Velociriot!

[Photo credit]

Two Saturday nights ago I ventured into a heterosexual club for the first time in a long time. As a woman in a long-term relationship, I have never been comfortable with the sexual harassment woman have to endure in the nightclub setting. I find nothing sexy about being groped and grabbed by perfect strangers or by being propositioned in the most lewd terms. I am sure I am not alone in this feeling, so how come it has become perfectly acceptable for men to act so overtly sexual as soon we’ve checked our coats? I stopped going to hetero nightclubs for this very reason and I found in my absence the realm of drunken boys hasn’t changed in the slightest.

Don’t get me wrong; I was at the club for my friend’s 21st birthday and the night was, over all, a good time thanks to some very lovely company and a good DJ. After dancing for a solid hour, I went to sit down to rest my aching feet. Whilst I sat I was attacked by a lad who tried to feel me up. When I moved away, shouting at him to leave me alone, he and his friend laughed in my face. I was absolutely terrified. My friends were on the dance floor, so I was alone, cornered by two beefy rugby guys in a town I didn’t know. When did it become funny to assault and traumatize a lone woman? Luckily, in this instance I was able to run off and find my friends; thanks to them, my night wasn’t ruined.

I took to Twitter and Facebook to find if my experience was an isolated incident; unfortunately, it seems to be the norm. One friend said that one time in a nightclub in London, “a bloke pulled down the zipper on the front of my flatmate’s dress down” and then recently in Switzerland that she’d “gone out wearing a strapless top that hooked at the back so I safety pinned it just in case so it wouldn’t get pulled down. An American lad tried and said that [she] was “really sad” because [she'd] assumed someone would try to undo it.” I was horrified at these tales, two separate occasions when strangers have tried to strip women against their will. It is truly disturbing that women should have to arm themselves against sexual advances on a night out and should have to specifically think about their wardrobe in order to stop unwanted attention. I know what some people might say, “why didn’t they just wear a different outfit?” echoing the sexist words of Canadian policeman Michael Sanguinetti who claimed that women should stop dressing “like sluts in order not to be victimised” and promoted the famous slutwalks. Women should be allowed to wear whatever they want without fear of sexual harassment.

Similarly, a friend from Manchester told me that a policeman tried to chat her up whilst in a nightclub: “he started off friendly,” she said, “but I wasn’t interested and so he physically pushed me out of the way and went ‘well you can fuck off then’.” When I asked her how she felt about that she said, “when everyone around you is kind of making light of it and saying ‘ooh, don’t be silly, he’s just messing about and having a laugh,’ you can’t help but start thinking, ‘was it me? Am I being oversensitive?’ I think no.” There was absolutely no excuse for this man’s behaviour. A bruised ego does not account for a verbal and physical attack. In addition, it seemed that when women hadn’t been interested in an advance or  have stuck up for themselves they were called ‘frigid’ or ‘dykes’ or ‘cock teases’.

Another Facebook friend was snogged against her will: “I was backed up against a wall so there wasn’t a whole lot I could do until I decided to hit him.” Whilst I’d never condone violence, it is awful that my friend had to stand up for herself in such a way. A friend from Birmingham spoke of how a lad had come on to her, despite her protests of not being interested as she had a boyfriend; despite this, he still pushed his erection against her leg. She was absolutely disgusted. And these are just a handful of the friends who happened to be online at midnight on a Thursday evening.  Whilst I am not, of course, insinuating that all men in nightclubs act in such a manner (far from it), it is the minority that use the framework of the nightclub as a way of preying on women.

What is truly terrifying is how many woman brush off the harassment as ‘the nightclub experience’. In my first year of university I went out in Manchester with my flatmate; whilst out, a man forced her hands down his trousers. I was absolutely horrified and urged her to report it to staff, but she waved it off despite being angry and explained that was just what happened when people had had a bit to drink. When I reported it to the nightclub staff they had a similar opinion. Ask yourself: if a man slapped your arse, grabbed your boobs or attempted to put his hand up your skirt on the street, would you consider it harassment then? Of course you would. Whenever someone directs sexual contact or remarks towards you that are unwelcome, it is sexual harassment.

What needs to be put into place is a zero tolerance policy from nightclub staff when sexual harassment occurs; throw them out, call the police, bar them from the club. Furthermore, we need to educate the public (particularly women) that should sexual harassment occur, it is not something to brush under the dance floor. I was interested to see if currently in the UK there are any campaigns that target this very issue; I found that in Brixton, Movement for Change created a partnership with local schools, the women’s institute, local youth groups and charities to create The Women’s Safety Charter and successfully got a number of clubs behind the scheme. The charter made the management of nightclubs agree to four important points

1. Prominently display high-visibility posters in venue, which discourage harassment and encourage the reporting of harassment.
2. Publish a ‘zero tolerance’ policy to sexual intimidation, harassment and assault.
3. Implement training for all front of house staff which addresses women’s safety and harassment, using approved Suzy Lamplugh Trust guidance.
4. Send a public letter to the Security Industry Association (SIA), the national body that regulates the private security industry in the UK, setting out the steps the club has taken and asking it to publicly endorse the Women’s Safety Charter.

The work of the women in Movement for Change is deeply refreshing. Rather than pushing for an overhaul when it comes to legislation —  something that is a long and painful process — the organization is pushing towards a change in social imagination. It needs to be made clear that this kind of behaviour is completely intolerable, to both the perpetrators and the victims. No woman should have to suffer in silence or have her night ruined by the ignorance of others.

In addition, the Everyday Sexism Project is currently running a Twitter campaign called #shoutingback, in which woman can regain some of the power they have lost from sexual harassment. Again, like the Movement for Change campaign, the #shoutingback hashtag is about forcing sexual harassers to see that their actions are utterly wrong. I hope that through the actions of these groups, the battle against sexual harassment continues to gain more tract.