Ongoing Document Week 9 Stand up
In order to better understand the need of a particular group of women, We realised that our target user are too broad if we only targeting females in public places, it could be women taking public transport, in work places, or on the street and so on. If we want to help women to cope with after experience sexual harassment, we need to narrow down and further investigate in depth their needs, therefore, a few more research has been done to determine which group of women we should be focused on.
- How do people think about sexual harassment in entertainment place Sexual violence in pubs and clubs: just normal night out? http://theconversation.com/sexual-violence-in-pubs-and-clubs-just-a-normal-night-out-25156
This paper concluded unwanted sexual behaviour is becoming a regular part of a night out for women, many reporting experiencing comments, groping and sexual misconduct. 96.6% of 230 young generation thought that unwanted sexual attention occurred in licensed venues and 80.2% viewed unwanted sexual attention as being common in Melbourne’s pubs and clubs. In general, these encounters defined non-physical comments or staring as minor or insignificant harm, and it may cause uncomfortable and annoyed. Another said some participants who experienced physical sexual violence were accompanied with ongoing trauma and social anxiety. Besides, sexual misconduct or abuse are highly connected with the venue culture which means many people may experience unwanted attention in sexually charged bars because this venue condones and tolerates sexual harassment to some extent. Many of the women claim that the venue staff did not resolve the incidents of experiencing unwanted sexual harassment seriously. In some cases, venue staff and security are the perpetrators of unwanted sexual harassment and women are feard malicious comments of being intoxicated or scantily dressed, or simply believed the public would not care their authentic feeling. Up to 50% of the survey participants thought the reports regarding the incidents of unwanted sexual attention was not responded well by the venue staff.
- Sexual harassment would most likely happen in entertainment places such as bars, clubs. “Blurred Lines?” Sexual Aggression and Barroom Culture*
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/doi/full/10.1111/acer.12356
Based on the paper, physical sexual harassment happened really frequent in entertainment places such as bars and clubs. We often expected that physical sexual harassment will happen in bars and clubs and it is prevalent so victims in those places are usually ignored. This paper is useful to us as often we always try to focus on places such as public places such as on the street and in public transport, schools and workplaces. Due to the shared in common places and the involvement of large number of people, the design solution has always been arrived to prevent such situation from happening, the basic idea is that, you cannot control what others are thinking and doing but only yourself. Range of research have been done in analysing situations in those above mentioned places because we don’t expect them to happen. While for clubs and bars, physical sexual harassment has become so common, where according to the paper, 90% of incidents happened involving female being sexual harassed by a male. Although most of the people might thought females who went to those places are enjoying the atmosphere, including body touch verbal behaviours to a certain degree, there still a large group of people who went to clubs and bars for fun and feel uncomfortable in encountering such cases at all. Frustration and grief still exist largely among females but usually neglected. By considering from this perspective, it could be one of our narrow down focus on females that who went to bars and clubs for beer or friends but not harassment behaviours that causing them to feel bad.
- How People Cope | Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education (SHARE).(2018).Retrieved from https://sharecenter.yale.edu/information-about-sexual-misconduct/how-people-cope
This article talks about the side effects of sexual harassment and the therapeutic strategies. It suggests that after being sexual assaulted, some victims would not talk their experience with their friends or family members and instead, they tend to minimize this experience and try to pretend as usual. However, the fact is that they become really sensitive and even some negligible things would trigger their hidden memory of this bad experience. We realize that victims could suffer from insomnia and anorexia which can cause weight loss, low blood sugar, hair loss and chronic fatigue. Consequently, they could no longer concentrate on their work and feel like everything are out of their charge.
Regarding to this, the article mentions several coping strategies. First is that a SHARE counsellor could support the victims to rebuild their confidence. Second, self-care strategies including doing physical activity and keeping a healthy diet could help. Third, it is important for victims to hold an optimistic attitude, encouraging themselves by saying "I am healing gradually." or " I am strong." Last, we should be patient to the restorative process as it takes time to recover in perspective of physical state, emotional state and psychological state.
- Protibadi: A platform for fighting sexual harassment in urban Bangladesh. Retrieved from https://dl-acm-org.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/citation.cfm?doid=2556288.2557376
The article demonstrates a web and mobile phone based application called ‘Protibadi’, aiming to report, map, and share women’s stories about sexual harassment in public places. This is under the background of public sexual harassment has emerged as a large and growing concern. The study also reports that the victim getting help from the spot, reaching their friends, and sharing experience are crucial. The features of ‘Protibadi’ satisfy their needs, such as the victims can seek help in any time any place if their feel uncomfortable. This article shows how technologies important to help the victims in the wide range, with the ubiquitous usage of mobile phones. Then the users are able to access technologies simply. Its success will let us think a lot of the effort of technologies an
- Statistics have shown that sexual harassment is getting severe nowadays and women are among the most prevalence groups of victims. Here are two evidences that we found.
