First it was a word, then it was a movement, then it was law.
 
Today ‘sexual harassment’ is outlawed under the 2010 Equality Act, which defines it as ‘unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, which … either violates… dignity, or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.’ We hear ‘sexual harassment’ – in stories of the Kevin Spaceys, the David Cuomos, the Harvey Weinsteins of the world. We use the term – in a court of law, in an accusation, in a warning. We see it, hold it, grasp it. ‘Sexual harassment’ forms part of the conceptual map that permits us to navigate the world; the ideas that structure our experience.
 
Consider the time before “sexual harassment” existed as a defined concept. To do so is strange. It’s an unlearning; analogous to thinking your way back to being a child, with a child’s  contrived naiveite. You have to place yourself in an impoverished conceptual landscape; imagining people having the experiences that we group under sexual harassment and not consider them as a single entity. You have to unsee the link; erase the map.
 
Yet there was a time when this was the case, when no one grouped those experiences together. “Sexual harassment” (qua concept) did not exist before April 1975. After April 1975, in an employment tribunal against Cornell University, Carmita Woods found a term to articulate the constant unwanted touching of her supervisor that had prompted her resignation. She described it in a court case as ‘sexual harassment’. The concept came into existence.
 
The effect of this was dramatic. In the New York Times, Farley (who testified at the same hearing as Carmita) describes how ‘it felt as if the term had the potential to change everything’, how “women could share stories and strategies. They understood that they weren't alone, that millions of working women shared their experience. It was as if a light had been turned on in a dark room."
 
Kant defined a concept as a ‘general representation, a representation that is possible of a plurality of things.’ Fundamentally, what a concept does is group things. It unifies the disparate, bringing them under a common, overarching branch. In the case of ‘sexual harassment’, the words of Carmita Woods brought structure, a link between the thousands of individual incidents of groping, leering, touching, rubbing, jeering that populated women’s experience. It planted them together, on the conceptual map.
 
What happens when you bring experiences together in this way? You move from something ephemeral, a fleeting series of individual incidents; to something tangible, a reoccurring pattern that made itself known in the weight it put on the shoulders of women who just wanted to work unhindered. You make it a structure, something that people can fight against. Something is there, the problem made recognisable such that individuals can take steps to combat it. In the case of ‘sexual harassment’, a group – Working Women United – was formed, ‘Speak Out’ events began, and Catherine MacKinnon helped flesh the concept out into something that could sustain the weight of law. Due to her ‘Sexual Harassment of Working Women’ (1979), ‘sexual harassment’ became sufficiently articulated to be brought under Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act.
 
Sexual harassment went from an idea that did not exist, to something that carried a prison sentence.
 
That is an enormous change.
 
The story of Carmita Woods can be taken in two ways. On the one hand, it inspires. It attests to the power of a single individual, a single protest, single phrase; it shows the butterfly effects, the chains of events we have the power to set in motion.
 
On the other, we may well find the story of Carmita Woods terrifying. For it leads us to question whether or not we are as impoverished as those in March 1975. We ask, what concepts are we missing out on? We ask a question that is unanswerable. We cannot articulate the extent of our conceptual deprivation without breathing life and coming up with the very concepts we suspect that we lack. It is the same reason someone could not have predicted the invention of democracy, the wheel or human rights. To have predicted it is akin to having invented it, so innovation is thought to be intrinsically unpredictable. As a result, we do not know how blind we are, and we will not until those concepts are created. Our blindness is something that is shown to us retrospectively. We do not know what progress we are failing to make.
 
There are two reasons to warrant us believing that our blindness is extensive, and the progress we are omitting enormous. The first comes from an unlikely source – computer chips. It is not entirely true that we cannot predict innovation. Although we cannot predict the form of innovation – the specific concepts and ideas that come about – we can predict the rate – the speed at which we think new concepts arise. This is shown by Moore’s Law. In 1965, the American engineers Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years. He extrapolated from historical data about the rate of scientific invention to draw conclusions about future progress. He could not predict how this innovation would occur, only that it would.
 
