Abstract

This article details the views of a group of Chinese women regarding their personal safety and incorporates their perceptions of young people as contributors to danger and insecurity in the area in which they live. It raises the wider subject of the way in which research into women’s issues is conducted and indicates the importance of using specific feminist methods of interviewing. In addition, the author gives a personal account of a first experience of research by a lecturer new to university life and also new to research as an employee of an academic institution. The article concludes by posing a number of questions relating to the way in which research has been conducted in the past in relation to women and how the notion of women being responsible for their own safety is subliminally learned and passed down through the generations.

Introduction

An ethnic minority who do not cite racism as a major problem.
Women who have learned to look after themselves.
Women spanning three generations who support and socialise with each other.
Women who are frightened of crime but feel safe.

These descriptions form the impression I have of a group of ten Chinese women aged between 29 and 78 (average age just under 50) who engaged in discussion with me on two occasions to tell me about their perceptions of safety and danger as residents of a central London borough. The discussions focused on the women defining where and how they felt safe in and around the area in which they lived.

This work aims to raise issues rather than seek conclusions and draws on the thoughts of these ten Chinese women who willingly shared their feelings of vulnerability about living in the area. Their responses to an initial generalised question about what made them feel insecure or unsafe was very quickly directed at young people and gangs and their fear of being a victim of crime perpetrated either by young people (as was their expectation) or by the adults who worked in the ‘alternative’ business community in the area. In order to reflect the women’s priorities, the work focuses initially on notions around the fear of crime followed by the way in which the women perceive the young people in their area and lastly gives an account of the researcher’s experience.

This work was initiated as an extension to existing and on-going research being undertaken by the University of Luton amongst young people within the same geographic area and focussing on their perceptions of safety and danger. As a result of this existing research, contact had been established with a community worker at a local health centre and it was through this worker’s facilitation in that role and as an interpreter that the conversations took place. The discussions were in Cantonese and were conducted by using a series of questions put by the researcher and interpreted through the community worker. Group and individual responses were relayed back to the researcher and supplementary questions were asked where appropriate.

Fear of Crime
The women described their fear of crime in three distinct ways: fear for their health as a result of abandoned needles and vandalised rubbish bins; fear of personal violence through rape or racist attack and thirdly, fear of robbery. These fears were focussed on specific activities which took place within the immediate and surrounding areas of where they lived and encountering these activities is a reality in their everyday lives. However, the actual occurrence of any of the women having been actually harmed by any of the three identified fears was relatively small (two women reported verbal abuse).

This disparity between fear of being a victim of crime and actually being one, has been researched by Marlow and Pitts (1998), Lab (1997), Hough and Mayhew (1983) and Wilson and Ashton (1998). The latter assert that this attitude actually forms a part of the problem of crime in Britain and is widespread. This is evidenced by the British Crime Survey of 1996 and a BBC Poll in 1995. Morris (1987) also reports that those who claim to feel the most unsafe are those who are least often victims and makes reference to Hough and Mayhew’s (1983) assertion that the ‘typical’ victim is a single male under 30. So, does this mean that women are worrying for nothing?
Gelsthorpe and Morris (1990) claim that for women the situation is somewhat different. Whilst recognising the same disparity between fear and reality as Wilson and Ashton (1998) do, they allege that the fear of violence for women is a reality accumulated over a lifetime of knowing (from both direct and indirect experience) that they are at risk simply because they are women and must learn to protect themselves.

This view was born out by some of the Chinese women who said that whilst they recognised specific areas as dangerous, they actually felt safe themselves because they had learned how to be careful and avoid obvious danger. This attitude is an example of a passive acceptance of the everyday danger of being a woman, so much so, that the avoidance of danger and the necessity to take precautions, is accepted as ‘normal’ (Gelsthorpe and Morris 1990). This attitude was a part of the strategy for everyday living for these women, it governed the times they went out, where they went and with whom they went. When asked how they felt about their children’s safety they indicated that their female children ‘knew the rules’ and abided by what they had been both overtly taught and covertly learned.

What they described was a safety code built up over a lifetime which was consciously and unconsciously passed on to their children. There was no notion of complaint in this information – just acceptance that this was the way things were; this was ‘normal’. This suggests, at the very least, that there may be a link between the care and precautions that women take to feel safe and the resulting comparative lower incidence of assault recorded against women.

A further paradox exists between the women’s experience of witnessing prostitution and drug use which they describe as merely ‘distasteful’ or ‘embarrassing’ and their depiction of the areas in which those activities happen, which they describe as the ‘most dangerous’. This would seem to distinguish between what they accept as a reality of the way business happens in the area, (distasteful/embarrassing) and the potential for harm posed by these activities (the most dangerous). It seems that they distinguished between that which they would define as technically ‘dangerous’ and actually being in danger themselves.

It was as though they were disassociating themselves from the danger whilst at the same time recognising that it existed. Morris (1987), makes the point that if an individual does not know freedom then they may not recognise when it is absent; in other words, what you don’t know you don’t miss, and the reality that fear of rape or robbery is a part of all women’s consciousness acts to constrain women’s freedom. Again, the Chinese women did not suggest that their careful attention to safety was in any way a burden – just a reality of life.