[1] Following statistic displays the number of people aged 18 years and over, who have experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months categorized by sex in both 2012 and 2016. From the result we can see that females are among the majority of the victims and there was a significant increase in the proportion of both men and women who experienced sexual harassment between 2012 and 2016, which means sexual harassment is definitely a severe social phenomenon that worth our attention.
[2] Following graph demonstrates the proportion of different age groups that could experience sexual assault in 12 months before the survey in 2016. From here we see that females are more likely to be sexual harassed than males and people aged 18-34 years are the main group of victims. An estimated 38% of women aged 18-24 years (421,400) and 25% of women aged 25-34 years (446,600) had experienced sexual harassment in the 12 months prior to the survey.
- Statistics Entertainment place would be one of the biggest place that women experiencing sexual harassment
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/media/1813/drinkaware-1824s-report-v40_bars.pdf
[1] This graph presents the locations where women reported having been sexually harassed in 2017. On a survey, 23 percent of female respondents reported having suffered from sexual harassment in a social environment.
[2] When going out in pubs/bars/clubs, a large majority of women and over half of men think females are likely to be on the receiving end of inappropriate sexual behaviour
[3] Close to two-thirds of female respondents have personally experienced inappropriate sexual behaviour in pubs/bars/clubs – along with a quarter of males
[4] A large majority of 18-24s agree that being drunk is no excuse to behave inappropriately. 7 in 10 agree that being in crowded bars/clubs makes it difficult to prevent unwanted touching
- Statistic how physical hugs or cuddles reduce the negative emotions and physical illness. Retrieve from Fun facts about hugging https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/18/the-benefits-of-hugging/ The Benefits of hugging https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/02/06/hugging.aspx
A intimate hug stimulates the nervous system effectively; therefore, combats anxiety, reduces the feelings of loneliness, increase self-esteem, defuses tension and enhances appreciation.
[1] A 20-second hug reduces the harmful physical effects of stress, including its impact on your blood pressure and heart rate.
[2] A 10-second hug a day can lead to biochemical and physiological reactions in your body that can significantly improve your health.
[3] Psychotherapist Virginia Satir also famously said: "We need 4 hugs for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth."
[4] Researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, took the time to study the effects of hugs and personal touching. In the study, they got 50 long term couples to hold hands and hug while another group of 85 people rested quietly without their partners. The results of the experiment showed that participants who didn’t have any contact with their partners developed a quicker heart beat of 10 beats per minute compared to the five beats per minute among those who got to hug their partners during the trials.
- Statistic how sharing and caring is helpful in helping women to cope with after experiencing sexual harassment.
[1] Respondents who said they had been sexually harassed in the workplace in the last five years (n=420) were asked whether or not they made a formal report or complaint. Only one in five (20%) of those respondents indicated that they had made a formal report or complaint, a small increase since 2008 (16%) but much lower than in 2003 (32%). It is an ongoing concern that the majority of people who are sexually harassed in the workplace do not formally report the harassment. Formal reports and complaints were slightly more common amongst women (22%) than men (17%), similar to in 2008 (19% of women, 9% of men).
[2] Almost half (45%) of respondents who made a formal report or complaint indicated that the sexual harassment stopped after taking such action, indicating that reporting can be an effective way to stop sexual harassment. Rates were almost identical for women (27/59) and men (11/26). One in five (20%) said there were no consequences for them as a result of reporting or making a complaint about sexual harassment. Men (7/26) were more likely than women (7/59) to indicate that there had been no consequences for them of reporting or making a complaint. Nearly one-third (29%) of respondents who made a formal report or complaint said they experienced negative consequences as a result of reporting or making a complaint about sexual harassment in the workplace. These consequences included being transferred to another location, changes in shifts, resignation, dismissal, demotion, being disciplined, victimisation, being ostracised or ignored by colleagues, being labelled a trouble-maker and other negative consequences.
Since academic papers and statistics shown that physical sexual harassment cases are more prevalent in entertainment place, we would like to conduct interviews with females that might have experienced or potential victims experiencing physical sexual harassment in entertainment places, to find out what do they think about physical sexual harassment in those places.