We can see the same in feminism. When women make a concerted effort to discuss and draw awareness to aspects of their experience – be that in consciousness-raising groups, or Caitlin Moran’s one-woman crusade to enrich our language – the number of different terms and ideas they come up with is vast. Even in the past few years words – gaslight, mansplain, incel – have allowed new behaviours to be identified, pointed out and tackled. Feminism’s own ‘Moore’s Law’ would suggest that, given sufficient attention, the richness of our vocabulary can increase at an astonishing rate.

The second reason I believe there is so much progress to be made is a little more personal. Over a year ago, I wrote a Facebook post. In it, I put a numbered list, where I detailed exactly what had happened on a night out. I acknowledged that, of the words at my disposal, ‘rape’ seemed to best describe what had happened. But I also accepted that it wasn’t a perfect fit. I was using the best of the language that I had available to me, but in trying to come up with the words that could encapsulate the remainder – the gaps that had led to my experience not quite measuring up correctly to what appeared to be the enormous word that is ‘rape’ – I was left with (rather lamely) with the phrase ‘something wrong’. What I was trying to say was whether or not you felt what had happened to me deserved the name rape, you had to recognise that there was a concept missing to describe the ‘something wrong’ I had experienced.
 
I’d done very little. I’d vaguely gestured at a concept that needed to come into being. There was no depth, no structure, no concerted effort to pin down what this concept was. Yet the response I received was enormous. 13 girls told me they had reconsidered or re-evaluated some experience that had happened to them – had gone and looked for help after reading what I’d written. These girls had realised that the existence of a gap between their experience and our classical conception of what rape is didn’t disqualify their experience from being something wrong, something worth discussing and addressing. It remains the thing I am – by far - most proud of.
 
I have many hopes for WYA Writes. I hope it becomes a place where we draw attention to an app that stops these experiences from happening and helps with the bringing about of practical change of WYA. I hope it is a place where people experience catharsis, where they can write to process their experiences, where they can heal. But I also hope that it allows people to interrogate, explore, create and – ultimately – enrich our conceptual landscape. I hope it allows us all to become Carmita Wood’s; to develop language to bring about change.
 

Where You At is a new free app that allows you to track lost friends in nightclubs, even when there is no signal available. It comes in response to the continuing threat on women’s safety posed by spiking, sexual assault, and scant safety procedures to handle such situations. Where You At offers a pragmatic response to the issue by handing control to the night goers themselves.

The app has two female co-founders, university students, Tamzin Lent and Olivia Leigh and aims to be launched imminently. It comes at a time of great urgency as we continue to read harrowing stories of spiking including the latest threat of spiking via needle injection. It reflects universally felt trepidations experienced by women out at night. The problem is loud and those at Where You At are listening.
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The app will provide users with a clear map of theirs and their friends location on entry, allowing users to track and find each other when necessary. The aim is for both venues and app users to work in partnership. Where You At does not rely on cellular connection to work but harnesses Bluetooth to enable precise tracking for friends connected on the app. This will seriously change the way club goers experience nightlife. The use of Bluetooth will give piece of mind where guarantee of stable internet connection cannot be secured. Where You At will be a reliable safe word for groups of friends.

The principal feature of the app is its SOS button which sends out a precise time and location alert to your friends if threatened or in danger. This can provide essential information to police if necessary. Furthermore, SOS alerts can be sent directly to venues to alert staff to unsafe areas on site which they can work to improve. This will also be important for clubs who will be given the opportunity to improve their customers experience.

Trials for the app launch will begin in Oxford and Cambridge with hopes to expand into London and eventually nationwide. COI Lauren Levine hopes that Where You At will become so integral that people won’t consider going to a venue if they aren’t on the app.

