An Analysis of Responses to Sexual Assault against Women in Public Space: Practical Gender Needs or Strategic Gender Interests?

María Silvestre Cabrera (), Iratxe Aristegui Fradua and Raquel Royo Prieto
Additional contact information
María Silvestre Cabrera: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of Deusto, 48007 Bilbao, Spain
Iratxe Aristegui Fradua: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of Deusto, 48007 Bilbao, Spain
Raquel Royo Prieto: Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of Deusto, 48007 Bilbao, Spain

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: This article focuses on sexual violence and the learned fear of rape experienced by women in their use of public space, understood as social constructions of a system of domination. We analyze a series of data, drawn from secondary sources, on the prevalence and perception of sexual assault in public space. This data confirms that sexual assault in public spaces is a real risk and that, as such, it is perceived and experienced by the majority of women. We have also selected and presented a series of institutional initiatives aimed at preventing sexual assaults on women in public spaces at night-time. Finally, we have constructed an index to study whether the selected institutional responses respond to practical gender needs or to strategic gender interests. The article concludes that all of these initiatives have a greater impact in the area of gender needs, but they are not able to reverse the structural causes of sexual assault or to contribute to true social change.

Keywords: sexual violence; rape culture; learned fear; sexual assault; public space; practical gender needs and strategic gender interests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/2/101/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/2/101/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:2:p:101-:d:1068343

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().