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UK: “This is my culture man, this is my show”

December 15, 2015 By Correspondent

Tracey Wise, London, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

Frank Turner, courtesy of his press agent

After the unfortunate harassment incident that led me to create Safe Gigs for Women, I was acutely aware that the band I had gone to see, Manic Street Preachers, would not have condoned such behaviour, so why did someone at one of their shows think this was appropriate?

With its focus on music, it makes perfect sense that Safe Gigs for Women should seek to work with bands and artists to get them on side. They have a ready-made platform to reach out to people, so having their support is essential.

In approaching artists to gain their support, Frank Turner seemed a natural choice. Known for his beliefs in libertarianism, egalitarianism and a passion for music that more than rivals my own, he very kindly offered his support and agreed to meet me to discuss this during his recent UK tour, at Nottingham’s Rock City. I also met his supporting artists Will Varley and Lorna Thomas from Skinny Lister. It seems like an odd time to be writing this blog, after the events in Paris, but these interviews were planned before the terrorist attack which left 89 people who had been at an Eagles of Death Metal gig, dead.

Safety at gigs seems a much wider notion right now. But in discussing whether Frank Turner believes artists have a responsibility towards the safety of their fans, his stance is that of having “a duty of care” towards those that have paid to see him. Indeed, Turner has been known to stop shows to confront unwanted behaviour by members of the crowd, and further states “of course, I don’t want people getting hurt at my shows”. Whilst he may be comfortable, at times to intervene, he is also thankful for the role of security at shows, proving, again, that achieving safer gigs at women will take a multi-faceted response.

As I acknowledged in my first blog for Stop Street Harassment, there have been notable cases of female artists being groped at shows. When I raised this with Turner, Varley and Thomas, Varley highlighted that, unfortunately, that there is a small “proportion of arseholes” at gigs. Thomas admitted to being recently groped whilst crowd surfing at a Skinny Lister show. In discussing this with Turner he acknowledges that he believes he was “naive”, having never realised that this happens, further stating his reaction to be “Really? Who would do that?” and being certain that no men he knows would ever act in such a way. And this is the crux of the matter – if Turner, my friends and myself are sure that the people we know are not behaving like this, then it is a small group of people making it difficult for women, emphasising the need for campaigns like this, and bands and artists to engage with gig goers to get them to think about their behaviour.

Since starting this project, some commentators have put it to me that women-only shows are the answer. I do not agree, for numerous reasons. I am not an economist, or schooled in the music business, but how would the cost of this impact on smaller, independent labels, venues and acts? As a consumer of music in my own right, as covered in my last blog, surely I have the right to attend the events I choose, with whomever I want to?

Furthermore, and most importantly, it automatically assumes the worst of men. As most of my friends are male, and as the aunt to a 5-year-old boy, this offends me as much as it upsets me. Discussing the notion of women only gigs, Frank Turner states he finds this “defeatist” and “sexist, it says men are beyond any redemption”. This was also shared by Will, stating that “segregation is not the answer”, and Lorna emphasising that what is really needed is a “mind shift”. Considering there are so many men out there doing good to support this project, such as the White Ribbon Project, the artists who supported our first fundraiser, including Jukebox Monkey and Peter Von Toy, and Frank Turner himself, women only gigs feels like a massive step backwards.

Recent world events have shown just how crucial music is in the world around us. And that is why the support of artists like Will Varley, Skinny Lister and Frank Turner is so important. Because, as Turner puts it, “what better forum is there to try and teach people not to be pricks?”

Born and raised in London, Tracey is a graduate of City University. She has spent the best part of her life at gigs and festivals and obsessing about music and created the “Safe Gigs for Women” project.

USA: Engaging Male Allies to End Violence Against Women

December 14, 2015 By Correspondent

Meghna Bhat, Chicago, USA, SSH Blog Correspondent

A few months ago, I came across Emma Watson’s brave efforts to promote gender equality. Her interview with Malala Yousafzai highlighted the need to address feminism and how this movement should include men as allies. As Watson correctly pointed out, “Let’s not make it scary to say you’re a feminist. I want to make it a welcoming and inclusive movement. Let’s join our hands and move together so we can make real change. Malala and I are pretty serious about it but we need you.”

It’s our collective responsibility, especially male allies, to create awareness about gender violence, prevent and intervene this vicious cycle.

