As part of Ohio University’s Red Zone training, the Women’s Center hosted the “Your Right to Party” workshop, a glimpse into how to make concerts and club venues safer spaces for women and marginalized groups.
The workshop was led by Rosemary Lucy Hill, a professor at the University of Huddersfield, located in Huddersfield, England. Hill has worked with venues in the U.K. in order to update their sexual violence, harassment and assault policies and help make spaces safer. She joined participants via a Teams meeting Thursday.
The program started with Hill asking participants to recall their favorite and least favorite experiences with concerts and clubbing as well as if they felt safe during those events. From there, she introduced her “healthy music audiences” research, saying she interviewed venues and event planners as well as people who experienced sexual violence at events.
In her presentation, Hill recalled one woman who described being groped at concerts as “the extra price of a ticket” because it happened at every show.
Hill said her research concluded that more venues need to start believing those who come forward and hold perpetrators accountable without the focus of the report turning into a debate over its legitimacy. She said good policies are active with a focus on prevention and supporting victims.
“What we wanted to emphasize was the importance of freedom and fun,” Hill said in her presentation. “You can go to a gig, and you can feel free, and then you will have fun as a consequence of feeling free. Without freedom, fun is much more difficult to experience.”
Hill then presented the website she helped create, Safer Spaces, which teaches and encourages venues how to better policies against sexual violence. This resource includes guidelines for venues in approaching sexual violence and sample safety policies.
Geneva Murray, director of the OU’s Women’s Center, completed her Ph.D. with Hill and was excited to be able to bring her in to speak with students. She said this presentation had been in the works for months.
She said she hoped students will take away an increased awareness when in club and concert spaces.
“I’m hoping for both personal empowerment as allies as well as professional development because we need both of those to really see a marked change in our society,” Murray said.
Em Sapp, a second-year graduate student studying sociology who uses they/them pronouns, attended the workshop and said it helped them understand the discomfort some feel at events.
“From the workshop, I learned about ways that safer spaces in concerts and venues have already been implemented and how to further implement them in more spaces, as well as how other people in the audience may have felt unsafe at concerts,” Sapp said in an email. “That is something that I've experienced from time to time, but having other people talk about it made it seem more real.”
Sapp said they went to concerts frequently pre-pandemic and are heavily involved in the alternative music scene. Despite their commitment to the genre, they, too, have experienced situations where they do not feel welcome.
“As an AFAB nonbinary person, I tend not to go to certain concerts in which I feel the audience would be catered toward men more, even if I'm a fan of that music,” Sapp said in an email.
Lauren Mazzacone, a sophomore studying biological sciences, said she thought teaching venue owners is important, which was signified during the event.
“Girls will feel more comfortable, safer,” Mazzacone said. “Every girl who goes out is like, ‘Can you come out with me?’ or ‘Can someone (that’s) safe walk me home?’ It sucks that we always have to worry about that.”
Murray said the “Your Right to Party” workshop was an important part of the Women’s Center’s commitment to discussing the diversity of experiences for survivors.
“Music is a source of joy for so many of us,” Murray said. “What can we do to make sure that those spaces are still joyful, are still providing what it is that we’re looking for, and that people don’t have to choose between feeling safe and enjoying the music that makes them feel like a whole person?”
Thursday’s workshop is one of several events the Women’s Center is presenting this semester in order to combat the “red zone,” a period at the beginning of the school year when increased sexual violence occurs on campuses. For information about upcoming events, visit the Women’s Center calendar.
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