There is growing evidence of the link between attitudes based on gender inequality, and violence against women.(1) These attitudes can also affect how women feel in public spaces, and their perceptions and experiences of safety.

The way men and women experience safety in public spaces can be quite different. Some people also hold certain ideas about the ways that women and men should behave in public spaces in order to stay safe.

When a man is murdered in a pub by a coward punch, men are not told to stop going to pubs. When a woman is murdered walking through a park, women are told to stop going to parks. Women are also told to walk in well-lit areas, to hold keys between their fingers, to make sure no-one is following them and to tell a friend the route they are taking home.

The Award Winning Rise Above the Pack campaign aims to turn this conversation around. Instead of telling women how to keep themselves safe, this campaign focuses on perpetrator behaviour, and questions attitudes and behaviours towards women that are based on gender inequality. Rise Above the Pack profiles a range of men who believe men are responsible for their own behaviour, and engages communities in creating safer and more respectful spaces.