‘Safe Spaces’: Experiences of Feminist Women-Only Space

Abstract

The gendered nature of safety has been explored empirically and theoretically as awareness has grown of the pervasive challenges to women's safety. Notions of 'safe space' are frequently invoked in wider feminist environments (particularly, recently, in relation to debates about trans people's access to women's spaces), but are relatively neglected in academia. Indeed, despite a body of scholarship which looks at questions of gender, safety and space, relatively little attention has been paid to exploring the meaning of 'safety' for women and, particularly, the meaning and experience of spaces they consider to be 'safe.' Drawing on focus group data with 30 women who attended a two-day, women-only feminist gathering in the UK, this paper analyses experiences of what they describe as 'safe space' to explore the significance and meaning of 'safety' in their lives. Using their accounts, we distinguish between safe from and safe to, demonstrating that once women are safe from harassment, abuse and misogyny, they feel safe to be cognitively, intellectually and emotionally expressive. We argue that this sense of being 'safe to' denotes fundamental aspects of civic engagement, personhood and freedom.

From Infantilizing to World Making: Safe Spaces and Trigger Warnings on Campus

“…Students reported that safe classrooms allowed them to “learn about others' ideas, perspectives, and thoughts,” and consequently challenged them “to expand their viewpoints and think outside the box” (Holley & Steiner , p. 55). This is in line with research on women‐only spaces, which has found that when women feel “safety from routine risk and disparagement,” they feel sufficient “safety to express one's full personhood” (Lewis et al, , p. 7, emphasis in original). When space is provided that is open to the ideas and experiences of students, they express a broader range of beliefs and ideas and create more challenging academic environments (Holley & Steiner ).…”

“…Their “confessional discourse” enabled women to learn from one another's lived experiences and share freely, safe from the physical and psychological threats of men (Brownmiller, , p. 44). Contemporary women‐only feminist safe spaces are also founded upon this belief that when women come together without the presence of men, they are able to more freely express themselves and engage in meaningful discourse about their experiences (Lewis, Sharp, Remnant, & Redpath, ). Although the students at Brown used their safe space to designate a separate room where students could go for interventions meant to comfort a triggered or otherwise affected student (Shulevitz 2014), most calls for safe spaces in education are not focused on creating separate physical spaces.…”

Sexual violence at live music events: Experiences, responses and prevention

“…In that context it means a place to withdraw to, to organise and to train together. Lewis et al (2015) ( Lewis et al, 2015: 7). The concept of safe spaces is therefore a fundamentally feminist one, which is potentially inhibiting for women.…”

Bursting the Bubble: Spatialising Safety for Privileged Migrant Women in Singapore

“…From a political perspective, “safe spaces” have been used to denote physical spaces where marginalised groups may feel safer to engage and participate in discussions or activities, often particularly in relation to women‐only spaces (Lewis et al. ). Researchers illustrate how these spaces are produced relationally to unsafe spaces, often taking on a symbolic form (Roestone Collective ).…”