like those impacted the entire group.

"It's certainly women who are walking to our car with our keys between our fists, it's women who give each other a lift five metres down the street, so that we don't have to walk that far on our own," she said.

Being in a group does not mean you're safe

Monash University's XYX Lab focusses on gender-sensitive design practices.

Director Nicole Kalms said data from its 2018 Unsafe in the City report, published with Plan International, found women were often harassed or felt unsafe in crowded areas.

The project allowed women to use a map to anonymously geolocate when they felt safe or unsafe in various areas of Melbourne, Sydney and other cities around the world.

"Public transport space is very busy, but it's the [overcrowded nature] of public transport spaces which are very precarious for women," Dr Kalms said.

The ABC's Australia Talks survey has found almost half of Australian women do not feel comfortable walking home at night, compared to less than one fifth of men.

A solution often cited to solve the impact of such widespread fear among women using public spaces is lighting.

XYX Lab collaborated with Arup Engineers, who assessed the data it collected on how women felt in public spaces.

The research found brightly lit spaces, which some might assume improved safety, actually made women feel less safe.

Arup Engineers lighting expert Tim Hunt said the research showed many public spaces were "over-lit".

"Brighter spaces aren't necessarily safer spaces, and that's something that was quite clear in the research," he said.

Researchers believe this is because women know very brightly lit places drop away to very dark areas.

When that happens, their eyes take time to adjust to different lighting, and they feel more vulnerable to an attack.

The research also found warmer light made women feel safer than cooler lighting conditions, an important finding given cooler-coloured, energy-saving LED lights are increasingly popular throughout Australia.

Indeed, the more a light's colour deviated from natural daylight, the less safe women felt.

Mr Hunt said they believed this was because a light's colour also impacted how well people could distinguish objects and people.

For example, it is more difficult to tell objects apart under very orange sodium streetlights compared to a streetlight that mimics the colour of daylight.

"In the case of someone walking towards you … you can distinguish people, from say, foliage and you correlate that with the perception of feeling safe," Mr Hunt said.

"You're able to understand and see what's in front of you."

Cheaper, less energy intensive

The researchers said the findings showed a much more thoughtful approach to public lighting could help pave the way to women feeling safer and more confident being alone at night.

Mr Hunt said in many cases public lighting had failed to innovate over time, and national lighting standards had not been updated for two decades.

"The last iteration was 1999," he said.

"They're getting refreshed at the moment, but it's really only to incorporate the advent of LED technology."

In Australia, a light's brightness is the only unit of measurement required to comply with lighting standards.

Mr Hunt said many town planners used bright lights in a misguided attempt to reduce crime and increase perceptions of safety.

He said how "reflective" an environment was was an important factor in determining how much, or how little, light was needed.

Doing so could not only improve perceptions of safety, but in some cases also save money.

"If some of the spaces are deemed to be over-lit, not only are you going to save costs by not putting in more lights, but you'll save energy too."

Cities have been designed by men and for men

XYX Lab's Dr Kalms said the lack of consideration for women when lighting public spaces was a symptom of a broader issue.

"Traditionally, we know that cities have been designed by men and for men," she said.

"Women's voices haven't really been understood and included in the design process."

She said Australia trailed behind countries like Austria, whose capital Vienna has used a decades-old model to engage women about how it should light the city.

"That city has been able to track how that increased women's participation in public life, both in the daytime and in the night-time," she said.

The city also offers personal safety classes for women.

Regardless of lighting, the group of female runners in Adelaide say they just want to exercise in peace.

"We're not coming out here to do anything but run for ourselves," runner Jen Saville said.

"And until that message gets across — that it's not women who have to change their attitudes, it's men — I just don't see much changing."

Topics: safety, assault, crime, law-crime-and-justice, women, community-and-society, womens-health, exercise-and-fitness, health, adelaide-5000, sa, melbourne-3000, sydney-2000, australia

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