Crime, Women, and the Quality of Urban Life

Although crime and the fear of crime affect both the men and women who live in cities, women are especially affected. In numerous studies they express significantly higher levels of fear than men. For example, according to a 1972 national poll,1 over half the women surveyed, compared with 20 percent of the men, said they were afraid to walk in their neighborhoods at night. The proportion of women reporting such feelings has grown in recent years.2 Accompanying this fear may be an increased use of certain safety precautions, such as staying home at night or avoiding certain parts of the city. This results in what Biderman3 has called "foregone opportunities." Beyond serving as means of protection for women, such restrictions may serve as instruments of social control. Feminist analyses of one crime, rape, have made this point eloquently: