Sexual Harassment in Clubs is a Big Deal, and Must Be Stopped.

by Jana Roumie 

“I was in the club and I remember this guy just walked up behind me and started feeling my ass, then just walked away so casually. It was so quick, nobody even noticed.” Says Ale Prentice, 21, a Venezuelan student in London. “I was so shocked, it happened so quickly and I felt forced to stay quiet about it.” A recent NUS report shows nightclubs as the prime location for sexual harassment. Many students consider unwelcome touching and grinding as a regular part of their night out. For decades’ woman have been experiencing sexual harassment in night clubs and yet not enough is being done to address the issue. 

Sexual harassment is defined as unwanted sexual interactions including groping, touching and cat-calling, all of which make the victim feel humiliated and extremely uncomfortable. A 2017 YouGov poll found that 72% of young people have witnessed sexual harassment in some form during a night out in pubs, clubs and bars. But, unfortunately, many students don’t feel the need to report it, “honestly I never bother saying anything, because I know it’s not going to make a difference. It happens so much and if I report every single incident, it’ll just ruin my night. It’s sad to say, but it’s the truth.” Says Prentice. 

However, things may be slowly changing. According to a report published by The New York Times, the rise of the #MeToo movement has seen woman gain power in organizations and places where they would normally be jolted by harassers. Bars, clubs, venues and events are beginning to work with serval campaigns to ensure everyone has a safe night out. Bryony Beynon is the Managing Director of The Good Night Out Campaign, a social enterprise based in the U.K: "Our mission is to create a safer nightlife. We believe that nights out should be about people being able to have fun and feel free, not about anyone taking advantage of others and definitely not about fear.” 

Beynon clarifies that this has always been an ongoing issue, but we’re finally talking about it more now. Every time an individual chooses to harass somebody else, they’re making a choice. And if clubs and bar allow these certain behaviours to go unchecked then they’re giving an open invitation for people to escalate that behaviour, “we have to take this outside the context of ‘it’s about alcohol’ or ‘it’s about drunks’ and locate it very much as a choice that some people are making.” 

Club promoters have also been heavily criticised for their sexist and dangerous advertising techniques. The NUS report stated that numerous clubs encouraged harassment and assault through the use of inappropriate images and messages by promoters. “Club promoters body shame woman all the time. It’s happened to me a few times, I’ve been told to dress more provocatively otherwise I wouldn’t be let into the club. It’s unacceptable, why do I need to be half-naked just to get into a club?” says Nathalie Perez, 21, Panamanian student in London. 

The type of harassment that constantly occurs in clubs is just a focused version of the larger social problem. Although sexual harassment can occur anywhere the probability of it happening in a club is much higher as Bryony explains “it’s a social space where people come to together, no different to the way that people need to travel to places. We know that there’s also harassment on buses, tubes and trains. Therefore, I think it's more about the opportunity and proximity people have to each other and the fact that people who want to cross boundaries might choose a pub or a bar as a place to do that.” 

Unfortunately, if you’re a girl who enjoys clubbing, Perez’s encounter will sound disturbingly familiar. She was enjoying her night out with some friends at Scandal, a nightclub in central London when a drunk man approached her “we were in a place where no one could see us, and he started asking if I wanted to have sex with him. I was young at the time and of course, wasn’t interested so I said no. He then grabbed me aggressively and started undressing me. I began yelling as loud as I could and eventually the security guard came and I just ran away without saying anything.” 

Consent is necessary and must be clearly expressed through words and behaviour. It’s important to note that an individual can’t give consent if they’re drunk, under the influence of drugs or unconscious. Prentice stresses the importance of consent as she too shares one of her many traumatizing experiences. "This guy once offered me a drink, I kindly declined as I was looking for my friends but he kept approaching me telling me I owed him a kiss or something. Then he grabbed my face and pulled me towards him and wouldn't let me go and he kept saying I owed him. We were in a secluded part of the club. I was genuinely terrified.”  

We need a complete shift in culture, says Bryony. We must teach the younger generation that harassers will face consequences for their inappropriate and dangerous behaviours. By doing this we begin to shift what many people accept as a normal part of their night out. The cover of a dark setting and foggy memory caused by alcohol consumption grants nightclubs a cloak of concealment and very little responsibility, people who would never otherwise think of touching others now feel like they have the freedom to do so in these environments. 

“It’s about the social norms of people feeling like the rules of life don’t apply when they’re on a night out or that it’s a space where they can do whatever they want. If part of feeling free and doing whatever they want means accessing other people’s bodies, then there’s going to be an issue” says Bryony. Ironically, when a person is harassed multiple times, it becomes a norm that’s accepted by society. People feel as though they must accept things simply because multiple people have done it so that somehow means it’s okay. 

In a night club, it’s more likely that people might be targeted by strangers. People with a predatory behaviour will take advantage of that space to target individuals “Sometimes you’re in a complete state of shock and other times you just get really angry. I was just so annoyed and pissed off that nobody gave a shit or even bothered to do something about it. The bottom line is you just feel uncomfortable with everything.” Says Prentice.

The long-held view that “men will be men” seems to suggest that guys simply can’t help it, when in reality lots of men choose not to behave like that. “A lot of the time when we run training in bars and clubs the men in the room would be horrified to hear about the experiences of their female and LGBT co-workers who are experiencing harassment. And again people just use excuses like ‘oh it’s just part of the industry’ or ‘you’ll just get over it’ and we say that’s really not the case” says Bryony. 

She clarifies that we need to shift the conversation, rather than giving girls advice about what to wear and how to get home safe, we need to be teaching men and boys about things like callings out their friends if they see them behaving badly or stepping in when you see a stranger harassing a woman. “Check yourself, check your boundaries, think about what you're looking for in this night out and how to make sure that anyone you're having a nice time with also continues to have a nice time.”

The Good Night Out campaign has trained more than 2000 people who work in nightlife, mostly staff working behind bars, security teams and individuals who host events. The training they offer consists of creating a community that would respond to all gender-based violence. They’re working to build a safe space for people to discuss their opinions about this issue and maybe have some of those beliefs challenged. 

“We’re interested in sort of getting this information out there as far as possible and making a difference on the ground as well as encourage people to think about what it is to be an active bystander, and how can we, as individuals, can challenge unacceptable behaviours that we might see on a night out,” says Bryony.

The campaign continues to form partnerships with organizations such as DICE and Greater London Authority to ensure they gain expert knowledge from organizations who work in the nightlife industry and at the front line of the sexual violence support sector. By working closely with certain anti-violence associations, they can gain valid information and share it to the public to spread more awareness of this continuous problem. They’re training also teaches staff to take every single allegation seriously, because if one individual has reported something, it’s probably happened to a few other people as well. 

Marianne Cooper gave a super interesting TED talk about sexual harassment and how we can stop it. Click the link below to watch!