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This study is an exploratory analysis of how bar staff perceive their role in preventing sexual harassment and assault. In particular, through qualitative focus group interviews, this study explores bar staff's attitudes surrounding sexual harassment/assault, how they currently handle these situations, and their opinions regarding programs and policies that currently mandate responsibility. Six major themes emerged including their hesitation to discuss sexual violence, their unique position as a service provider, their lack of knowledge (but eagerness to learn), and their reliance on stereotypical scenarios of sexual violence and interventions. These findings are situated in a framework for understanding barriers to bystander intervention and implications for community-based bystander programs are discussed.

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.

This article will use the cultural and media materials produced around the death of Chrissy Amphlett as a way of interrogating the fact that surprisingly few resources exist that document or commemorate the contribution of women to the rock music scene in Australia. As Amphlett is unusual in being a woman who has, even before her death, claimed a place in the Australian rock canon, examining materials that are designed to construct her legacy upon her passing will provide examples of how women in Australian rock are discussed. It will be demonstrated that Amphlett’s gender is central to these discussions, and that she is used to both obscure the contributions of other women performers and to deny a need for women musicians to even be an object of discussion at all. These indings will be analysed using Aleida Assmann’s concepts of functional and storage memory, and it will be argued that the lack of information that we have about past female rockers makes it harder for women in Australia to see this ield as one they can participate in, and also makes the retention of memories about currently successful women musicians less likely.

In this study, we conducted semistructured interviews with N = 20 adolescent sexual assault victims who sought postassault help from the medical and legal system to understand young survivors’ disclosure and help-seeking processes. Results revealed three distinct disclosure patterns and pathways to help-seeking. First, in the voluntary disclosure group, victims told their friends, who encouraged them to tell an adult, who then encouraged—and assisted—the survivors in seeking help. Throughout this process, the survivors’ disclosures at each step were within their control and reflected their choices for how to proceed. Second, in the involuntary disclosure pattern, victims also first disclosed to friends, but then those friends told adults about the assault, against the survivors’ wishes; the adults made the victims seek help, which was also against the survivors’ preferences. Third, in situational disclosures, the survivors were unconscious at the time of the assault, and their friends disclosed and sought help on their behalf. We also examined how these initial disclosure patterns related to victims’ continued engagement with these systems.

Critics and creative workers have recently highlighted the lack of women working in British television comedy. Through thematic analysis of interviews with British television comedy professionals, this article explores how women talk about their work and their position within the industry. Outlining the specific industrial contexts within which female comedy professionals work, the article examines institutionalised gender norms and practical impediments which the interviewees' responses reveal, while also exploring the institutional and personal initiatives which they have developed to address these problems.

Inequality has become essential to understanding contemporary British society and is at the forefront of media, political and practice discussions of the future of the arts in the UK. Whilst there is a wealth of work on traditional areas of inequality, such as those associated with income or gender, the relationship between culture, specifically cultural value, and inequality is comparatively under-researched. The literature review considers inequality and cultural value from two points of view: how cultural value is consumed and how it is produced. The review argues that these two activities are absolutely essential to understanding the relationship between culture and social inequality, but that the two activities have traditionally been considered separately in both academic research and public policy. The review concentrates on the ‘big three’ issues of inequality – race, class and gender, where most of the literature is to be found, but also touches on disability, sexuality and spatial inequality. All of the research reviewed suggests an undeniable connection between cultural value and inequality. Understanding that connection is currently impeded by problems with data. The report suggests the political saliency of this topic means that public policy must do more to provide robust research, particularly about cultural production.

This chapter addresses work ‘segregation’ by sex in the cultural industries. We outline some of the main forms this takes, according to our observations: the high presence of women in marketing and public relations roles; the high numbers of women in production co-ordination and similar roles; the domination of men of more prestigious creative roles; and the domination by men of technical jobs. We then turn to explanation: what gender dynamics drive such patterns of work segregation according to sex? Drawing on interviews, we claim that the following stereotypes or prevailing discourses, concerning the distinctive attributes of women and men, may influence such segregation: that women are more caring, supportive and nurturing; that women are better communicators; that women are ‘better organized’; and that men are more creative because they are less bound by rules.

