Violence against women is ‘national emergency’: Interview with Dr Ruth Lewis

81% of women report feeling unsafe on nights out

Transcript

00:00It's treated in society as if it is inevitable, almost like the weather, that we can't control

00:07it. The sun's going to shine or it's going to rain. You're going to get sexually harassed

00:10on a night out. But this is a form of violence against women. And in fact, we think the term

00:16unwanted sexual intrusions is a better way to describe what we're talking about here,

00:23because sexual harassment, we feel doesn't quite encapsulate the severity of what we're

00:28talking about, because the sorts of things that women reported were things like being

00:35leered at, being shouted at, usually sexualized comments, having unwanted sexual advances,

00:42but also being grabbed, being groped, being rubbed up against, being pushed in a corner.

00:48In society, we tend to treat this as just inevitable. But there's some great work going

00:53on to try to change it, try to prevent it.