The app comes at a critical time in nightlife history. Reports of women being spiked via needle injection are still trickling through the media and action must be taken. Where You At
understands the mutual need for safety and fun. Treating women’s safety as a priority should not contradict with the right for women to enjoy themselves on a night out. Therefore, instead of ordering gender lock down or offering restrictive advice, Where You At offers women a reclamation of the night, and the autonomy to have a good time.

There are currently huge legal gaps in prosecuting against cases of spiking. This is because spiking currently has no registered crime code. Police do not consider it as a stand-alone crime and so it is not reported unless connected to a report of theft or sexual assault. Where You At want to bridge this gap between experience and the legal system erasing these traumatic experiences. WYA have launched a survey in conjunction with the NTIA to document these experiences.

The work at Where You At will not be isolated to its app, founders hope to open the door to further, crucial discussions. Their website, Where You At Writes, will be a forum for everything and anything on the topic. Delicate conversations about fear, vulnerability and sexual assault have been far too long shackled to shame, treated with a sense of inquisition and suspicion. Where You At will lift the lid on these salient conversations, smoothing the edges of all that speculation and stigma that so often proceeds these honest conversations.

In discussing her own experiences with sexual assault, Lauren, co-founder of Where You At also emphasises the importance of these discussions in evoking better language to describe this topic. She sees gaps in our language as repressing true articulation of experience and thinks this something we must also address. WYA Writes hope to play a crucial role in achieving this.
Where You At will be of paramount important to young women especially. Spiking and nightclubs seem like scary places right now. The development of WYA is a sign of better things to come and shows how women can come together to fight back against these issues.

Get ready with her.
“This skirt is cute” she thinks as she puts it on. It would go really well with that top she bought last week. And maybe those boot heels. Slicking back her hair, she thinks of what a great night this will be. She applies bold eyeliner, red lipstick and some blush. She looks pretty. She’s ready. Let’s go. 
Go to the party with her. 
She arrives with a friend. They have decided to split a bottle of wine tonight. They aren’t getting too drunk, they have school tomorrow. They are amongst friends. And friends of friends. They forget that last part. Glass number two is poured and she needs the toilet. Leaving her glass on the side, out of harms way, she makes her way there. Her friend comes with her. When she is finished, she goes back to the kitchen to get her glass. It looks untouched. She sips. The last thing she remembers is sitting in a room with a boy. She doesn’t know why or how or who.  She doesn’t remember what happened. All she knows is that she got a feeling, a bad one, and got up and left. She didn’t tell anyone she had left. Her phone had died. No one knew where she was. Something must have happened in that room to make her leave. But she doesn’t remember. She can’t. She somehow got home. Somehow.

Fast forward. 
Get ready with her. 
Tonight, she thinks, she’ll wear a mini skirt. No, says the voice in her head. No? Maybe a longer skirt? Better not, just in case. She decides she will just wear her trousers. She was going to wear her cami top but it might be too much skin. She is only going out for a bit, she thinks, so she. Will just wear her hoodie. Should she wear lipstick? Not red, she knows that, but maybe just a pop of colour. No? Okay. She’ll leave her hair down this time. “Could you walk me to my car?” No? Don’t worry about it. She can just carry her keys between her fingers. Where’s her rape alarm, she thinks. She’ll just go grab it. She won’t need her earphones, she thinks as she takes them out of her pocket. Which route did she take yesterday again? She had better change it up a bit tonight. Why is that man looking at her? Maybe she should cross the road. Head up, look confident, walk with purpose, unlock her car quickly. Lock. Phew.

Go to the club with her. 
She got to the club with her friend, where a bubbly, kind man greeted them. They went inside, thrilled by the lights and music. Sitting down at the table their first drink was poured as they watched. The kind man gave them their drink, the two of them cheers and their night begins. This is the first drink, but not the last. Drink numbers two and three fly by but by drink number four she notices something. The kind man is pouring another girl a drink and, while he pours, he slips some white powder in. Her heart sinks. Shots are served and she throws them over her shoulder. Drinks are served and she pours little bits out while no one is watching. She doesn’t want to look like she’s not drinking, it might make the kind man angry. She doesn’t want to see the kind man angry. As she does this, she starts to feel ‘weird’. She somehow got home. Somehow. She sits by the toilet, throwing up and crying. She can’t remember the rest of the night. She can only remember the man.