Within our group, each member managed to conduct two useful, in depth interviews with females in entertainment places in Brisbane context, we aim to find out
- What are their view about physical sexual harassment in entertainment places?
- How do they feel about physical sexual harassment in those entertainment places?
- How would they cope with physical sexual harassment happening in those entertainment places?
- What do they think that they need in order to help them to cope with physical sexual harassment in entertainment places?
We deployed our interviews by regions, including South Bank, West End, SunnyBank and Fortitude Valley, so that to reach a broad diversity of to ensure the comprehensiveness of the problem. In addition, we would like to interview people with different races as in the Brisbane context, the society are made up of many different races and nationalities, we need to take different perspective to understand their thoughts and needs.
Regarding to the interview contents, we decided not to have exactly same questions since the way of chatting could be different depending on the emotional state and the conversation styles, but we would like to follow some general guidelines such as start from asking our interviewees with warm up questions such as what we are doing and what are their views about sexual harassment then to what was happening about their experience and then our main focus of their feelings afterwards, such as how they what do they think about what they have been through. More detailed questions would vary from different interviewees and their responses, however our main direction would be as described above. Here are a record of our interviews.
- Location 1: SunnyBank
- Interviewee 1:
- Age: 27 years old female
- Races: Chinese
- Occupation: PHD student, part-time in Karaoke
I went to sunnybank to have dinner and entertainment with my friends. My friends were in the karaoke, and I went out to breathe fresh air. At this time, I noticed a girl sitting on the chair at the front door of karaoke, and she was in the uniform of the karaoke. Obviously she works there. When I asked her for agreement of answering some questions about the sexual harassment, she agreed.
Q: What do you think when you hear the work “sexual harassment”?
A: It is usually happened between males and females, but evidently the victims are the females the most time.
Q: Yes, some investigations report that the group of people who has the most probability on suffering sexual harassment is females. So have you experienced sexual harassment before, as one of females?
A: Umm…..
Q: Just speak out, it will help you recover, also gain supports from others.
A: Okay. It was happening in the night. I walk through one box by reason that these guests desired to beers and ordered. When I recorded what they want on the paper, one guest near me touched my bottom. Q: That’s really bad. Then what did you do, nothing, or chewed out him?
A: I did nothing at that time. I felt I was violated, but I lost in thoughts without any reactions immediately. Until he put his hand down after 3 seconds, then I escaped the box as fast as possible.
Q: What did you think after you suffering sexual harassment？
A: I can’t imagine it really happened to me, that is incredible and I felt so upset and shame at that time. And it impacted me on my live. I can’t focus on the study and work in the following days. The situation and details I will remember forever.
Q: I am sorry to remind you that. Did you have any reactions on that night?
A: Of course I had, I can’t sleep for the whole night. I was so missing my boyfriend and imagine if he was there, he would comfort and support me. He even would give me a hug, clap my shoulder and say, ‘this is nothing’.
Q: Is that what you really need after the sexual harassment?
A: I think so, but only for me.
Q: Thanks for your cooperation and tell the experience. I know it is hard to say.
- Interviewee 2:
- Age: Teenager
- Races: Australian
- Occupation: high school student
A girl ordered a drink in sunnybank and waited for it. I came close to her and trying to communicate with her. She looks friendly and nice. Then she agreed to answer my questions and talk about her experience of sexual harassment.
Q: What is your opinion of “sexual harassment”?
A: It’s like a kind of bullying but on the sexual nature by the most people thoughts, primarily happened on females. In my sights, it should be the unexpected from the strangers.
Q: So have you experienced sexual harassment before?
A: I am really sensitive with the human physical contacts, and I do hate strangers, especially the male strangers touch me in any time, any place and any situation. So any of them happens, I thought it sexual harassment.
Q: Emm.. I got your point. Could you please give an example of one your experience about sexual harassment?
A: Ummm. Once I was waiting at the bus stop, a stranger male came over to me, standing next to me. He looked at me up and down, kept his eyes on my breast for a long time. Then he tried to talk with me, but I just ignored him.
Q: Oh, that is really disaster for you. Did you have other reactions with that?
A: No, he only said ‘hello’ to me and the bus coming. I went home directly.
Q: You said you met him at the bus stop, did he follow you getting on the bus?
A: No, he was looking and walking around after I left.
Q: Does it really impact your life afterwards?
A: When I told my mum later, she was surprised and scared. She thought it dangerous if the man followed me home. Cause a remote narrow, less people road directs my home. Then I felt scared… and hard to sleep on that day.
Q: Then what did you do to help you sleep?
