journal

Throughout my project process I did a lot of research. I had to look up lots of different things. 

 I started off making a Research Plan to work out what I needed to look up, I produced; Sarah Everard, Statistics to do with sexual assault, and the Fritzl case, and with Black Lives Matter I wanted to look up the George Floyd and Breanna Taylor cases, more cases about people who were wrongly killed by the police as well as statistics to do with them. I wanted to do this because it shows that it could happen to anyone.  

When I looked up the Sarah Everard case, I found out a lot of things I did not know about it, I found out that she was killed by a Police Officer, I also found out that someone else was in a similar area on the same day who was also targeted, she went on to say she was sad but not surprised. Again, I think knowing this and talking about this shows that it could happen to anyone, and that most the time it is just unlucky timing.  

Sometimes this is not always true, for example when I looked up the Fritzl case, Josef (the father) abused his daughter from the age of 11, when she turned 18, he locked her in the basement and kept het there for 24 years. He had been planning this for a while, he said when he was in court before he was sent to jail that he believed he was born to be a rapist and have control over his daughters. During the time Elizabeth was locked up she mothered seven children to her father. This shows that in these situations, it does not matter who you are, you might be in the wrong place or part of some disgusting plan, it just shows that as women we are always afraid and most the time, we have good reason to be cautious.  

When looking at stats I found out that 1 in 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her life, every 98 seconds (about 1 and a half minutes) an American is raped, 85,000 women are raped in Britian and Wales alone every year. (That is roughly 11 rapes – adult alone- every hour, Approximately 90% of those women knew who raped them prior to the offense, A third of people believe that women who flirt are partially responsible for being raped, Women are more likely to be raped by someone they know, whereas men are more likely to get raped by strangers, 1 in 20 women that live in the EU have been raped after the age of 15 that’s around 9 million women (about half the population of New York), Out of 134 complaints reported, only 14 happened in single sex changing rooms, the other 120 were in unisex changing rooms, Six in ten women take precautions to avoid sexual assault, 2 in 3 LGBT+ workers have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, 20% of women and 4% of men have experienced some type of sexual assault since the age of 16, equivalent to 3.4 million female and 631,000 male victims. (The Crime Survey for England and Wales 2017) Of victims who experienced rape (including attempts) since the age of 16, half (49%) had been a victim more than once, more than 4 in 10 were victimized by their partner or an ex-partner. I think knowing stats is important because it means you can stick to facts rather than making things up. 

Moving on to my Black Lives Matter research, in my research plan I talked about how I wanted to look up, Breanna Taylor, George Floyd, other cases, the history of segregation and the Edward Colston Statue.  

Looking at the history of segregation showed me that its been going on for far too long, I think talking about it in my podcast means that I can show people how far we have come far but how far we still must go. 

Looking into the smaller cases means that I can show people that it happens to anyone in any age range or of any sex.  

Looking into the Edward Colston statue meant I could talk about how the people of England wanted to take down more of the statues because they Edward was a slave trader and everyone in England wanted to get the rest of the Slave Trader statues taken down. 

Looking into the Breanna Taylor case meant I could talk about how it happens to a woman who did nothing wrong but have been caught up with the wrong kind of people. 

Looking into the George Floyd case meant I could talk more about that because before I looked it up I didn’t know much, it also means I can talk about unlucky he was because of how many things went wrong in his situation that don’t normally.