The Economic and Cultural Value of Live Music in Australia 2014

Work in the cultural and creative fields is marked by stark and growing inequalities relating to gender, class, and race/ethnicity. Yet, the same industries are also characterised by an ethos that celebrates openness, egalitarianism, and meritocracy. This paper explores this paradox, focusing in particular on gender inequalities. It argues that there is a need to move beyond the standard conventional explanations for women's under-representation within the creative workforce, which point to female childbearing and childcare as central. Whilst not disputing the significance of motherhood to women's career trajectories, the paper suggests that the repeated focus on maternity is problematic and may close down other areas of potential investigation and critique. The paper suggests that three alternative foci would repay attention in understanding inequalities in the CCI. First, the new, mobile, subtle, and revitalised forms of sexism in circulation urgently require further examination. Secondly, the power of the dominant post feminist sensibility which, in suggesting that “all the battles have been won,” renders inequality increasingly difficult to voice or speak about, demands critique. Thirdly, the new forms of labouring subjectivity required to survive in the field of cultural work may themselves be contributing to the inequalities in the field, by favouring an entrepreneurial individualistic mode that disavows structural power relations. These three aspects of life in the field of cultural work merit further attention and suggest that gender inequality has a variety of different causes, not all located in women's childbearing abilities. Moreover, the paper argues that the very myth of egalitarianism at work in the CCI may itself be a key mechanism through which inequality is reproduced.

Building on emerging research on ‘gay-friendly’ organizations, this article examines if and how work contexts understood and experienced as ‘gay-friendly’ can be characterized as exhibiting a serious breakdown in heteronormativity. Taking the performing arts as a research setting, one that is often stereotyped as ‘gay-friendly’, and drawing on in-depth interview data with 20 gay male performers in the UK, this article examines how everyday activities and encounters involving drama school educators, casters and peers are shaped by heteronormative standards of gay male sexuality. Adopting a queer theory perspective and connecting with an emergent queer theory literature in organization studies, one concern articulated in this article is that heteronormative constructions of gay male sexualities constrain participants’ access to work; suggesting limits to the abilities and roles gay men possess and are able to play. Another concern is that when gay male sexualities become normalized in performing work contexts, they reinforce organizational heteronormativity and the heterosexual/homosexual binary upon which it relies. This study contributes towards theorizing the heteronormative dynamics of ‘gay-friendly’ places of work, arguing that gay male sexualities are performatively instituted according to localized heteronormativities which reinforce contextually contingent, restrictive heteronormative standards of gay male sexuality which performers are encouraged to embody and perform both professionally and personally.

Background Meeting potential sexual/romantic partners for mutual pleasure is one of the main reasons young adults go to bars. However, not all sexual contacts are positive and consensual, and aggression related to sexual advances is a common experience. Sometimes such aggression is related to misperceptions in making and receiving sexual advances while other times aggression reflects intentional harassment or other sexually aggressive acts. The present study uses objective observational research to assess quantitatively gender of initiators and targets and the extent that sexual aggression involves intentional aggression by the initiator, the nature of responses by targets, and the role of third parties and intoxication. Methods We analyzed 258 aggressive incidents involving sexual advances observed as part of a larger study on aggression in large capacity bars and clubs, using variables collected as part of the original research (gender, intoxication, intent) and variables coded from narrative descriptions (invasiveness, persistence, targets’ responses, role of third parties). Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses were used to account for nesting on incidents in evening and bars. Results 90% of incidents involved male initiators and female targets, with almost all incidents involving intentional or probably intentional aggression. Targets mostly responded nonaggressively, usually using evasion to end the incident. Staff rarely intervened; patron third parties intervened in 21% of incidents, usually to help the target but sometimes to encourage the initiator. Initiators’ level of invasiveness was related to intoxication of the targets but not their own intoxication, suggesting intoxicated women were being targeted. Conclusions Sexual aggression is a major problem in bars often reflecting intentional sexual invasiveness and unwanted persistence rather than misperceptions in sexual advances. Prevention needs to focus on addressing masculinity norms of male patrons and staff that support sexual aggression and better management of the highly sexualized and sexist environments of most bars.

