Four in five women surveyed in Northern Ireland said their first experience of sexist behaviour or harassment by men happened when they were children, a study says.
A researcher surveyed 211 women in the country who had experienced staring, sexual comments, touching, catcalling, flashing and other behaviour that made them uncomfortable.
Kim McFalone, a PhD researcher at the University of Manchester, found that 80% said they had first experienced this before the age of 17 – 25% experiencing it before the age of 11, and 55% when aged between 11 and 16 years.
“I found it quite alarming that four out of five respondents first experienced behaviour from a man which made them feel uncomfortable as children, aged 16 or under,” Ms McFalone told the British Sociological Association’s annual conference in Manchester today [Wednesday 23 April].
“Many interviewees noted they were harassed while they were in their school uniform, including a lot of catcalling from adult men in the street or inappropriate comments from adult men who they knew.
“There are obvious imbalanced power dynamics here because their age suggests a vulnerability and lack of confidence to challenge this behaviour.
“The other circumstance for unwanted behaviour was while they were working in their first part-time job as a teenager, with adult male customers making sexual or otherwise inappropriate comments to them while they were working. A young girl working her first job probably isn’t going to feel able to challenge this behaviour or speak to someone about it.”
Ms McFalone also carried out interviews with affected women. One told her she was 13 years old when she first was “cat-called in a school uniform” by “fully grown men”.
Another said: “I worked for a pizza place as my first job – surprisingly the worst sort of male attention I got, which was borderline illegal, was when I was 15.”
The study, which is ongoing, also found that almost half (47%) of the 221 women surveyed had, while children or adults, experienced flashing by a man, and 93% had been harassed by men wolf-whistling or cat-calling.
The research was carried out against a background of a gradual increase in violence against women since the end of the Troubles. Sexual violence has increased every year since 1998 and reached the highest recorded level in 2024. Northern Ireland has the second-highest levels of femicide in Europe.
- The survey was carried out among women aged over 18, almost all of whom said they had experienced some form of harassment from men. The women were recruited online and through churches, women’s centres, community centres, libraries, district councils, political parties and sports clubs.
For more information, please contact:
Tony Trueman
British Sociological Association
Tel: 0044 (0)7964 023392
tony.trueman@britsoc.org.uk
Notes:
- The British Sociological Association’s Annual Conference takes place from 23 to 25 April 2025, with more than 700 papers presented. The BSA is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales. Company Number: 3890729. Registered Charity Number 1080235 britsoc.co.uk
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