Young People
All of the women cited young people as causing nuisance and contributing to their feelings of danger. They described the local young people as being in ‘gangs’ who disturbed the peace and frightened the community by revving cars, screeching brakes, causing damage to residential lifts and threatening physical violence. Two ethnically based gangs were clearly described as being either ‘Asian’ or ‘White’ with each inhabiting a different and quite distinct geographic location which was claimed as ‘territory’. They described the gangs as rival and violent, citing fights which involved throwing rubbish bins across the street at each other. They believed the white young people, ranging between 13 and 17, were marginally younger than the Asians who they believed ranged between 14 and 20. Research shows that offending for young men rises to a peak at age 18 and declines during the following years which fits the profile given by the women of the gang members. The same research also cites crime as a predominantly young male activity and that for every known female offender there are more than 5 known male offenders (Tarling 1993).

African Caribbean young people were not mentioned as being part of gangs but as part of the ‘business community’ which tended to trade near the main station. There was no consensus amongst the women as to which gang was seen to be the most dangerous – both were described as threatening and as displaying anti-social behaviour.

Such acts of anti-social behaviour are identified by Wilson and Kelling (1982) as ‘incivilities’ and are cited as primary indicators in the decline of a residential area. Incivilities are further defined as those things that go with abandoned properties such as smashed windows, rowdy children, an accumulation of litter as well as the sort of inappropriate or anti-social public behaviour as defined by the Chinese women.

In contrast to this, the area where the women live is reasonably well kept. Furthermore, Matthews and Young (1992) find what is elsewhere described as a ‘loose’ relationship between incivilities and crime, but do suggest that incivilities have a strong influence on personal and neighbourhood notions of security, and it is this definition that fits the Chinese women’s experience. However, Matthews and Young (1992) suggest that the notion of ‘incivility’ is too narrowly conceived and is too often used to censure young people’s use of public space in an attempt to reduce fear.

It would seem that the reality of anti-social behaviour by young people, whilst frightening for the women and disruptive in the area, is not a major contributor to the crime figures. The women also cited prostitution, beggars and begging as other activities similarly described as part of the ‘legitimate’ business community, the presence of which, whilst distasteful, was not frightening.

Far more likely to be contributing to the crime figures are the dealers who hang around the entrance to the underground stations and yet who are talked of by the women in matter-of-fact tones. They are depicted and accepted as part of the ‘business community’ of that area in a voice tone which seemed to accept the reality of drug dealing as a way of life for some people. Dealers in this area were not described in the same fearful tones as were gangs of young people or drug users – like prostitution and begging it was not desirable but not frightening.

However, a link is drawn by Maguire, Morgan and Reiner (1997) between drug dealers and gangs, by the description of a gang as, “… an ideal adaptive device for entrepreneurial engagement” (p.815) in other words, well suited to deal in drugs. He links this phenomenon to a decline in traditional male employment and the geographic destruction of established territories. This specific focus on men and crime is furthered by Collier (1998) who suggests that the crime agenda and masculinity may confuse as much as clarify the relationship between men and criminal activity. He further asserts that a definition of masculinity is deeply contested and uncertain and that attempts to understand the ‘masculinity of crime’ have proved fruitless. It would seem that we have no explanation for why men and crime seem so inextricably linked – we just know that they are.

The Process

“…the feminist researcher is likely to describe the actual research process as a lived experience, and she is likely to reflect on what she learned in the process.” (Reinharz 1992:258)
My employment within an academic environment has come at the beginning of the last quarter of my working life and has followed 14 years of work for a local education authority where I had responsibility for staff development and training. The change is quite dramatic. The expectation to become involved in scholarly activity and academic research produces in me a cocktail of different emotions, most of which work counter to the task. My previous involvement with research had been 8 years earlier as part of a Master of Education dissertation where I was the student and therefore a customer of the university, and I felt it to be perfectly reasonable for me not know how to do something.

Now, as an employee of the university, my expectations of my own ability and standard of work have become much harsher and more exacting and my level of confidence in my ability has dropped in direct proportion to this. Determined to find my level within this new environment, I volunteered for this piece of work, agreeing to undertake an investigation into perceptions of safety and danger within a central London borough. What follows is a description of the process which took place during the two focus group meetings and my subsequent thoughts and feelings during that time.

On arrival at the centre where I was to meet the Chinese women, I was asked to wait in the corridor outside the community worker’s office. This was my first visit to the centre and as I glanced over the information leaflets and posters on the walls I wondered about the extent of the building and where we would be for this initial focus group meeting.

The community worker arrived and I was ushered further down the corridor where I was introduced to three of the women who had arrived for the meeting and shown a line of chairs which I realised was where we would be sitting for the meeting. It never actually occurred to me that a room might not be available. Gradually more women arrived, together with their elderly relatives, neighbours, young children and babies and the corridor filled with people. Chairs were moved into a sort of rectangle shape ready for the ‘programme’.

