How Safe Do Women Feel Out Running in Australia: Turia Pitt Survey (2024)
SOURCE: TURIA PITT
In early 2024, Australian athlete and advocate Turia Pitt launched a public survey to better understand how safety concerns shape the running experiences of women. With roughly 2,000 responses, her dataset offers firsthand accounts of the fears, adjustments, and emotional weight that many runners carry.
What you should know:
The survey adds to a growing body of international evidence that safety is not equally felt, and that gendered safety work is deeply ingrained in the running experience for many.
Pitt took the findings to Australia’s Parliament to demand change. She pointed to a powerful example from recent Australian history. In 2014, after a series of violent and fatal attacks where men punched other men without warning—what were then called "king hits"—the government responded quickly. They changed the laws, launched national awareness campaigns, and even changed the language, renaming it "coward punch" to shift public perception. Pitt’s point: we’ve seen what coordinated action can do. Attitudes changed. Policies changed. Safety improved. So why not take violence against women just as seriously?
Key findings:
Over 77% of the respondents said that they’d been harassed while on a run.
66% had experienced catcalling, whistling, or being beeped at.
30% had been stalked or followed.
18% faced direct intimidation, such as being blocked on their path.
Over 65% sometimes feel their life is in danger while running.
78.9% change their routine due to concerns. 17.7% feel this way all the time.
The survey report cites no fewer than 16 ways women adapt their behavior to feel safer, with some saying they had stopped running altogether.
A recurring word in the responses was “just”—as in “just comments” or “just catcalling.” Many runners described feeling “lucky” that the harassment they experienced was “only” verbal or non-physical.
Learn more:
Read the survey results in full.
Listen to Turia discuss running safety on Pod Like a Girl.
Check out Run with Turia to see how she empowers women through running.