A: I went to sleep with my mum, feeling comfortable and safe with my mum.
Q: Was it help you at that time?
A: Yes, it’s useful.
Q: That’s all. I learned a lot. Thank you a lot.
- Location 2: West End
- Interviewee 1:
- Age: 23 years old female
- Races: Australian
- Occupation: Waitress at bar
I went to a bar at West End and asked a waitress who just finished the table service. She was standing next to the bar counter. I went over and greet to her, start by introducing myself as a customer and ask her if she would like to talk with me about women experiencing sexual harassment. She agreed but she said that she might need to leave if other customers call her for help.
Q: How do you define sexual harassment?
A: It really covers large range of improper sexually behaviors in varying degrees, from body contact to sexual assault. I think how people define it really depends on individual's level of acceptance.
Q: Yes, I agree. We know that there are several categories of sexual harassment, including physical sexual harassment, verbal sexual harassment and online sexual harassment. I noticed you mentioned body contact, then could I assume that you regard physical sexual harassment as the most severe one?
A: Umm, yea, I think so. That is more likely to happen anyways. Even exactly in this place.
Q: Oh, really? What happened here? Could you tell me more?
A: Yea I remember once a female customer came to me for help because a guy was following her and talking to her. That guy even took her arm. She could not get rid of him and she did not want to talk to him at all. I saw that guy was standing right behind her and when I called the security, he left right away.
Q: That's terrible. Do you remember that girl's expression?
A: She was so flurried. I thought she was about to cry.
Q: What did she do then? Did she stay or she just leave?
A: She left right away. She said that was really a bad night and she's gonna go home right away.
Then the interviewee left because someone asked her for help and our conversation ended there.
- Interviewee 2:
- Age: 25 years old female
- Races: Southeast Asian
- What she is doing before interview: drinking coffee at the coffee shop
This interviewee was sitting at the outside area of the coffee shop. I went over and ask if I could ask a few questions about her opinions of sexual harassment. She agreed and I start by asking her understandings of sexual harassment.
Q: How do you define sexual harassment?
A: I think any strange sexually behaviors that makes me feel uncomfortable and unhappy could all be sexual offend.
Q：Yea I think so. I feel that way too. It's really wide ranged. Actually based on what I have researched, sexual harassment could be categorized into physical setting, verbal setting and online setting. Which one do think regard the most impactful?
A: For me, I think it must be the physical one.
Q: Why is that? Could you explain more?
A: I think physical sexual harassment could cause actual harm and in spite of feeling uncomfortable, I would also feel so scared.
Q: Yes. Could I ask do you have any relating experience that you feel fine to talk about?
A: Ummm actually yes. It was not a big thing anyways. I remember once when I went to a bar with my friends. There was a lot of people and we need to wait for a few minutes to enter the bar. Then we stood at the front door. While we were waiting, some guys who seems drunken went out and one of them touched my breasts. Those guys has gone cross not until I realized what happened.
Q: Oh I am sorry about that. So how did you react? Frozen and did nothing?
A: Yes I was just standing there in a trance. But afterwards I felt so disgusting even I knew that it might because he was drunken.
Q: Yes I understand. Even though there are excuses, we would still feel uncomfortable. Then did you still enter the bar? Did you tell your friends came with you?
A: Yes I still entered because I came with friends anyways and I did not want to let them disappointed. I did not talk about this with them cause I had no idea how they could react. If they had encountered the same thing, I might talk to them. But what if they were not? That's why I decided not to say.
Q: Yes I understand. Then what did you do after you left the bar?
A: I went back home right away and my friends went to other place cause they said they want to eat something.
Q: Why did not you go together with them?
A: I just felt not in the mood and I really want to be alone for a while.
Q: Then what did you do when you get back home?
A: I just lied on the bed and did not want to do anything. I would like to talk with someone but as I said, I don't know their reactions.
Q: So you think talking to someone with similar experience would be helpful?
A: Yea probably. Listening other's experience would helpful maybe as I could know I am not the only one who been through this.
Q: Okay I understand. Thank you for your help.
- Location 3: South Bank
1.Interviewee 1:
- Age: 27 years old female
- Races: Austrialian
- What is she doing before interview: Relaxing on beach with friends
Approaching her and trying to ask if she is willing to take a simple interview about female facing sexual harassment in entertainment place.
Q. What do you understand by sexual harassment?
A.Doing something that is inappropriate to others, mainly sexually related
Q.Cool. What are some of the common places that you have witness sexual harassment?
