Anchorage's Women's Commission is building a survey to ask women what matters most

The Anchorage Municipal Women's Commission is drafting a survey to ask women across the city what concerns them most and what the commission should focus on. Part of the aim is to measure something that often goes uncounted: unreported domestic violence and sexual assault in Anchorage.

Commission Chair Kristi Traver told the commission Thursday that a draft is circulating among committee members. "We made the determination that we wanted to get community feedback from women in the municipality about what were their major concerns, what would they want this commission to be focused on addressing through policy recommendations to the municipality," Traver said. The survey would be followed by listening sessions with specific demographic groups.

The commission is working with the city rather than going it alone. Frankie Dahl, an outreach coordinator in the Health Department, is reviewing the draft and has asked to sit in on some listening sessions, and Traver said she's scheduling a meeting with a municipal innovation strategist to settle how the survey goes out and what analysis tools the city can provide, rather than the commission fundraising for its own.

The effort follows earlier city and state research documenting high rates of sexual violence and intimate partner violence against women in Alaska, and an identified need for a tool to measure community perception and unreported abuse.

The main challenge has been length. Commissioner Beth Fleischer told Traver, "I was just gonna say that your survey was amazing." Traver said cutting it down was a struggle, that every question felt worth keeping, but that too long a survey would discourage responses. Once committee feedback is in and the commission has talked with the city, the draft goes to the full commission for review before launch.