to think the 'Ask for Angela' pub safety scheme is inherently flawed?

[Sethera]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c789nn3d918o

To be clear, I fully endorse the idea of a safety scheme, it's the methodology of this one I'm questioning.

The idea behind 'Ask for Angela' is that anyone feeling unsafe can discreetly ask for help in a pub, bar or similar - because saying 'is Angela in tonight' or similar sounds as though you are asking after a member of staff, and won't alert your date/companion to the fact you're seeking an escape route.

However, the effectiveness of the scheme depends on bar staff understanding this code, which, as the linked article suggests, more than half of them don't.

This suggests awareness of the code word needs to be increased - but, if it becomes so widely known that you can guarantee all bar staff will understand it, what is the point of having a code word at all? Bar staff are not a separate species; if it's universally recognisable to them, it's going to be universally recognisable to the people who are causing others to feel threatened enough to use it.

If the idea is that you get away from your threatening date to 'ask for Angela' at the bar, where you won't be overheard, why is there a need for a code at all? Why wouldn't people just ask for help?

It would be better to promote the idea that anyone can ask for help in a bar (or similar public place) and receive it - this would not then rely on other people understanding a code, or, indeed, the victim knowing there was a code they could use (if bar staff don't understand it then there's a high chance many victims won't know about it either).

Not flouncing from my own thread but I'm going to be offline for a while - I will catch up as soon as I can.

Thank you for the interesting and thoughtful replies so far, whether in agreement or not with my original point.

I’ve just remembered that one nightclub put posters in the loos that read “Are you Angela?” with an image of two females with outstretched arms about to embrace. The text explained that if you need to shake someone loose, approach a female as though she’s a long-lost friend and ask if she is Angela.

Similarly, if a woman notices someone looking uncomfortable, they can approach and say the same thing. The close proximity of the embrace is an opportunity to say ‘are you ok?’ and to take cues from there.

Most commonly, women need space - time and distance - from unwarranted attention so they can find their friends, order their drinks, dance without interruption etc. It really really isn’t about situations with women escaping through back doors of pubs and running down dark alleyways to encounter other predators, men spread eagle in the middle of a pub while staff wearing Ask For Angela badges hold him down while calling 999.

It’s great that women can ask for help but the Angela bit is badly thought through.

It’s so well known now that surely most abusive men know about the scheme. In face it’s worse than just asking for help outright. Imagine the bar staff don’t recognise the code, then the date does but pretends he doesn’t- putting the woman in a situation where the date knows she’s looking for help so he needs to strike fast. Good sentiment but just awfully thought out.

How about a pen and paper in the ladies so that a woman can easily pass a note across to the bar staff. Or a code unique to each bar?

There should be mandatory training on it and it should be a part of licence conditions. By all means tweak the Ask Angela scheme if there’s evidence that it’s not working optimally. But there needs to be a safeguarding system that’s understood by customers and staff, and mandatory good quality staff training in licensed premises.

Nice idea in theory but it will normalise the behaviour if men think that other men are doing this or the expectation is that they will.
Better messaging would be around keeping women safe. Get the men onside rather than making them into the problem - make them feel like they too can and should intervene if they see a woman being bothered.
I think a lot of this goes on because other men condone it

This just sounds very optimistic, in a sector that's short of staff, pays poorly and often has high turnover, where a lot of the customers are drinking. I can see how it might be desirable, but it isn't very realistic. It can't be assumed that someone who's come into a pub for a few drinks is receptive to being made to understand a safeguarding scheme.

Jesus, its common decency and morals that should overrule wage, taking someone in the back isnt exactly a heavy burden of responsibility.

They can get her away from a date safely and ensure she gets a taxi home. The pub I got to has a poster in the ladies saying to ask for ‘an Angel shot’ all their bar staff know that means you need help to get away from the person with you.

It's not 'code' in the secret sense of the word, but a succinct way of asking for help which might otherwise be difficult to convey.

This nails it. Quite honestly, nearing 50 with a 16 year old DD it makes me so fucking angry that she will have to put up with shit from men (in some ways so little has changed since I was her age) meaning she may need access to a scheme like this. It's flawed but it's a start.

Thanks for this. As an 18-year-old, I would have been well up for assisting another woman in trouble, but I'm old and in my day young people weren't quite so fearful. No wonder so many young people are so anxious. As you say, responding 'Yes, Angela's just back here in the office, come through and see her' is hardly stepping into a knife fight, is it?

Your son sounds absolutely lovely. That situation clearly wasn't handled well at all.

It's still better than nothing and hopefully with more young men like your son about, some of our girls will be safer.

