CANBERRA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- One in five adult Australian women and one in 13 adult Australian men have admitted they have experienced stalking at one point in their life, according to the latest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday.
According to the results of the 2012 Personal Safety Survey, the statistics also showed stark differences between how both men and women tend to deal with and respond to stalkers.
Director of the ABS' National Center for Crime and Justice Statistics, William Milne said that females were most often stalked by males, while males experienced stalking from both sexes.
"The results also show that women were significantly more likely to experience stalking by a male than by a female perpetrator, whereas men were equally likely to experience stalking by either sex," Milne said.
He added that men are likely to deal with the threat of a stalker in a calm manner compared to women, who were more likely to call the police.
"Men were less likely to perceive stalking as a crime, less likely to experience anxiety or fear, and less likely to contact the police if the stalker was a female compared to a male," Milne said.
"In contrast, for women, the sex of the stalker had no impact on their likelihood of perceiving stalking as a crime, experiencing anxiety or fear, and contacting the police."
