Sexual Assault

By The Numbers: Sexual Assault Statistics

Sexual Assault definition (Planned Parenthood Action Fund)

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I couldn’t let the month pass without sharing some important statistics around sexual assault. They’re not the most fun stats, but they’re very important.

1 in 5 women will be raped within their lifetime.
51%+ of female rape victims were raped by an intimate partner.
1 in 71 men will be raped within their lifetime.
52%+ of male rape victims were raped by an acquaintance.
An estimated 17.7M women have been raped since 1998.
21% of trans college students have been sexually assaulted.
American Indians are twice as likely to experience sexual assault than other races.
49%+ of multiracial women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime.
Women and men with intellectual disabilities are seven times more likely to be the victims of sexual assaults than women and men without intellectual disabilities.
80.6K inmates in jails and prisons experience sexual violence.

#ThrowbackThursday: Sexual Assault Statistics, 2016

Sexual Assault graphic (The Daily Orange)

Syracuse University’s student newspaper The Daily Orange published this graphic two years ago to mark Sexual Assault Awareness Month. (That’s April, FYI.) The graphic brings awareness to data centered on sexual assaults on public and private college campuses.

A couple of these stats are especially chilling: 90% of victims do not report the sexual assault. And the victim knows the perpetrator in 80% of sexual assault cases.

So. Many. Problems. Here.

Google Trends: Time’s Up

Time’s Up logo (Time’s Up)

On Jan. 1, 2018, 300+ powerful women working in Hollywood unleashed Time’s Up, a new initiative to combat sexual harassment in the workplace for all women. Awareness of the initiative debuted via an open letter penned by the Time’s Up founders, and published in The New York Times.

Within the past week-and-a-half, Time’s Up has received much attention, especially with the recent Golden Globes ceremony and the majority of female attendees showing up in black in solidarity for sexual harassment victims.

I was curious to see how much of a digital footprint the initiative has already made regarding search terms. So I looked at Google Trends.

I first used the search terms “times,” within the parameter of the past 30 days (Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018). Here’s the trend:

Google Trends: “timesup” search term, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018 (Google Trends)

Check out that spike! And it’s all since Jan. 1, 2018!

I was also curious to see which regions were searching for “timesup” the most. And here’s what happened:

Google Trends: “timesup” search term interest by region, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018 (Google Trends)

That was a surprise to me. I would’ve thought that there would’ve been enough data to show a regional breakout, but I was wrong.

This could be the result of how the search term is typed. So I decided to try another way: “times up.” Here was that trend:

Google Trends: “times up” search term, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018 (Google Trends)

This is a bit steadier, but it’s also probable that this search term did not directly and solely relate to the new initiative.

I then decided to try the hashtag version: “#timesup.” Here’s what that term’s trend looked like:

Google Trends: “#timesup” search term, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 8, 2017 (Google Trends)

This one appears to be more directly related to the new initiative.

As Google Trends confirms, Time’s Up is already having an impact in terms of search. It’ll be interesting to see how the movement grows, and how search terms are subsequently affected.

No Male Winners Mentioned #MeToo or Time’s Up in Their Golden Globes Awards Acceptance Speeches

Ewan McGregor at the Golden Globe Awards 2018 (iNews UK)

At this year’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony, all eyes were on the women. The vast majority of female attendees wore black in a bid to draw awareness to the persuasive problem of sexual harassment in Hollywood and beyond. The effort was coordinated by Time’s Up, a new initiative started by 300+ Hollywood women to combat harassment for women in service-oriented jobs.

Time’s Up grew from #MeToo, the social media movement spawned in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment scandal where women hashtagged the phrase to indicate that they too had been sexually harassed.

While men in Hollywood proclaimed their support leading up to the Golden Globes, they didn’t put their money where their mouthes were: No man who accepted a Golden Globe Award at this year’s awards ceremony mentioned Time’s Up or #MeToo. This includes those men who wore Time’s Up pins in a shallow show of solidarity.

Weird, right? You’d think that if men wanted to be allies to women in the fight against sexual harassment, they’d do more than merely give what amounts to visual lip service to the cause. This contrasted with the women, who showed up and walked the walk. Many female winners of the night, including Elisabeth Moss, Laura Dern, and Nicole Kidman, mentioned the movement and that the tide was turning.

Ten men could’ve spoken in support of the movements when accepting their awards, and yet chose not to.

Why Is the Number of Sexual Assaults Rising in New York City?

New York City skyline (The Huffington Post)

Certain types of violence are on the rise in the city that never sleeps. In addition to shooting and homicides increasing year-over-year, the number of rapes and sexual assaults has also increased.

But is it enough to panic over? Let’s look at the numbers. “The New York Times” reports:

From Jan. 1 to May 31, there were 540 rapes recorded in the city, an 8 percent increase over the same period last year, and more than 1,128 misdemeanor sex crimes, representing a rise of 18 percent.

But on the bright side, some types of sexual violence has declined within the city:

According to national data from the Centers for Disease Control in 2012, the rate of stranger rape as a percentage of all rape is 14 percent; in New York City this year, the rate is half that. Of the 540 reported rapes, 39 were committed by someone the victim did not know, according to the police.

But why are the overall numbers climbing? The phenomenon can be attributed to a simple economic principle: the complement effect. Numbers are climbing because more people are reporting them. And that’s a good thing! The more people that are aware of these crimes and can report them, the more accurate a picture we can get of just how rampant sexual assaults are.

I’m interested to see if this is, or will be, the case in other cities.

Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang

Statistics. Economics. Sex.