Make Gigs Safe Again: Safe Spaces & the return of Riot Grrrl

Maybe the Beastie Boys were right – you do have to fight for your right to party, even though it may feel like we really shouldn’t have to at all. Amidst all the shocking and disturbing stories of sexual harassment and assault that have been shared over the past year, we’ve also seen an overwhelming outpour of women and men fighting back and deciding they’re not going to take any more shit.

In the music world, an influx of riot grrrl and punk-inspired bands from around the globe have been taking on the status quo and providing a much-needed two fingers up to the patriarchy. Not just in their music, but also in their live shows, musicians have taken a stand against sexism and harassment; and they’re not afraid to call you out for being a dick. 

Just a month ago frontwoman of D.C. punk troupe Priests, Katie Alice Greer, cut the band’s set at The Hague in the Netherlands short, where they were performing at the Crossing Border Festival. Greer walked off stage after being heckled by an audience member yelling “play something we can dance to,” and later addressed the incident on Twitter. “It wasn’t the worst thing anybody’s ever yelled at me on stage but it is the first time somebody yelling made me so tired I just had to call it a night for my own mental well-being,” she stated.

But it’s not just women who are fed up. During his official after-show party at Marquee Sydney recently, the 6 God himself, Drake told a male fan, “If you don’t stop touching girls, I’m gonna come out there and fuck you up” before having the man in question removed from the club. Also, just a few weeks prior, Mercury-nominated rapper Loyle Carner had an audience member removed from his gig at the University of East Anglia in Norwich after he shouted, “you have big tits” at Carner’s female support act, Elisa Imperilee.

Back in October 2015, five teenage girls in the UK created the Girls Against movement, following one of the founding members' experience of sexual harassment at a Peace gig in Glasgow. The movement encourages people to share their experiences of sexual harassment or unwarranted attention at gigs and aims to establish a discussion around the topic, in the hope of introducing a change in the way certain people behave at gigs.

Many bands have got on board and started promoting safe spaces at their gigs, so that their fans are able to enjoy live music without being made to feel uncomfortable or threatened in any way. Several different techniques and approaches have been trialled by bands to assist in solving, or at least reducing, the problem.

Norwegian pop-punk four-piece Sløtface, LA duo Diet Cig and solo artist Adult Mom are just a few musicians who have made a point of establishing safe spaces at their gigs, but others take a more hands-on approach. Speedy Ortiz put up posters at their shows, with a phone number audience members can text anonymously to get in touch with security if they are victim to or witness any form of harassment at one of their shows.

Sløtface’s lead vocalist Haley Shea told us earlier this year that they’ve had to kick people out of their shows for behaving inappropriately towards women in their audiences and she described some of her own experiences of harassment at shows. “I’ve experienced people holding their arms around me and invading my personal space under the pretence that they’re protecting me from other people, which is a completely unwanted thing,” she said.

However, this movement is not something completely new. Sløtface are just one of the new wave of young punk bands influenced by riot grrrl, who discovered the movement through Sini Anderson’s 2013 documentary The Punk Singer, documenting the life of Bikini Kill frontwoman, and riot grrrl pioneer, Kathleen Hanna. Dating back to the 90s, riot grrrl promoted the exact same ideas and now going full circle, their successors continue to fight that battle.

One of the biggest criticisms of safe spaces has been the concern that they could lead to the death of mosh pits, but that completely misses the point of the movement. Safe spaces make gigs an all-round better experience for everyone involved, from the security to the performers to the gig-goers themselves. At its core, this movement is about inclusivity and that means being able to freely thrash around at a gig no matter what your gender and without being pushed, groped or harassed.

Simply put, if everyone could just respect each other and each other's personal space, then this discussion wouldn't even need to be had at all – basically, just don't be a dick.