In the Australian audiovisual industries, women are a minority of the personnel in a large number of key creative roles and have considerably lower representation than in the Australian workforce generally. Despite the decline in their participation across several fields, the under-representation of women is not being addressed by these industries. Using findings from current research that includes a major survey of Victorian activity, this article engages with the urgent need for new approaches to thinking about the contribution and innovation of women: culturally, creatively and economically. Benchmarked against the last major study in 1992 (Cox and Laura), pivotal issues examined include barriers to progression, representation by job type and workplace/organizational cultures, along with a consideration of the current successes (relative to other areas) of women in television. Business, cultural and social arguments are made for the importance of gender equity, and an understanding of the contribution and value of women to these industries.

This article considers the role of space, place and identity in influencing gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) young adults’ experiences of unwanted sexual attention in licensed venues. It is argued in this article that the roles of space, place and identity are largely absent from theoretical understandings of sexual violence. Gender-based accounts of sexual violence, while important, are unable to fully account for sexual violence that is perpetrated within and against GLBTIQ communities. Drawing on data obtained through a mixed-methods study, in the first half of the article I establish the manner in which GLBTIQ young adults’ unique relationship with licensed venues appears to mediate the ways in which unwanted sexual attention occurring in these spaces is experienced and understood. The second half of this article is concerned with exploring the intersections between unwanted sexual attention and heterosexist violence and abuse in clubs and pubs. I conclude by considering the implications of these findings for theoretical understandings of sexual violence and unwanted sexual attention.

The term “safe space” dates to the late twentieth century women's movement, but it has since been used in many different contexts. In this paper, we review and analyze historical and contemporary “safe spaces”. These include “separatist” safe spaces in women's, anti-racist, and feminist communities, “inclusive” safe space classrooms, and safe spaces in which (non-human) objects are central. We argue that safe spaces should be understood not through static and acontextual notions of “safe” or “unsafe”, but rather through the relational work of cultivating them. Such an understanding reveals several tendencies. Namely, safe spaces are inherently paradoxical. Cultivating them includes foregrounding social differences and binaries (safe–unsafe, inclusive–exclusive) as well as recognizing the porosity of such binaries. Renegotiating these binaries is necessarily incomplete; a safe space is never completely safe. Even so, we encourage the critical cultivation of safe space as a site for negotiating difference and challenging oppression.

<section class="abstract"><p>This article elaborates on discursive constructions of girls-only settings through the spatial metaphor of a room of one's own, as articulated in round-table discussions among staff and participants from girl-centered music programs in Sweden. The idea of a separate room refers to spaces for collective female empowerment as well as for individual knowledge acquisition and creativity. These spaces are constructed so as to provide the possibility for exploration, subjectivity, and focus, by offering (partial and temporary) escape from competition and control, from a gendered and gendering gaze, and from distraction. Girl-centered programs are also discussed as paradoxical because they function as gender-neutral when seen from the inside, but gender-specific when seen from the outside.</p></section>

Being recognized as a rape survivor has often been interpreted as implying a linear progression from the negative state of victimisation, experienced in the presence of the offender, to a stronger, more positive state, typically facilitated by external support mechanisms. Drawing primarily on interviews conducted with women victimised by New Zealand serial rapist, Malcolm Rewa, this article challenges the concept of a journey 'from victim to survivor' by considering the multiple ways in which these women sought to protect themselves and survive during the attack while also experiencing aspects of their postattack involvement with individuals and agencies as further victimisation. The article concludes by outlining some initial implications regarding what this may mean for professionals working with victim/survivors of sexual violence.

