Understanding Gendered Experiences of Harassment Among Pakistani Young Adults Using Human-Centered Threat Modeling

Paper Title

Understanding Gendered Experiences of Harassment Among Pakistani Young Adults Using Human-Centered Threat Modeling

Publication Info

• Topic area: Gendered harassment experiences and coping strategies in Pakistan, analyzed through a human-centered framework.
• Keywords: Harassment, gender norms, Pakistan, human-centered threat modeling, sociocultural context, digital abuse, coping strategies, victim-blaming, institutional distrust, patriarchal norms.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on harassment in Pakistan predominantly focuses on women, often using externally imposed definitions of harm. Men’s experiences remain underexplored, and harassment’s sociocultural and digital-physical dynamics are insufficiently understood.
• Significance: Harassment constrains educational opportunities, emotional well-being, and mobility for young adults, particularly in patriarchal societies like Pakistan. Understanding localized definitions and experiences is critical for effective interventions.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies document harassment’s prevalence but fail to capture participant-defined meanings and experiences, especially for men. Research often overlooks the interplay between digital and physical spaces and relational adversaries. This paper addresses these gaps using the Human-Centered Threat Modeling (HCTM) framework.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Application of the Human-Centered Threat Modeling (HCTM) framework to surface context-specific threat models of harassment among Pakistani young adults.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical contribution: Grounded account of gendered harassment threat models, including men’s overlooked experiences.
  2. Methodological contribution: Extension of HCTM to harassment, emphasizing sociocultural context and structural barriers.
  3. Conceptual contribution: Demonstration of harassment’s digital-physical continuum and relational adversaries beyond strangers.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with Pakistani young adults (17 men, 16 women) aged 18–25.
  • Used inductive thematic coding and HCTM’s components (context, threats, protective strategies, reflection) to analyze narratives.
  • Focused on participant-defined understandings of harassment and coping mechanisms across digital and physical spaces.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Women described harassment as a routine threat tied to visibility, modesty norms, and reputational harm.
  • Men reported harassment as broader, including structural and political harms, but often omitted sexual harassment from their definitions despite personal experiences.
  • Both genders distrusted formal reporting mechanisms, relying on behavioral regulation, silence, and informal networks.
  • Harassment operates on a digital-physical continuum, with online actions often triggering offline consequences.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Provides nuanced insights into gendered harassment experiences, highlighting differences in definitions, coping strategies, and emotional impacts.
  • Challenges dominant security paradigms by foregrounding relational adversaries and sociocultural dynamics.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Interviews conducted remotely via Zoom, with culturally sensitive protocols to ensure participant comfort.
  • Data analyzed using iterative thematic coding and HCTM framework components.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Excluded non-binary and gender-diverse perspectives.
  • Sample skewed toward educated participants, limiting generalizability.
  • Future work should explore marginalized groups and expand harassment definitions to reflect local harms.

Summary

This study applies the Human-Centered Threat Modeling framework to analyze harassment experiences among Pakistani young adults, revealing gendered differences in definitions, coping strategies, and emotional impacts. Women described harassment as a pervasive threat tied to visibility and modesty norms, while men framed it through structural and political harms but often omitted sexual harassment. Both genders distrusted formal reporting mechanisms, relying on informal networks and behavioral regulation. Harassment was found to operate on a digital-physical continuum, necessitating integrated interventions across technology, policy, and social norms. The findings highlight the need for context-specific solutions that align with participants’ lived realities and sociocultural constraints.