My experiences growing up with positive male role models/allies and Watson’s message resonates with the research and advocacy of Dr. Jackson Katz. He is an educator, author, filmmaker and cultural theorist who is a pioneer in the fields of gender violence prevention education and media literacy. His 2013 speech on TED talk titled, “Violence against women—it’s a men’s issue” showed that domestic violence and sexual abuse, which are often labeled as “women’s issues,” are often “intrinsically men’s issues” and he “shows how these violent behaviors are tied to definitions of manhood.”

According to a report by the New York State Department of Health, research has consistently shown that a majority of men are conflicted about violence against women. Most of these men may not even “recognize when it is happening nor know how to stop it”. Another factor that can make men defensive and doubtful of participating in the efforts to end gender violence is “treating [or stereotyping] males as potential perpetrators.”

There are many social service agencies and organizations promoting and practicing this model of engaging men as allies to prevent and intervene gender-violence. Have you watched the powerful documentary “The Mask You Live In” by The Representation Project? I highly recommend it. I have found this film to be educating, inspiring and an eye-opening experience that needs to be screened to our children and youth.

This film focuses on boys’ and young men’s struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity. Young children, especially boys, need to feel safe to be themselves and express their emotions without the fear of being bullied, labeled, mocked, or rejected by other children and adults. They must not feel pressured to fit within the problematic binary roles or other rigid frameworks of masculinity our society expects them to claim.

If you need further details of how these programs and agencies implement this model of engaging male allies or men as partners in combating gender violence, I have listed a few of the examples and resources that I have come across and found to be useful (including as teaching resources):

Mentors in Violence Prevention: A program intended to create public awareness about men’s violence against women, challenge how the mainstream society thinks, and initiating community dialogues between men and women to identify long-term tangible options.

Coaching Boys into Men: The only evidence-based prevention program designed to train high school coaches to teach their male athletes healthy relationship skills and that “violence never equals strength.”

Men as Partners: At EngenderHealth, this program includes working with “men to play constructive roles in promoting gender equity and health in their families and communities”. Through their interactive skills -building workshops and enhanced health care facilities among other services, they strive to confront negative stereotypes about being men and provide men with quality care.

Men Can Stop Rape: Works towards mobilizing men for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women through their strengths and sustainable initiatives.

Movement against Sexual Violence: At the University of Illinois at Chicago, I am fortunate to have colleagues who represent and lead the Men against Sexual Violence, now called as the Movement against Sexual Violence. This student group aims to engage and involve people, especially male-identified allies to join in the fight against sexual violence. Through their workshops such as ‘Reimagining Masculinity’ and events, they encourage us to challenge the negative stereotypes and images of gender roles. Although I haven’t got an opportunity to attend these events myself, I am looking forward to being a part of these important and powerful dialogues and community conversations next semester!

Dr. Katz calls out to all men and women to stand up and advocate for changes to end violence against women. He further raises these very critical questions that we all need to think about:

“How can we do something differently? How can we change the practices? How can we change the socialization of boys and the definitions of manhood that lead to these current outcomes? These are the kind of questions that we need to be asking and the kind of work that we need to be doing?”

If you want more ideas for what men can do to prevent gender violence, click here.

Meghna is a doctoral candidate in the Criminology, Law, and Justice program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with a specialization in Gender and Women Studies. She is currently working on her dissertation, which focuses on representations of violence against women in a widely viewed form of Indian popular culture, Bollywood cinema.

Croatia: Map the Violence, Break the Stereotypes

December 10, 2015 By Correspondent

Marinella Matejcic, Croatia, SSH Blog Correspondent

Today, information is everything. The possibilities are endless: by using your computer, you can check the weather in a village behind the seven seas, read about growing carrots in a jar or, in some countries, check what’s the crime ratio in your neighborhood by clicking a couple of icons.

Yes, the last one is the topic of today’s blog post: is it possible to map violence? Sure it is. You just have to know how and where to look for the data.

In the early spring of 2015, a group of volunteers from two organisations – Hollaback Croatia and Code for Croatia – decided to join their forces to produce a website that would deliver information on the numbers of different crimes that happen in the Republic of Croatia. The initiative is aware that there is a strict and proper frame for combating violence in the family or the workplace, but that does not stand for street violence and/or harassment. They’ve recognized the possibilities of technology and wanted to change things. “The initiative works with zero funds and on the entirely voluntarily basis” – Miroslav Schlossberg from Code from Croatia told us.

