Women's Feeling of Insecurity in Mashhad City's Urban Spaces

The main purpose of this study was to analyze women's fear and feeling of insecurity in Mashhad city's urban spaces and recognize the effects of spatial, situational and personal factors on this feeling. To create the theoretical framework of the research, we combined the theories of urban spaces and feeling of security. We did a survey and gathered the data using a questionnaire. By the use of the multi-stage cluster sampling, we selected 4025 women from Mashhadi women community, aged 15 and above in 13 districts. The findings showed that 42 per cent of Mashhadi women felt this insecurity "less", while 33 per cent of them felt it "the most." Plus, the regression analysis revealed the influential variables on women's feeling insecurity in Mashhad's urban spaces. These factors are listed in the order of importance: abnormal behaviors in the neighborhood, the existence of unsafe urban spaces, household's average income, violence experience in the neighborhood, not the wearing veil, place of residence, the existence of deviant spaces in the neighborhood, and light of alleys and streets. Furthermore, we might say that the performance of independent variables could be different in various women's age groups.