A.Clubs and bars, especially those that you could dance inside and public places like bus stations, even restaurants.
Q.Wow, restaurants?
A.Ya, I know. It’s very hard to imagine physical sexual harassment happening in such crowed place in restaurant.
Q.Is it a case happening to you or someone else?
A.It’s a lady around maybe 30 years old, I am not sure. There was this man, at first I thought they were together because they are sitting on the same table, but after he keep giving sexually related hand signs to the lady and the lady choose to ignore him and focus on her own stuff, I realised they seemed not know each other.
Q.That is really wired, because usually you won’t sit with someone you don’t know in restaurant
A.Exactly, then the lady went off very quickly after finished eating
Q.Do you have ever have experience sexual harassment? Where is it?
A.Actually, I do see more cases in bars and club, probably the most number of times I saw physical harassment would be in bars and clubs. Usually are hot girls, I don’t really consider I am being sexually harassed there, perhaps I just don’t care about it.
Q.What do you mean?
A.I find physical harassment would be something really severe, like something make you being insult or causing physical damage to your body. What I have experienced in entertainment place like that would be touching your waist, butt or rub your body on whatever things. I think it is normal in club and it’s like having fun.
Q.Then what do you considered as physical sexual harassment? Maybe something that have happened to you?
A.Well, probably would be my previous boss, he always looking at my breast and trying to put his arm around my shoulder and pretend to be intentionally touch me, literally everywhere he could reach.
Q.That is really bad! You definitely got to change your job. You were saying that context to you is important. May I understand it as if this thing happened in clubs or bars you would not feel so much?
A.Exactly it is what I mean, if it is at my work place, I expected people are respectful to each other but he did not. Also, he is my boss, pressure is on me. I can’t stand it.
Q.Then what did you do after that and have you tell anyone about it?
A.Actually I am super angry and stared at him for a long second, he just ignored that and pretend nothing happened. Actually I tried to tell my boyfriend about it, but my boyfriend doesn’t really understand me and blamed on me
Q.You must be really sad and full with grievances?
A.Absolutely, I felt so bad and from then on, I don’t want to tell anyone about the experiencing to seek help actually.
Q.Then what did you do to overcome it?
A.I just stay at home and listen to music and watch interesting movies, but I really hope my friends or my closest one could understand me and support me.
Q.What kind of support do you think could help you the best?
A.I just need understanding, tolerance? It makes me feel like it was my fault but actually I did not do anything wrong.
Q.Does it mean as long as someone understand you will be a comfort to you?
A.Yes, definitely, I felt really lonely when my ex-boyfriend blamed me for that, I think I will need physical companion or something. I got go, my friends were waiting for me too long
Of course, thank you so much to chat with you.
2.Interviewee 2:
- Age：24 years old female
- Races: Korean
- What is she doing before interview: Waiting for friends sitting in a bar, heading to club later
Greeting to each other, start up the conversation by asking permission if she would like to have a short chat/interview about female experiencing physical sexual harassment in entertainment places. She agreed to it as she was waiting for her friends to arrive and felt bored.
Q: What do you think is sexual harassment?
A: I think is sexually related behaviours that makes one feel uncomfortable or offended
Q: Ya, definitely. So we know that there are the most common type - the physical sexual harassment, verbal sexual harassment and also the online sexual harassment. Today, I will like to focus on female experiencing physical sexual harassment. Have you witness people being sexual harassed? Can you tell me more about it?
A: Actually I do, I have witness quite a lot in different places like on the street, public places and bars, clubs. Some are just a touch some are more severe. There is one case that I remembered quite clearly that there is this middle age uncle, pulling his private parts out and showing to a girls standing beside the wall waiting for bus. I was quite shocked because I have never seen cases like this ever in my life.
Q:That is irritating, what is the girl's reaction and yours?
A: I did not face this kind of situation before so I pretend that I did not see it and walk pass-by. I did not know what to do at the time and just let it go, but when I thought it again, I feel creepy and hope I will not face this kind of situation.
Q: Well, then do you have similar experience that you feel okay to talk about?
A: hmmm...I did not have experience of that particularly in public places but except in clubs? I don't know if it is considered to be sexual harassment to people but I felt it is to me.
Q: Sure, anything you want to say, why is it so?
A: Okay, the thing is if we talk about sexual harassment in other places, it might definitely be recognised as sexual harassment but in clubs, people thought this kind of thing would always happen and it is you enjoy it so you go there.
