Since the dawn of the #MeToo movement, and even before that, during the golden era of feminist punk, one topic of discussion has ruled the day: many of our coveted spaces to gather and listen to and play punk and metal music are not in fact safe spaces for women, queer folks, people of color, and other marginalized groups. But there hasn’t been a clear guidebook to explain how to shore things up and make these spaces safer: until now.
Shawna Potter, best known for her work as frontwoman of the band War on Women, released Making Spaces Safer: A Guide to Giving Harassment the Boot Wherever You Work, Play, and Gather, out via AK Press. The book came out in 2019, but given the global pandemic that shortly followed, Potter is just now getting out there, doing readings and talks about how to put the work in the book into practice.
“I got my start in activism in, like, 2010, when I started doing anti-street harassment activism and working with Hollaback, which is now known as Right To Be,” she explains. “I did that for years, and then, just as soon as society started to realize, like, ‘Street harassment is bad,’ then people were immediately like, ‘What do you want us to do about it?’ I thought that was great, but I also thought it was rushing it a bit, and I think there’s actually more room to understand it first.”
With these thoughts in mind, Potter began to ask herself the tough questions about how to make spaces safer and created the Safter Space program in order to teach people how to be prepared for someone being harassed in their space, how they should respond and be helpful. She developed a training program, and after doing that for about six or seven years, decided to put all her knowledge into a book.
“There’s only so much I can tell people in an hour and a half, and there are a lot of different ways to make your space more inclusive from the get-go,” she says. “There’s a lot of different ways to respond in the moment, and I just wanted people to be as prepared as possible. So I took my training; I put it in a book, and then I also found the research and statistics for the nerds, and I found the people to share their stories for those who need the personal connection. Some of us need to hear those personal stories, and some people need the hard facts.”
Since doing this, she has received positive feedback. Many times, folks tell her they already use a lot of the techniques in the book, but despite knowing they were doing a good job already, they learned even more from the book than they expected to.
“I love that it’s validating people and the good protocols and decisions that they’re already making, but then I’m still giving them some new ideas, or sharing stories that gave them ideas,” Potter says.
For more on the book and her program, check out Potter’s Patreon to ask questions about safe spaces, and listen to her podcast But Her Lyrics, featuring expert interviews and talks with other feminists and musicians. And best of all, stay tuned for more music from War on Women, out soon.
Check out the video for “White Lies” here:
For more from Shawna Potter, check out her official website.
Photo courtesy of Jessica Mona