One of the goals of the project was to raise the transparency of work of the bodies of public and state administration. As Croatia has a good Law on the right to access information and the Ministry of the Interior is open to cooperation, they started collecting information on crimes that occurred in the last five years. Ana Maria Filipovic Grcic, a volunteer from Hollaback Croatia said, that the idea itself was nothing new: similar things already exist in other countries. Per instance, India has the most criminal maps like the Croatian team is developing, except that they’ve already made an app that refreshes the data in real time. After all, India, unfortunately, is one of the countries with highest sexual violence and harassment ratio, and this is one of the ways that the community decided to fight it.

Hollaback! Croatia is already mapping citizen’s personal experience of harassment in public space. The team that develops Croatian application believes that by joining more sources of data (the official ones, from the police, and the data submitted by citizens) they will be able to provide a more reliable service. For that matter, they are collecting the general data, without names and details, just plain facts: when and where, and what the qualification of the crime is from both the Ministry and the citizens. The initiative is interested to find out how often do the particular crimes occur and what is the general safety level of the cities they are collecting the data for.

By mapping and providing the information on the crime rates in the capital of Croatia, Zagreb, and the rest of the country, it would be easier to learn what the real problems are and why is that violence happening after all. With an information sheet like that, it would be possible to conclude what can be done by the municipalities, do prevent the crimes from happening. It is important to highlight that the a map like this would help break the stereotypes on some neighbourhoods’ reputations and to show that the attacks are happening all over the country, and it’s not related to the time of the day and a particular public space.

The biggest part of the project is carried by the expert group Code for Croatia with help from the HollaBack initiative. There are five people on the team, but they are always looking for an extra pair of hands and a source of reliable financing. Mapping the violence is a significant joint project, which is a substantial evidence that, for starters, good will, time and experience really can change the world.

Marinella is a freelance journalist/writer, feminist activist, and soon-to-be administrative law student. She writes for Croatian portal on gender, sex and democracy called Libela.org and covers CEE stories for globalvoicesonline.org. Follow her on Twitter @mmatejci.

Italy: Street Harassment and Gender Stereotypes

December 6, 2015 By Correspondent

Sara Rigon, Italy, SSH Blog Correspondent

You are walking down the street and a man screams at you “hey, you are beautiful, babe”. You ignore him and keep walking. A million thoughts cross your mind: “Oh no, not again”, “Should I thank him so he doesn’t get mad”, “Does he look hostile?”, “Should I cross or walk faster?” etc.

The bottom line is you just want it to be over and with no consequences, so you rarely ask yourself why. It has happened so many times and it will happen again: it feels so pointless to wonder why.

Nonetheless, if we want to put an end to this we should learn from the best and follow Sun Tzu’s art of war rule: know your enemy. So, where does street harassment and violence against women come from? Where does it all start?

Social norms often view violence against women as a private matter and street harassment as women’s responsibility. Basically it is your fault: the way you walk, the clothes you wear, the way you look or don’t look, you are causing the problem: it is you. But it is not, it is a matter of gender and power. As the United Nation Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted by the General Assembly on 20 December 1993, states “[violence against women] is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men”.

In other words gender violence is a matter of gender equality and street harassment is the daily proof that despite of what some people think in 2015 men and women are not equal, not even in the civil and democratic western world. This is when I get the feeling life is like monopoly: we got the “go back 3 spaces” card. Back to gender equality and the question remains: how do you fight historically unequal power? I say we start from stereotypes and prehistoric clichés.

They say stereotypes are not a bad thing, on the contrary they can save your life as they help you categorize the world and quickly make sense of the mass of data that compose your day which will take forever to interpret if taken individually. However I’m not so sure this is always the case as nothing is entirely good (or bad, of course). Clichés and stereotypes about women, for example, are not necessary true and they definitely don’t simplify your life, especially if you belong to that group of people who is believed to be superficial but caring and maternal, good listener and compassionate but also gossipy and bitchy, ornamental and absolutely not good at STEM.