You do know that some predatory men are clever fuckers and and it's not always obvious? And bringing your girl squad on every date isn't practical?

I suspect there are two sorts of pubs: the ones which have signed up to the scheme but don't really do anything about it, and the ones that take it seriously. The latter will have lots of prominent posters. Some of the pubs round me have so many it would be impossible for anyone who works there not to have noticed them!

The way in which any individual bar staff member feels about this is going to depend on the specifics of the situation. Is the person on the bar alone or is another staff member nearby, how big and physically confident are they, does the venue have security, does the staff member also feel physically threatened? When I worked in a pub as a teen I'd have been fine, but then we had extremely large security and I wasn't averse to a scrap myself back then.

It's worth noting that we've already heard from someone in this thread who was heavily involved with schemes like this, and met a number of bar staff who said they'd feel too vulnerable themselves. So it's evidently not a particularly out there viewpoint.

Thanks for posting, that's interesting. Also the points regards warning predatory men and maybe making a few other non predatory men occasionally step up and act to help top.

Again while it may be flawed I think it's an excellent start because let's be honest, hell will freeze over before some (not all obv ) men stop assaulting and their date

Except it is.
Minimum wage. Minimum effort.
And also the level of disruptions and expectations this could open up to is unknown.
This is not the problem of bar staff.

What relative? Does everyone have a safe relative to call?
Same for friends.
And in today's world where men can enter womens bogs as and when they like, it might not be so safe to go in the womens and text for help.

It's an unfortunate and unpalatable fact that low pay and extra responsibility are a bad combination when it comes to getting staff. Especially in jobs with little flexibility. Look at the care sector, TAs etc. What people on MN feel entitled to expect from a minimum wage, possibly quite transient hospitality worker isn't actually the relevant test here. It's whether people are actually willing to do that for the money.

It might be better to have a phone number in the ladies’ toilets that women could text to ask for help - that way the phone could be assigned to the most suitable person in the venue that evening (someone who is willing/ able to deal with the situation) and the woman could specify what she wants to happen.

On most cases I don't get why it's a problem men know this - assuming a woman has approached a staff member at this point she is now away from the potential predator and for other men it's a warning that there are steps to take if they get sinister and to galvanise others into maybe doing something if they observe it, as described by a pp.

They are meant to be in women’s loos but male workers are the rules but then these go on dates themselves and so know the code.

If you go on a date with a cleaner of toilets or anyone working in hospitality, then they’re going to know the code which seems to defeat the point.

I think the idea is great but it is very flawed.

I don’t know but perhaps it’s harder for people to ask for help and say those words, rather than saying a code word.

I know there’s a code word to get free sanitary products or a hot drink in a supermarket because it’s seen as embarrassing to say the words, so maybe this is a similar idea that people are more likely to ask for help if they don’t need to say the words.

I think this would be a very good idea.

A staff member could go into the toilets and check they’re ok and then deal with the situation depending on what’s needed.

It’s much less risky than saying something over a bar, and most men who are controlling or dangerous would not leave their partner to go up to the bar alone but they can’t stop them going into the toilet alone.

We’ve tried the nicey nicey approach, we’ve bent over backwards reassure NAMALT and not to offend the ‘good ones’

and you know what now there’s a bloody shedload of incels whining that they ANLT but women won’t date them and so why not slag them off at best or murder as many as possible

what I’m saying in my post is that males abusing females is already normalised

what we need to do is stand up against it and normalise mutual respect and care

we’ve been running and hiding from their abuse for centuries and change has only really happened when we have stopped running and stood our ground - or advanced forward - like the strikes, protests, marches, organising and agitating for votes, for pay, for rape legislation, for martial rape legislation, forced marriages, fgm etc etc

how many more women and girls lives will be lost to abuse by males while we dance around the poor menz feelings

’good men’ if they really were ‘good’ would be out there marching for us demanding their fellow males stopped abusing women and besmirching the male sex

’good men’ would be demanding the very best of the best investigations into abuse, the most thorough, and well-informed courts and appropriately long sentences - why?

well hopefully bc they would want women not to be abused but also bc atm since the whole process is so woeful ppl rightfully think no smoke without fire and see abusive men everywhere

if the process was robust start to end then an investigation would be more trusted, a court sentence would be more trusted - not 100% maybe but very fucking sure not the tiny less than 4% it currently is

right at this moment in time we cannot even trust police not to rape and murder us - I’m not sure how much more men can do to debase themselves further - us turning a blind eye in case we offend the ‘good ones’ is doing no-one any favours at all

(except the abusers ofc)