Trauma Analysis: 1 in 5 young women feels unsafe in their daily lives

More than 3000 girls and young women up to the age of 21 across the UK were surveyed for the 2022 Annual Girlguiding Survey, with nearly one in five (19%) reporting they do not feel safe during their daily lives. 22% of girls and young women in the north aged 11-16 who took part in the survey published on Tuesday blamed fear of sexual harassment for holding them back at school (The Guardian 2022). Chief executive Angela Salt said: “It is shocking how many girls and young women, some as young as 11 years old, don’t feel safe at school, on social media or out in public".

Today we'll take a look at the mechanisms at play and the possible long-term consequences of this widespread fear amongst girls and young women in the UK.

Fear is the perception that something real or imagined, either now or in the future, will have more negatives than positives, more drawbacks than advantages, more pains than pleasures. When living in an environment where fear is prevalent on a daily or even weekly basis, there is a multitude of consequences that can serve as barriers to happiness and confidence in later life. What impact could these fears have on this generation of young women?

One thing extensive research has shown us is that a stressed brain doesn't learn - or more accurately, it doesn't learn anywhere near as well as it could. Stress hormones such as cortisol impair the function of the hippocampus - crucial for learning and long term memory - which can significantly hinder a students potential. An equally worrisome thought is that school is a place where our associations around learning are built. If the environment where learning takes place is stressful and scary, the connection can bleed into the concept of learning itself and potentially put people off pursuing their deepest passions.

Dr Steven Porgess' Polyvagal theory offers more insight into the potential consequences of growing up in a threatening and unpredictable environment. His theory shows us how when an individual is exposed to repeated stresses, the most primitive parts of the nervous system trigger compensatory changes in the brain and body to make sure we can survive the stressor - at the cost of social engagement and fluency. This is a crucial system during traumatic and life-threatening events, but in the classroom it can have altogether more far reaching consequences.

In order to be fully engaged in social activities and to fully express ourselves, our nervous system needs to feel safe. When exposed to repeated stresses, the nervous system feels unsafe and the 'immobilisation' or 'freeze' response takes over. Although in the modern day school or university environment it is very unlikely to be a real threat to someone's survival, the primitive part of our nervous system doesn't know that, and so it reacts as if the threat to life is real. This decrease in social engagement can impact a young woman's experience of education, the development of important social relationships and early romantic experiences.

Split-Second Unlearning theory (SSU) shows us how this 'fear response' can be learned in an instant and can be continually retriggered months, years and even decades after the original stressor. For these girls and young women, experiencing stress on a regular basis in the form of fear of sexual harrassment, has the potential to induce one of the many common mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression or eating disorders.

It is imperative that we find ways to change this situation as no-one deserves to be exposed to this kind of emotional threat on a regular basis - let alone those going through the education system.

The Home Office is due to uncover the second phase of its?'Enough Campaign' which was set up to help tackle violence against girls and young women. It will use television adverts, billboards, social media and radio advertising to highlight different forms of violence against women and girls and how to challenge perpetrators of abuse (The Guardian 2022).

It may just be my own biases and cynicism talking, but I strongly believe the girls and young women of this country will need more than a few billboards to overcome this issue. What's more pressing, is how do we find ways to help support the young women who have already been exposed to these emotional stressors over several years? The faster and more effectively we can help them now, the less they will have to carry around these fears and burdens into their future life, of which they have all of it ahead of them.

There is no quick fix or magic bullet solution to fix this issue, but one thing is for sure, we need to create a safer environment for the girls and young women of this generation to grow up in - their mental health, confidence and happiness depends on it.

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