Q: That is true, feel free to tell me more details
A: Actually I went to club with my friends that day, but there is this man, I did not know him at all and I have never talk to him, when I turned around, he faced me and just put his arms on my waist without any words or eye contact. I was shocked and quite uncomfortable as I am actually okay with people hugging and do whatever intimate behaviours in that setting but I think you need to at least talk to each other and create those kind of atmosphere and things just happened smoothly.But my case, we did not have all this at all, okay maybe he thought people going into club were all don't care about it but actually some people are and I am here to have fun with my friends not anyone that not even have an eye contact.
Q: I see, how do you feel at the moment?
A: I think it is a basic manner to talk to someone, get to know each other and you can both agree on that you can touch each other but this basic manner just disappeared in clubs.
Q: I absolutely agreed with you. I personally feel that you need to come to an agreement, could be non verbally but at least have some signs then you can touch each other. Why do you think this kind of things happened?
A: Sexual agitation? I don't know.
Q: Then by having those unhappy experiences, what do you do to get rid of it if it happens again?
A: Good question! I am still thinking about it too because I really enjoy going there with my friends. Probably, we should watch out for each other within my friends?
Q: What about if it just happened?
A: I really don't know, maybe complain to my friends and feel really offended, crying at home?
Q: Hahaha, you are funny...what do you think you will need at that point of time?
A: I feel like I will need support from someone just to tell me that it is not my fault, it is his fault. I will feel more likely to talk about it with people that have same experienced as me?
Q: I understand that, it would be something like someone got a grade A and comforting you it is alright you did not get A.
A: Perfectly what I mean! Let me think, perhaps a physical support like patting on my back or hug from someone that I trust with.
Q: I see.
A: I think it would be more helpful if I could express my experience with someone who experienced it before and offers me a physical comfort!
Q: Right! I think that is all for me. Thank you for your interest.
- Location 4: Fortitude Valley Interviewee 1:
- Age: 23 years old female
- Races: Japanese
- What is she doing before the interview: Talking with a friend while walking.
Approaching her and ask her if she is willing to conduct an interview regarding sexual harassment and introduce my background and the use of this interview.
Q. What do you understand by sexual harassment? A. Offended sexual behaviours which are not accepted by the participants.
Q. Sounds right. Where are the places you witness sexual harassments the most?
A. Public and crowded areas like bus stations, metro stations without CCTV cameras or parks at night. I used to live in the SpringHill and had to walk through a park without lights as going home. These were lots of flowers in the corner of this park to memory a girl's death because of sexual violence.
Q. That's so scary. How did ensure the security as you walking through this path?
A. Usually, I chat with close friends via mobile phone as walking to home because they can immediately call the police once the chatting was disconnected without notifications. I believed that harasser will not conduct the crime to someone who is chatting with others. Sometimes, I call my boyfriend to come downstairs to pick me up.
Q. That's an excellent idea. Thanks. I would adopt this habit. Have you ever experienced sexual harassment in bars or nightclubs?
A. Yes. Of course. I only visited bars once with another girlfriend but had an awful experience.
Q. What exactly happened?
A strange man approached us and sat intimately beside us without permission. He seemed a little bit drunk and spoke some unrespectful words. He kept asking for phone numbers after serval times of refuses and tried to put his hands around my shoulder. I escaped from this intimacy behaviour and escaped with my friend as pretend going to the bathroom.I was just curious about clubs and never expected something like this happened.
Q. What did you feel or do after this sexual harassment?
A. I disgust this kind of behaviour very much and felt offended. After I had arrived at the home, I started searching for the personal experience online regarding sexual harassment. I realised that most of the female being sexual harassment and I was not the unique one. Knowing other's story reduces the feeling of shame and felt being understood by others. Also, I did some research regarding coping strategies on sexual harassment and knew how to protect myself from sexual harassment. However, I will not visit bars anymore.
Q. Wow. That's cool. I would like to know your coping strategies.
A. Haha. Record my boyfriend's voice and play it as someone unfriendly approach me. The content can be something like " I am waiting for you outside and see you soon."
Q. Did you tell anyone about your experience? A. I told some of my close friends. Some of them felt shocked but others felt it's not a big deal. They suggested me don't go to bars anymore and it's hard to prevent sexual harassment in this context. The male tended to think that women can accept this behaviour in bars.
Q. If you are in the situation cannot talk with friends, what are the methods of making yourself feel better? A. Listening to music to calm down, running to release negative energy and exposure under sunshine to feeling the warmth. However, I really need to receive some advice from someone who had experience regarding sexual harassment and that makes me feel being accepted by this society.
