Unwanted Sexual Attention in the Night-Time Economy: Behaviors, Safety Strategies, and Conceptualizing “Feisty Femininity”

• DOI: 10.1177/1557085119865027
• Date: 01 January 2020
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085119865027

Feminist Criminology

2020, Vol. 15(1) 24 –46

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085119865027

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Article

Unwanted Sexual Attention

in the Night-Time Economy:

Behaviors, Safety Strategies,

and Conceptualizing “Feisty

Femininity”

Clare Gunby1, Anna Carline1, Stuart Taylor2,

and Helena Gosling2

Abstract

Almost nothing is known about “unwanted sexual attention” and women’s navigation

of it when in bars and nightclubs. Using focus group discussions, this article addresses

that gap. It develops knowledge of the behaviors that constitute unwanted, the safety

strategies used to manage them, and examines how these practices underpin gender

performance in night-time spaces: environments renowned for the dilemmas they

pose to women. We then use these data to develop the concept “feisty femininity”

to highlight a neglected form of femininity that overtly resists unwanted encounters.

This femininity can arguably play a role in efforts aimed at ending gendered violence.

Keywords

unwanted sexual attention, Night-Time Economy, safety, resistance, feisty femininity,

gender performance

Sexual comments, groping, and other unwanted encounters are key features of the

time 18- to 29-year-olds spend in licensed venues (Christmas & Seymour, 2014).1

Although “unwanted sexual attention” (Fileborn, 2012) has received recognition

within Australian (Fileborn, 2012, 2016) and North American contexts (Graham,

Bernards, Abbey, Dumas, & Wells, 2017; Kavanaugh, 2013; Snow, Robinson, &

McCall, 1991), it remains practically unexamined within the United Kingdom and

1University of Leicester, UK

2Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Corresponding Author:

Clare Gunby, Department of Criminology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7QA, UK.

Email: cg227@le.ac.uk

865027FCXXXX10.1177/1557085119865027Feminist CriminologyGunby et al.

research-article2019

Gunby et al. 25

wider international literature (see Nicholls, 2018, as an exception). While work has

examined women’s perceptions of safety when in the Night-Time Economy (NTE;

Brooks, 2011, 2014; Sheard, 2011), this has centered on fears around drink spiking and

rape, despite unwanted touching and harassment being more pervasive (Beynon,

McVeigh, McVeigh, Leavey, & Bellis, 2008; Graham et al., 2017).

Although the frequency of unwanted sexual attention is being documented in

England (Christmas & Seymour, 2014; Drinkaware, 2016), almost nothing is known

about how incidents are perceived, the point at which they become unwanted, and how

they are negotiated and struggled with. This article fills that gap, drawing on focus

group discussions with 31 women students who used NTE spaces in Liverpool,

England, to do so. In the article, we ask: What form does unwanted sexual attention in

youth-oriented NTE venues take? What strategies do women employ to manage it, and

how do the behaviors associated with those responses contribute toward performances

of femininity that are contradictory and dilemmatic (Griffin, Szmigin, Bengry-Howell,

Hackley, & Mistral, 2012)? We also ask whether, within the restrictive NTE regime,

there is scope for women to resist unwanted encounters and do gendered drinking

differently.

In answering these questions, we generate original knowledge around the contours

and scope of unwanted sexual attention. We then use these data to advance theoretical

understanding of gender performance in night-time spaces. Here, we develop the con-

cept of “feisty femininity” to highlight an overtly resistant form of femininity that

exists within the NTE, but which has not yet been categorized. We maintain that feisty

femininity will have a role to play in efforts aimed at eradicating gendered violence,

with university institutions being well situated to nurture its expression.

Although men are not immune to unwanted attention (Drinkaware, 2016), research

indicates that when women are the perpetrators, men are less likely to describe those

behaviors as “unpleasant” (Christmas & Seymour, 2014, p. 10). While such responses

may be influenced by performances of heteromasculinity, and we acknowledge the

need to understand men’s experiences further (and are developing work to do so), this

article focuses solely on women’s unwanted encounters, at the hands of men. We begin

by defining “unwanted sexual attention” before outlining the difficulties women face

when doing gender (West & Zimmerman, 1987) in drinking spaces. We then examine

the literature on unwanted sexual behaviors in bars and nightclubs to locate the current

study and center our research questions.

Defining Unwanted Sexual Attention

We adopt Fileborn’s (2012) definition of unwanted sexual attention to mean “any

unwanted advances or behavior that participants interpreted as being sexual in nature

and intent” (p. 244). This definition is wide enough to capture experiences considered

harmful and threatening but which may not meet legal definitions of sexual offenses

(Kelly, 1988). For example, in England and Wales, unwanted sexual attention may

amount to a sexual assault but only if it involves nonconsensual sexual touching of the

body and/or clothing (see Section 3, Sexual Offences Act 2003). This would include, for