You may have heard of the term STEM, it seems like everyone is talking about it, creating hashtag and launching campaign to increase the number of students in such an innovating field. For those who are not familiar with it, STEM (previously SMET) is an acronym that refers to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

I have never really thought about it, but with all this talking about STEM and the lack of women in STEM education I started reflecting on my relationship with math and science. Did an old and narrow-minded stereotype put me off STEM? That’s not possible, I love science, I am a doctor, after all, and I have plenty of women colleagues. As a recent bmj career article reports that back in 2009 the Royal College of Physicians predicted that by 2017 most doctors would be women. I thought we were doing well, however I was forgetting that medicine is not strictly considered science, but more of an art and doctors artist armed with basic scientific knowledge in medicine.

STEM is more about hard science and so my studying to become a physician doesn’t really count. To be totally honest, I’ve always thought I wasn’t good at math and I’ve never contemplated the idea of pursuing a career in engineering. Now that I think about it, even with good grades in math I’m not so sure I would have enrolled in a STEM program at Uni knowing what the boys in my class thought and said about girls who majored in engineering and mathematics.

Reading the recent L’Oréal Foundation international report on the perception of women in science I can say it is not just me, conscious and unconscious bias and cliché on women in STEM are real and they discourage girls from undertaking a scientific education and ultimately a STEM job and career, the same and old cliché that undermine women and sustain gender inequality. Now more than ever, we know the limiting factor is not women’s brain but culture. Science needs diversity, we need a cultural shift.

Unfortunately, cultural changes are known to be slow and painful, especially when they are lead by grown-ups, in such cases it gets a lot easier if you start from posterity. It is not simple to separate nature from nurture and all different aspect of creating gender role in kids, however studies shows that drawing clear distinction in gender roles plays a role in pushing kids toward a specific career and gender stereotype.

So it’s up to us, to you, to be the change you want to see in the world: enroll your daughters to math camp and football teams, ask Santa to bring your son cooking and baking toys and dancing shoes: this could be the first step to stop street harassment for good.

Sara is a registered General Practitioner in Italy and New Zealand. She is the founder and current lead of the newly established Equally Different group within the European Junior General Practitioners Organization, the Vasco da Gama Movement, branch of the World Organization of Family Doctors. Follow her on Twitter @rgn_sr.

UK: Venues Must Help Make Gigs Safer

November 30, 2015 By Correspondent

Tracey Wise, London, UK, SSH Blog Correspondent

Since establishing Safe Gigs for Women, one of its core aims has been to get venues and festivals on board. Whilst it is clear venues themselves cannot be fully held accountable for the actions of individuals, there are many actions they can take to ensure a better experience for all their customers, male and female alike, and make it clear that such behaviour is not acceptable in their establishment.

Firstly, having been on the receiving end of unwanted attention by a festival security guard, it should go without saying that staff at such events and venues should be the first line in preventing harassment in the first place. They should also be taking reports of harassment seriously and doing everything they reasonably can to assist the complainant. Venues in Boston, USA provide a safe refuge for anyone in trouble at a gig, and this seems like a fairly simple approach. Dedicated members of staff can then engage with anyone with any concerns or needs. This seems a very practical, low cost approach towards safety.

I understand the music industry, live music in particular, cannot exist without the support of alcohol companies. However, isn’t it time this was reframed? Whilst there has been a campaign in the UK to ‘drink responsibly’ and be drink aware, with so much attention surrounding alcohol and its role in sexual assault, is it perhaps not time that am alcohol company came out to state it will be taking proactive action against this? Actually take the initiative and be the first to challenge this head on? And whilst we’re at it… Soft drinks companies, how about lowering the price of your products in venues, in order to contribute towards greater safety and the enjoyment of others? And venues can reinforce this with greater provision of free water, available at any time, to those who need it. Better use of cooling systems in venues would also reduce the instances of people getting drunk and improve safety all round.

Quite early on from establishing safe Gigs for Women, I was approached by a local authority in London, Camden Council, an area well known for its musical history and links to alternative cultures. To enact the above changes we will need support from local authorities, those ultimately responsible for licensing venues. We’ve been lucky to have Camden on our side. But what about venues and authorities not in favour of projects like this?

Then consider this. I am a self-declared music obsessive person. In working with Camden Council, I did some tough sums, and estimated that with the gigs I have attended in Camden alone this year, the cost of tickets, food and drink that I have spent in their local economy is somewhere between £1500 – £1800. When women who have experienced harassment at gigs state that their experiences now stop them going to gigs, venues should consider the effect on them, economically.

Safe Gigs for Women welcomes any venue that wishes to work with us — and thanks Camden Council for its support.

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