.Interviewee 2:
- Age: 30 years old female
- Races: Persian
- What is she doing before the interview: She was sitting on a bench and playing smartphones. It seems she is waiting for someone.
I sat beside her first and then did a brief self-introduction of my name, what the interview is about and how it gonna be used. And then ask her permission of conducting an interview regarding sexual harassment.
Q. How do you define sexual harassment? A. Physical touch or verbal offence.
Q. Well. Where are the places you witness sexual harassments the most?
A. I am working actually. From my experience, workplace sexual harassment is really common. Especially in my country, Iran, beautiful young women have been sexually harassed frequently for promotion or payment.
Q. How about other places like public transport or bars? A. In terms of public transport, the male is separated from women. It means women don't share the same carriage with men and so it doesn't exist sexual harassment in the public transport. Also, we don't have bars or nightclubs because Iran is a Muslim country and alcohol is not allowed.
Q. This surprises me. Does it mean the male cannot meet the female in other places? A. No. We hold private parties and only trusted friends can participate. Women don't wear scarf indoor when they are with family or attend a friend's party
A. Have you attended bars in Australia? Q. No. We have our own community and hold the party inside the community.
A. What do you think women being sexually harassed? Q. Of course. I feel sorry for them and hope they can gain more support and understanding from the society. Also, I think the nature of sexual harassment is gender equality and if women have the same rights as men do, the possibility of women experiences sexual misconduct in the workplace will be much lower.
A. I agree. Could you specify the how to give these victims supports or comforts? Nothing is better than listening quietly and understand them by heart. It's kind of sams as a broken relationship with a boyfriend. Women just needed to get someone to talk, cry and release this neagtive energy. Giving them a hug, call them out go shopping and attend friend's parties. By the time, they will recover from this hurt.
Q. Have any of your friends pour out her heart in front of you because of experiencing sexual harassment?
A. Yes. One of my best friends felt desperate for experiencing sexual misconduct. She was so pretty and nice girl. She worked as the receptionist of a hotel. Once her manager asked her as his girlfriend but she refused. The manager said "if you refuse to be as my girlfriend, I would tell every co-worker you are my girlfriend. Others would think you as women without self-esteem. Now you have two choices, being my girlfriend or quit this job." And then my friend quit this job and lost a good amount of payment.
Q. That's horrible. I hope she could ask for help from somewhere.
A.Yep. I really want a system in each workplace which allows victims of sexual harassment can report misconduct behaviour of coworkers or supervisors without being resigned from the working position.
Before week 7, we have come to a conclusion that we would like to focus on helping female to cope with after experiencing physical sexual harassment in public places. More research and primary data should be collected in order to determine the common emotions exhibit in females after experiencing sexual harassment in public places. Based on the previous domain research, other relevant research papers we did all along and statistic reports, we found out that it is too broad for females in public places. Public places could be on the street, at bus station, restaurant, shopping mall, public transport or even work places, every group of females might face different situations with different needs, it is very hard for us to firm a specific design concept in order to meet all of their needs. The more specific our target audience are, the more we could dig deeper for their needs. Out of the a few new research and statistics, we realised that most of the papers are focus on analysing those common public places that people would definitely don’t expect to experience sexual harassment, while places like bars and clubs are being less focused even though it has the greatest percentage of females experiencing sexual harassment. The reason for that would be people are expecting sexual harassment happening in bars and clubs, global consensus informed us that it is normal and acceptable for sexual harassment happening there.
However, our group would like to investigate more about how females think about sexual harassment in bars and clubs, the global consensus seems to be conflicting with the statistics, if sexual harassment in bars and clubs are acceptable then why would a large percentage of females still consider it to be sexual harassment? Therefore, we felt that interviews are essential for us to know more about how to they view sexual harassment in bars and clubs if they have such experiences and what did they do to cope with it.
By conducting in depth interviews with females in places that have the most number of bars and clubs in Brisbane context, we aim to find out their attitudes towards sexual harassment in those places from a diverse nationality or cultural background, since Brisbane is quite international. One interesting insight we have discovered is that even though sexual harassment in bars and clubs are seem to be common but females are easily felt offended in these places. They often choose not to tell anyone about their bad experience particularly in bars and clubs because those places are expected to happen sexual harassment and it is acceptable. Their friends and family would think that if they like to visit those places, they should accept those circumstances or bear with it, otherwise, just don’t go. The case here is slightly different with females facing sexual harassment in other public places as it is absolutely no tolerance for it to happen in other places but not in bars and clubs.