My initial reaction was to think the venture not practical – there were children running about and most of the women were holding either their own or a friend’s child, drinks/biscuits/snacks were being sought and provided, and all this was taking place in a wide corridor with various offices coming off one of the sides. This long rectangular shape with a polished plastic tile flooring provided a wonderful opportunity for those children who had bagged the ‘sit ’n ride’ toys to move up and down at quite a pace whilst their mothers vainly tried to warn them of the dangers of the fire doors or to actually stop what they were doing.

It was much like any playgroup meeting except that the central focus was not the children – the mothers were keen to participate in the ‘programme’ and were very warm and welcoming to me. We communicated with signs, their broken English and the universal language of children - having bits of lego poked into my hand, my feet flattened by bikes and regularly gasping in admiration at unrecognisable shapes drawn in felt tip on scrap paper. At the same time I was aware of the arrival of a group of Muslin women who were attending a ‘healthy eating’ class which was taking place four feet away, half in and half out of a kitchen on the opposite side of the corridor. There were also three elderly Muslim men who arrived and shuffled themselves into a space in the corridor where they sat and chatted. This was the environment in which the group meeting took place; the atmosphere was vibrant, noisy, alive and engaging, probably more appropriate for a party than a focus group.

I had naively imagined and hoped for a separate room where I would be able to conduct the focus group and subsequent interviews and attempt some depth and breadth from each of the women through using ‘guided conversations’ (Rubin & Rubin 1995) and to have the opportunity to work in an uninterrupted environment. As it was, the focus group happened in the corridor together with the chatting men, the healthy eating class demonstration and the children’s activities – and it all took place in Cantonese.

Given the circumstances, the women were very attentive. Through the community worker acting now as interpreter, I introduced myself and explained why I was there. The women agreed to the meeting being taped. We then moved into a process of me asking a question and (what seemed like) all of them answering at once. Animated debate took place which the community worker then fed back to me and I followed with a supplementary question. This was the pattern for just over an hour. Anxious that the tape would not cope with all the background noise, I made as many notes as I could manage - depending on the number of children either on my lap or pressing against my knees. This first meeting ended with four of the women agreeing to meet with me individually six weeks later for a further, more in depth discussion on the issues they had raised.

I guessed that these subsequent meetings would happen in the same place, (i.e. the corridor), but I had nurtured a secret hope that we might have secured the use of the community worker’s office. This was not to be, and the meetings with each of the four women did take place in the corridor.

What happened was a similar process to the larger group meeting, except that the community worker was not with us for all of the time. The women knew that they had agreed to meet with me but had no expectation that these were intended to be individual interviews. They were each prepared to be the focus of the questions for a portion of the time and willingly gave their own views when they were the focus and were happy to supply supplementary information to help enlarge on or illuminate a point when they were not the focus.

We managed this for about an hour and a half, with the interpreter dipping in and out every so often to check that we were managing, or coming when we called in order to give assistance and aid our communications. The women were happy to continue and seemed to genuinely enjoy the process and the attention. They tried very hard to be clear and helped each other as best they could by pooling their knowledge of English and interpreting for each other where they were able. Their enthusiasm was heartening and very welcome and I conveyed this to them as best I could.

The process overall has been both rewarding and frustrating and leaves me, (as one would expect) with a number of questions. The most significant of these, in a general sense, is concerned with women and our learned expectations of danger and more specifically, with ethnic minority women and their feelings of safety/danger within the host culture. What of geography? How are women’s expectations of danger related to the area where they live? How widespread is the ‘normality’, (Gelsthorpe and Morris 1990) of feeling in danger? What and how are we teaching our daughters? How often do women have the opportunity to record their history orally? It is important also to consider the process by which these questions may be asked – and raises the notion of the use of feminist methods of interviewing (Reinharz 1992, Rubin & Rubin 1995), when women are the focus of social research.

REFERENCES
Collier, R. (1998) Masculinities, Crime and Criminology: men heterosexuality and the criminalized other London: Sage
Gelsthorpe, L. & Morris, A. (1990) Feminist Perspectives in Criminology Buckingham: Open University Press
Hough, M. & Mayhew, P. (1983) The British Crime Survey London: HMSO
Lab, S. P. (1997) Crime Prevention at a Crossroads Cincinnati: Anderson Pub. Co.
Maguire, M. Morgan, R. & Reiner, R. (1997) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology New York: Oxford University Press
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Matthews, R. & Young, J. (1992) Issues in Realist Criminology London: Sage
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Reinharz, S. (1992) Feminist Methods in Social research New York: Oxford University Press
Rubin, H. J. & Rubin, I. S. (1995) Qualitative Interviewing: the art of hearing data California: Sage
Tortling, R. (1993) Analysing Offending. Data, models and interpretations London: HMSO
Wilson, D. & Ashton, J. ((1998) What everyone in Britain should know about crime and punishment London: Blackstone Press Ltd.
Wilson, J. Q. & Kelling, G. (1982) ‘Broken Windows: the police and neighbourhood safety’ Atlantic Monthly, March 29:83