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Women and Girls’ Safety in Parks

  • Writer: Isabel Rennie
    Isabel Rennie
  • May 17, 2023
  • 3 min read

I went to the University of Leeds School of Law’s Women and Girls’ Safety in Parks: Lessons from Research and Practice on 10th and 11th May, and I came away feeling informed, illuminated, saddened and surprised by the research findings – particularly about the numbers of women and girls who feel parks are unsafe, especially in the day time.


I grew up in the countryside, so I didn’t really make use of public parks until I went to university - and then I had a positive association with them as my degree focused on creating positive greenspaces for others, so they were a source of inspiration and creativity rather than a reality of feeling unsafe.




Key facts:

  • 25% of women felt unsafe in the daytime in a park.

  • 93% of women felt unsafe at nighttime in a park.

  • Sexual harassment in public spaces is a routine part of daily life, which affects 71% of women in the UK, rising to 86% of 18-24-year-olds.

  • The valuation of a visit to a park is £7 benefit per visit for Physical Health and £13 per visit for Mental Health.


Girls don’t feel like they have anything to do in parks, and that public spaces are not designed with them in mind. Girls feel that parks are unsafe, and offer nothing for them, yet these issues are seldom acknowledged, never mind addressed.


“Facilities provided in parks ‘for teenagers’ are almost universally dominated by teenage boys. Teenage girls have nowhere to go and nothing to do.”


Make space for girls - Make Space for Girls Research


70% of teenage girls want to exercise, but not feeling safe is a key barrier which stops girls using parks, and also affects their activity levels when they are there. An increasing amount of research demonstrates what an important influence this has.


Safety isn’t just something which teenage girls worry about; often adults see parks and public spaces as dangerous spaces for girls and so forbid them from going there or move them on.


Girls, as one academic described it, are seen as being the ‘wrong’ gender in the ‘wrong’ space. Tucker and Matthews, 2001


Teenage girls also interpret safety much more widely than adults do. To them, it means more than not being attacked, it also includes not being judged or disapproved of or stared at.

Shaikly and Lira, 2022


This feeling contributes to their absence from parks and other spaces – compared with boys, girls are more likely to give ‘other people make me feel uncomfortable’ as something which stopped them spending more time outside.

Natural England 2022


In engagement work with Year 9 girls In South East England the subject of being judged in public space came up repeatedly, while research in Yorkshire revealed that 37% of girls feeling judged for hanging around in parks, compared to 25% of boys.

LSE Cities / Countryside, 2022


Some of my key takeaways from the event that I feel the Landscape Profession can consider in design work and improve the way we do things are:


  • Design Parks with women and girls in mind so they feel safer – Women said they will feel safer if they saw more women in parks

o Visibility and Lighting design

o Better maintenance

o Signage and Wayfinding

o Clear access points


  • What teenage girls want to see in parks:

o Social movable seating

o Swings for teenagers

o Shelters

o Smaller areas with different features

o MUGAs with multiple access points


  • Encourage more Women into the Landscape Profession – 14% of the Built Environment Workforce are Women.

  • Can we make stakeholder consultation part of our LI/RIBA work stages as essential standard practice?



FURTHER INFORMATION - Community Engagement and Events:


Friends of Rowntree Park, York – Make Space for Girls

The WOW Barn Festival, Leeds

  • 4-hour barn build by 300 women and non-binary people. The entire site will be transformed into a festival full of talks, skills workshops, food, music and more.

  • https://leeds2023.co.uk/the-wow-barn

Queen Elizabeth Park, London Legacy Development Corporation

Empower, Wakefield

  • A 8-week programme of FREE activities seeking to empower and build the confidence of women and girls to use parks and green spaces across the Wakefield district.

LSE Cities



 
 
 

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