The issue is that, although there are females feel okay to have excessive body touch in bars and clubs, there is a large group of females want to drink beer and have fun with friends in bar and clubs without sexually disturbed/harassed by an unknown man randomly. They often feel even worse after experiencing it as they have less opportunities to speak about it with someone they trusted, self-digestion might be the most common way to deal with. From all these, we realised that there is a need for us to help them after experiencing sexual harassment in clubs and bars, more preferably would be a combination of physical and emotional support and comfort.
We would like to achieve this by firstly, it could provide physical comfort then emotional support. Research have indicated that emotional state could be represented by heartbeat and by listening to similar experience from people with similar background, negative emotions could be appeased. Therefore, our proposed solution would be a dedicated shape of smart pillow, where it can provide physical comfort such as hugging, heating up or comfort through vibration and sound. The pillow will be giving hugs, heating, sound and stories according to the different level of heat beat frequency detected by the sensor inside it. More information are elaborate in flowchart section.
- Common Use
Heart beat Normal
Wendy has insomnia with the stress, so she usually cannot sleep for the whole night. Once she got this “hug pillow”, she thought his insomnia was eased. The pillow is soft and the smell makes her calm down. It also detects her heart beat but nothing went wrong. Then the heater worked for giving a warm hug / the pillow vibrated in a comfort frequent / played the ease and peaceful music to her. These features are really helpful and she gets the good sleep using the ‘hug pillow’.
Heart beat Low
Shirley was touched by a stranger in the club when she was waiting for her friends. She even doesn’t know who the man is, but the man touched her bottom and said some ungraceful word to her. She felt so upset and sad. When she lied on the bed and cuddled the ‘Hug Pillow’, the detector inside the pillow discovered her low heart beat and started to play music automatically. At the same time, heater prepared for the warm hug for her. She was interested in does other people or peers also experienced sexual harassment before like her. It led her to listen the experience from others, then she noticed there are some people touching by strangers in the clubs as well. This is not an unusual situation. She still wanted to listen more serious experience, but the system doesn’t allow her to do. She can do nothing other than listen the lower levels stories or listen to the music.
Heart beat High
Susan suffered sexual harassment in fortitude valley, and she felt so angry after that. She tossed and turned restlessly in bed. She felt more and more furious and her heart beat increased. Then the technology of the pillow detected that and started to vibrate relievely to help relax and get massaged, as well as heated for the ‘warm’ hug. After a while, she got a little peace inside, then she wanted to know she is not the only one who suffered the sexual harassment in the world, so she chose to hear serious experience from other victims. There is a story who hurt in sexual harassment and finally suicided. She became comfort and thought it not such trouble. Next, she played the music and sleeped soon.
- Edge Case
Nightmare
Sylvan often had nightmares and were trapped in the virtual world. Oversleeping and nightmares made her feel fatigue in the day. Her co-coworker heard this and highly recommend her the 'Hug Pillow'. She bought one for herself and hug it while sleeping. When she dreamed something really scary and heart-beat becomes fast, the "Hug Pillow' detected it and started to vibrate & massage her body gently. This vibration pulled her out the nightmare and had a good sleep.
The flowing flowchart demonstrates both of the technology features and non-technology features of our design as hug pillow.
For non-technological features, we would like to describe it in the aspects of texture, smell, color and shape. For
- texture: we would like to choose a soft material in order to enhance user experience when using it.
- smell: a pleasant and peaceful smell such as the smell of lavender would be applied as according to research and study, we found that nice smell would calm people down and influence their moods.
- color: visual effect is very important. Thus, we would like to choose a gentle and placid color such as light purple as the main color of our design.
- shape: we would like to make it in the shape of letter "J". Users could hold it with the downward curve on their necks to achieve the effect of someone is holding and hugging them.
For technological features, our design would firstly detect the heart beats of users and then according to the results, different actions would take place respectively.
- For those with high heart beats, we believe they might experience something much severer than usual, so that vibration function would be triggered automatically in order to let uses get massaged and relaxed. They could also choose to listen others' experiences retrieved from our database. Note that they could only listen to the stories with same or higher order of severity than their own. Besides, they could listen to peaceful music as well.
- For those with normal heart beats, we thought they would be normal users and even not be victims. Therefore, they would choose to use our functions including listen to music, vibration and warm hug, where the warm hug would be achieved by adding a heating function.
- For those with low heart beats, we consider them as victims who have been through lower level of severity of sexual harassment. We would automatically play a gentle music first, and our heating function would start to work to give them a "warm hug". Here they could choose to listen to others' experiences with lower levels of severity compared to described as high heart beats users.
