‘We were running in London at 10:30am on a Saturday morning and these men shouted “get your rat out”,’ says Molly Slater-Davison, 27.
‘We were in shock. We get beeping, staring, cat calling, all the time.’
Molly founded her women-only run club, These Girls Run, four years ago, with the aim to offer women a safe space to run together, particularly during winter.
It was born from Molly’s ‘fear and prang of anxiety’ she experienced when she had to run in the dark, and her desire to create a safe and supportive group to run with.
But despite running in groups of 20, they’re still relentlessly harassed by men.
Exercising in a group has long since been encouraged by police forces and well-meaning bystanders as a way for women to escape abuse.
And while this suggestion puts the onus on women to remedy male violence, many are taking heed regardless, with an 89% increase in the number of women joining a run club, according to Strava’s 2024 Year In Sport report.
Sadly though, women have revealed to Metro that running in numbers is not a fix – in fact, the harassment they face is still near-constant.
It comes after a Metro investigation found one in 10 women runners have been spat on, while a growing number of female runners are illegally ‘arming themselves’ with items like Deep Heat spray to make themselves feel safer on UK streets.
‘We’ve had men filming us when girls have been warming up in Nottingham, and we’ve had a man physically touch one of our runners in Notting Hill,’ Molly, who has run club branches all over England, adds.
‘I set These Girls Run up to help girls feel safe, and it’s crazy that we feel less safe now than four years ago, because these incidents are becoming more frequent.’
It’s the same for mum-of-two Emily Hewitt, who set up a women-only run club, Ladies Who Run, in Lewisham, for the mums at her daughter’s nursery.
‘We were offering a safe community for women, but what we soon found was, even in groups, we were getting verbal abuse and cat calling,’ Emily, 34, tells Metro.
‘Men shout “your a**es look nice”, and wind their windows down and make sexual comments, asking “how much” as if we are prostitutes, and shake their fists.’
They also regularly get toots from horns, but it all came to a head in August when all three pacing groups that were running all experienced harassment in the space of one run.
It’s sadly unsurprising, given violence and sexual offences were the most commonly reported crimes in Lewisham in both August and September this year. It’s the same in Nottinghamshire which saw 245 violent or sexual offences reported in September alone.
The challenges facing women runners
Both running group’s founders have gone to the police about their experiences and are working with law enforcement to try and find a solution.
‘We’ve been speaking to the police about these problems and we try and raise it where we can, but it’s like when those men shouted “get your rat out” and were laughing and jeering, it’s hard to report it because you’re in shock and trying to get away,’ Molly explains.
‘I’d love to say something to those men, but when you’re leading a group of women I don’t want to stop them while I go and confront them – it’s not safe for anyone.’
Meanwhile an undercover police officer has agreed to come out on a run with Emily’s group, so they can witness the harassment for themselves, before they decide how to progress.
Nobody is telling women not to join run clubs. There’s an argument that if you’re going to be sexually harassed either way, it’s better to be in a group with witnesses and instant support.
But if running in groups does nothing to deter inappropriate behaviour, both Emily and Molly are questioning what more can be done.
Superintendent Heather Maelor, one of the leads for tackling Violence Against Women and Girls at Nottinghamshire Police’s Prevention Hub said: ‘We receive calls from women and girls who are subjected to unwanted behaviour and abuse from men every day.
‘As a police service, we take these reports extremely seriously.’
Nottinghamshire Police launched its Walk in My Shoes campaign this year, which has been backed by These Girls Run, which involves misogyny training in schools and a survey to determine where women feel unsafe in the county, so these issues can be addressed.
The MET Police were also contacted regarding their involvement with Ladies Who Run, but they did not provide comment.
Emily ‘doesn’t want women to be seen as victims’, but it’s time something changes.
‘[This abuse] is really prevalent for us, there’s no fear from the men that do it – it’s such a toxic male culture that needs to have a shift,’ she says.
‘Us women shouldn’t have a sense of normality about it either, yes it’s happened for years but we’ve been brainwashed to think there’s nothing we can do about it.’
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