“Safe spaces” is a phrase we hear often, in meetings, strategies, funding bids, and policies. But what does it actually mean for women and girls?
In my experience, the answer is both simple and complex.
On a practical level, the principles are not difficult to understand. Women and girls consistently tell us that safe spaces need:
- Good lighting
- Open, visible environments
- Accessible places where they can go for help if they need it
These are not radical ideas. They are basic considerations, and yet, too often, they are overlooked or treated as secondary.
But safety is not just about physical design. It is about something much harder to define, “a feeling.”
Through the research we have been carrying out, women and girls describe safety as something instinctive. It is the difference between choosing to walk a certain route or avoiding it entirely. It is the decision to take part in sport, or not. It is the quiet calculation that happens every day: Do I feel safe enough to be here?
That feeling applies both indoors and outdoors. A space can look safe on paper but feel unsafe in reality. And when that feeling is missing, it limits freedom.
We see this clearly in the choices women and girls make. Routes are changed. Opportunities are missed. Participation drops. Not because they don’t want to engage, but because they do not feel safe enough to do so.
Safe spaces matter for everyone. But for many women and girls, they are the difference between existing and fully participating in the world around them.
And we must also acknowledge a harder truth: not all unsafe spaces are public.
For many women, home is not a place of safety. Experiences of domestic abuse and coercion mean that the very place that should provide security can instead be a source of fear. For me, this is fundamental to any conversation about women’s wellbeing. If we are serious about creating safe spaces, we cannot ignore what is happening behind closed doors.
This is why our work has focused on listening, really listening, to women and girls about what safety means to them.
We have been working alongside Make Space for Girls and OnSide Youth Zones in particular The Dome Crewe Youth Zone, to explore what both indoor and outdoor safe spaces should contain. These partnerships have reinforced something important: the answers are already there. Women and girls know what they need. The challenge is whether we are willing to act on it.
Creating safe spaces is not about adding a line to a strategy. It is about intentional design, shared responsibility, and ongoing listening.
It requires:
- Professionals to prioritise safety in both planning and delivery
- Communities to work together, not in silos
- Decision-makers to value lived experience as expertise
Because ultimately, safety is not just about infrastructure. It is about dignity, freedom, and the ability to move through the world without fear.
Safe spaces are not “nice to have.” They are essential.
And until women and girls can both be safe and feel safe, our work is not done.