45% Women Feel Socially Unsafe In Utah, Shows Research

45% of women feel socially unsafe in Utah according to the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP), it released a brief examining social safety on Thursday, which includes social belongingness, social recognition, social inclusion, social protection, and reliable social connection as per the findings of the brief.

Almost half of the women concluded that they experienced chronic unsafely at some point or other in their lives, while 13% of them said that they are still experiencing the condition of chronic unsafety. This was more frequent for women in a romantic or household relationship.

45% of Women Feel Socially Unsafe In Utah

The rates of chronic unsafety were comparatively higher in a woman who was, earning less, unmarried, non-heterosexual/non-cisgender, and also among women who experienced childhood abuse, adult assault, or had been suicidal for a long time. Also, women who were "shunned by a religious group” felt more unsafe as compared to others.

Out of all, no marginalized social categories were occupied by 57.8% of the women, while 22.6% of women had at least just one marginalised category, but the other 19.6% occupied more than just one. Which also found that women who had one or more than one marginalised category reported lower social safety.

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The marginalisation status of a woman predicted her amount of social safety independently of disrespect, social isolation, and exposure to ostracisation, childhood adversity, and community violence. Therefore, having a marginalized social category can majorly interfere with a woman's social safety independently of her direct experiences of violence shame, and exclusion.

The brief also found that women with lower social safety reported comparatively higher risks of acquiring health problems, depression as well as anxiety. 31% of them reported suicidal ideation and 13% claimed that they were suicidal previously. Lisa Diamond, author of the brief said, “For over 3 long decades, health psychologists have documented disproportionately high physical and mental health problems in individuals who are socially marginalized due to their sexual identity, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender identity,”

This basically predicts that the worst health outcomes should be observed by those with the bigger minority stressors. Lisa Diamond's event suggested that social safety was more pressing during and after the pandemic as most individuals now spend a greater amount of time alone may that be workday, working online or school days, etc.