In late March, a woman was sexually assaulted while jogging on Stanford campus, according to a warning bulletin issued by the Stanford Department of Public Safety. The woman was assaulted near the intersection of Santa Ynez Street and Mayfield Avenue, a route frequented by many M-A girls distance runners. The incident serves as a reminder of the safety concerns that female athletes face while running.
This harsh reality is not new to the girls distance runners, as they face harassment frequently while running in public spaces. The girls are used to the occasional “cat calling” or whistling, a common predatory behavior typically exhibited by men to assert dominance and objectify women in public spaces.
Senior Mia Sanchez, who has been on the track team since her freshman year, reflected on one experience in her neighborhood that really stood out to her. “This man was recording us, and I was running right behind our team, so I could see him zooming in on my teammates,” she said.
These kinds of habits are not uncommon in today’s world either. A research article from The British Journal of Criminology surveyed 498 women on their experience encountering abuse while running. 68% of the female runners reported experiencing some form of abuse. Among younger women in the survey group, the number is even higher, standing at around 88%.
The girls at M-A are aware of the risks and harms, with many developing their own strategies to avoid them. “I’m always looking around me,” senior Paige McGaraghan said. “I just recently bought a handheld pepper spray that I now carry when running by myself.”
For others, even schedules are concentrated around avoiding dangers. “Personally, I never run at night, but the [boys team] are always running at night, really early in the morning, when it’s dark, in areas that I probably wouldn’t be able to run in,” junior Caroline Baker said.
The constant need to avoid running at night, or to alter what they wear, further highlights this everyday frustration women face as they are forced to sacrifice both the freedom and comfort of running independently for their own safety. “A lot of people are like ‘oh, well, you know you should be careful what you’re wearing’ and stuff like that but that’s how I want to run, and I’m not gonna let some man who thinks he can hurt us, affect that,” Sanchez said.
In addition to their own safety habits, the girls are provided with self-defense training from Urban Combat, a studio in Menlo Park. M-A hosts the studio every season for a training session.
“The instructor, along with his adult daughter, showed our athletes how to be aware of their surroundings, how to identify and seek to avoid potentially unsafe situations, how to raise awareness around them if they were starting to feel unsafe or threatened, and lastly, what are self-defense and escape techniques to use if they ever found themselves physically harassed,” Andy Pflaum, head distance coach, said.
Pflaum is planning to schedule another session with the same instructor to introduce the training to new athletes and refresh returning athletes.
“I think the [self defense tactics] are really helpful, because I feel like the one thing you’re always told to do is get loud and yell to catch other people’s attention,” Sanchez said. “We are doing it again this year, and I need to remind myself what I learned because it’s up to me to practice that more now.”
While it is unfortunate that these defense tactics are necessary, they give the girls the chance to handle the harsh reality of harassment when confronted with those uncomfortable situations.
“Unfortunately, a number of runners have experienced some form of harassment, such as in the form of “catcalls” or honks by passing drivers. Typically they report feeling maybe not so much ‘unsafe’ as uncomfortable and annoyed. But clearly students shouldn’t have to put up with feeling that way at all,” Pflaum said.
While the perpetrator of the Stanford incident remains unknown, the girls continue to be on alert.
“It catches you when you least expect it, so you kind of always want to have your guard up,” Sanchez said.
