If you Ask for Angela in a pub or club, she probably won't be there
Staff in 13 out 25 London venues, claiming to be part of the Ask for Angela scheme, didn't know how to react when BBC undercover reporters asked for Angela at the bar
SIGH. Can we really keep doing this? When is the penny going to drop that people simply do not care about women’s safety?
If you haven’t already read the damning report, you can do so here. In a nutshell, BBC reporters asked for ‘Angela’, the widely advertised code word initiative launched in 2016 that should alert staff that a customer needs help, in 25 pubs across London (and secretly filmed these interactions). In 13 of those 25 venues, staff didn’t have a clue how to respond or what the code phrase means.
You know what really gets me about this? We uphold our end of the bargain. We are expected to take responsibility for our own safety in a world that simply doesn’t care about violence against women or the deep rooted misogyny that perpetuates it. We share our location with our friends, we avoid walking home alone after dark, we shove our keys in-between our fingers as a weapon, we discreetly plead for help at a bar by asking for Angela and get confused looks from staff who haven’t even been properly trained to help us get out of an unsafe situation. We are doing our part. Why aren’t you?
If more than half of the venues visited by undercover reporters in London weren’t aware of the Ask for Angela scheme that they are signed up to, it doesn’t paint a particularly positive picture for the rest of the UK, either. Initiatives like this one only work if everyone is on board, if the training is there, if staff are continually reminded about the threat that women face in nighttime venues and are given the tools to recognise when a situation doesn’t look or feel right.
Honestly, the fact that we even have to use code words to keep ourselves safe, the fact that this is NORMALISED in our society, is horrifying in itself.
If the scheme isn’t being properly implemented, if it isn’t accompanied by the education that we need to make larger cultural shifts in the way we view violence against women, it’s nothing more than a plaster over a gaping wound.
God, no wonder we are tired. We are so tired of defending ourselves. We are tired of living in a perpetual state of awareness of our own safety, of the deeply problematic and misogynistic views that still dominate casual conversation. On Friday evening, I was walking through our local pub when I overhead a man say the words, ‘well, she’s a dumb blonde, isn’t she?’ followed by raucous laughter from the other men around the table - which abruptly stopped when they saw me walking past. They knew that they probably shouldn’t have said it, but did they do any further interrogation into why that kind of language isn’t OK, and the wider implications it has for the ever-growing levels of violence against women and girls? Probably not.
Violent behaviour against women starts at home, in family and friendship groups, in the playground, around the table at the pub. It grows and spreads and metabolises through the casual daily misogyny that is normalised and accepted as just ‘the way the world works.’ If we don’t call it out earlier, if we don’t stop it in its tracks, not a damn thing will change.
How many more women need to lose their lives at the hands of men who believe that we owe them something, that we exist to please them, before we realise that it’s our collective benevolence towards violence against women that is part of the problem?
I don’t have a way to neatly tie up this post, but maybe that’s the whole point. It’s unfinished, existing in a chasm between the world we deserve to live in, and the world that we are living in right now.
Have you ever had to use the Ask for Angela scheme? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
PS: if you are local to Tunbridge Wells, we’d love to see you on Monday 25th November for the third annual Reclaim the Night walk, a campaign launched by
and myself to reclaim our safety on our streets after dark. All the information can be found on our Instagram page. Reclaim the Night marches happen across the UK every year, so please do check if there’s one happening near you!
Thanks so much for reading x
I saw this report earlier in the week and was stunned. Luckily I've never had to use it, but found the posters comforting when I was out. The fact that the staff were oblivious made me feel sick, and to be honest I'd like some answers or a response as to what they're going to do about it, because it's totally knocked my trust!
I've fortunately never had to ask for Angela, but I often wonder how prepared staff would be. It's surprising there isn't some sort of accreditation for pubs where they have to do regular staff training etc. As you say, further proof they just don't care about women's safety.