She did everything right. She is exhausted.

These are real stories, from real women. Ask around and you will find many more.

The feeling of gaps in the memory is not a comfortable one. Trying your hardest to remember what happened in that room with that boy, what made you leave, is not comfortable. Trying to forget the kind man’s face is not comfortable. You, as the reader, should not be comfortable.​

The past week has unearthed the rising and ever-frightening risk of being drugged to the media. The concept of losing your physical (and potentially mental) capacities involuntarily through someone lacing your drink is uncomfortable. But this is worse. We are taught to cover our drinks, never leave them unattended, always watch the bartender pour it. But what happens when lacing turns into injecting? What happens when we can’t cover all of our skin? What happens then? Girls are scared.

So far, cases of spiking via injections in Nottingham, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Liverpool are under investigation. These all occurred in night clubs. There is debate among professionals regarding the likelihood that these girls were actually injected with a substance, due to the fact that the needle would most likely have been painful on entry. However, the cases are being dealt with seriously, we are told. The girls all have very similar accounts of the night. The female victims all recall a scratching sensation on their skin at the point of the needle’s supposed entry. Then, blackout. The next thing they remember is waking up.

Girls are scared.
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Students have rallied together in solidarity against this epidemic. Two girls from University of Edinburgh founded Girls Night In, a page that was initially created to incite traction around the issue of spiking and to encourage the sharing of related stories. Since the spiking this week, the page has accumulated 3.5K followers and provoked a nationwide University boycott of clubs. This is not in retaliation against clubs, but rather to rally clubs together to take the matter seriously, as well as the police. An example of a positive reaction is Bristol’s Lizard Lounge, who have vowed to put up signs about spiking, what to do if spiked, and the consequences of spiking, as well as considering buying drinks covers as a preventative measure. Tektu in Birmingham have been quick to order 1500 plastic cups with lids, too. Round of applause. Girls Night In, if adopted by enough Universities, will certainly have a lasting impact on clubs. University students are one of very few cohorts with the capacity and rigour to make such an impact in such a short time. When clubs see that students are capable of a national boycott, they will have no choice but to do better. When clubs realise that students have the determination to do it again if not listened to, they will have no choice but to do their best.

Circulating are suggestions to clubs on how to do just this. Bouncers and staff must have had training on how to help a victim of spiking. They must also be able to spot the signs of assault. Bouncers and staff must, at the forefront of their responsibilities, work to keep women safe. This means walking them to their friend or calling them a cab, not kicking them to the curb. Bouncers should, in every instance, remove the assaulter not the victim. Throwing the victim out puts them in a more vulnerable position. Bouncers should keep a record of any assaulter and report them to the correct channel for the offence. Ask Angela, or a venue’s tailored version, must be in all bathrooms. Preventative posters explaining the legal repercussions of spiking someone should be in all bathrooms. CCTV footage should be thoroughly screened on report of an assault. Bags and persons should be rigorously searched on entry to the club. All clubs should have a complaint form on their website with an option to report a spiking at the venue. Venue should increase staff on nights where spiking is unusually high. Sober Marshalls should be positioned throughout the club to help in the case of spiking or situations where spiking looks likely. This is not an exhaustive list. This is only what students have come up with this week.

The moral here is not a happy one. The moral is that we have to be more vigilant than ever. If you do go out, stay aware, look after your friends, and know the signs (below). In this same breath, I’d like to add that we should still all have fun. Such a heavy article can leave you feeling disheartened at all of the atrocious happenings, but as long as you have fun safely there is nothing stopping you! Don’t let the assaulters win. If Girls Night In appeals to you, and I hope it does, join them in their boycott in your city. If you have suggestions about what bouncers could be doing better, share them on your platform.

The more voices the better.​