Riot Grrrl, an early-1990s teen feminist movement, adopted punk’s DIY modes of expression to encourage girls to address their shared oppression. The Riot Grrrl Collection, held at New York University’s Fales Library & Special Collections, documents the movement through the personal papers of those who were active in its formative years. This article uses the lens of feminist “safe space” to look at the collection from two perspectives: that of its founder, Lisa Darms, who is senior archivist at Fales, and that of ethnomusicologist Elizabeth Keenan, a scholar who has worked extensively with the collection. The concept of safe space was crucial to the all-girl meetings, dance parties, and bands that formed the foundation of Riot Grrrl. The authors argue that the safe space of Riot Grrrl created an intimate counter-public – that is, a space where girls established a feminist community through shared texts – but one that sometimes worked against its own intentions: boundaries erected for safety sometimes led to exclusion along lines of race, class, or gender identity. The authors extend the idea of safe space to issues of collection building from and within activist communities; to ideas of intimacy and privacy as they play out for donors, for researchers, and in the special collections reading room; and to the tension between the desire for access to activist history versus the requirements of archival preservation. The article examines how iterations of safe space are enacted across the personal papers in the Riot Grrrl archive, through both the materials themselves and their place in the archive.  RÉSUMÉ  Riot Grrrl, un mouvement du début des années 1990 pour adolescentes féministes, s’est inspiré du mouvement punk pour adopter les modes d’expression du « Do it yourself (DIY) », dans le but d’encourager les adolescentes à aborder leur oppression commune. La collection Riot Grrrl, détenue par la Fales Library & Special Collections de l’University New York, documente le mouvement grâce aux documents personnels de celles qui en étaient actives durant ses premières années. Cet article se sert du concept féministe du « lieu sûr » (« safe space ») afin d’examiner la collection à partir de deux perspectives : celle de sa fondatrice, Lisa Darms, qui est archiviste supérieure à Fales, et celle de l’ethnomusicologue Elizabeth Keenan, une spécialiste qui a travaillé en profondeur avec cette collection. Le concept du lieu sûr était crucial pour les adolescentes lors de leurs réunions et soirées dansantes et pour leurs groupes musicaux qui ensemble ont contribué à la fondation de Riot Grrrl. Les auteurs soutiennent que le lieu sûr de Riot Grrrl a créé un « contre-public intime » – c’est-à-dire un espace dans lequel les adolescentes ont pu établir une communauté féministe par l’entremise de textes partagés – mais un contre-public qui opérait parfois contre ses propres intentions : les limites imposées pour délimiter le lieu sûr ont parfois mené vers des exclusions basées sur la race, les classes sociales ou l’identité de genre. Les auteures élargissent le concept du lieu sûr aux questions liées à la création de collections par des communautés militantes et dans ces milieux; aux idées de l’intimité et de la vie privée auxquelles sont confrontés les donateurs et les chercheurs dans la salle de lecture des collections spéciales; et à la tension entre le désir d’avoir accès à l’histoire militante et les besoins liés à la conservation archivistique. Cet article examine comment l’itération du lieu sûr se fait par rapport aux documents personnels des archives Riot Grrrl, tant du côté des documents eux-mêmes que de leur place dans les archives.

This paper examines and reconceptualises transgression in the Leeds extreme metal music subculture through theories of performance, embodiment and spectacle. The spectacle, for Debord (1967), is a social relation that is alienating and mediated by images, visuals, and technology. At a live extreme metal concert fans subvert social norms, challenge gendered expectations, and disregard norms of etiquette and decency. Moshing is the most visible and sensuous example of transgression within the extreme metal scene. It is an aggressive, physically demanding performance which embodies resistance to the impersonal and disillusioning world of the spectacle (Halnon, 2004). The pit is a transgressive space that is itself transgressed by women who participate in this masculine, chaotic space, disrupting the homosocial bonds of male solidarity (Gruzelier, 2007). This paper offers an ethnographic account of a female metal fan participating in the transgressive practice of moshing within the Leeds metal music scene – a moshography.