This Fan Girl, a platform powered by female football fans, has teamed up with a number of Manchester venues to ensure safer spaces for women to watch the World Cup.
Altrincham’s Libero, Oxford Road’s The Grafton Arms and Cheetham Hill’s Derby Brewery Arms have all signed up for the This Fan Girl charter. The charter shares the group’s experiences of being female fans and provides recommendations for small things pubs can do to improve the feeling of safety in their venues.
The charter is informed by female fans and it aims to help pubs:
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Understand and acknowledge our lived experiences
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Gain clarity on 10 things they can do, and why
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Provides some simple examples of how these could be carried out
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Help ensure their spaces are open to all fans
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Act as a small step toward breaking down toxic football culture
Any venue signed up to the charter is added to the This Fan Girl pub finder.
Research from the charity End Violence Against Women states that 1 in 2 women already feel unsafe going out a night, given that most of this tournament’s games will be starting/finishing during the hours of darkness, TFG want to ensure female fans feel they have a safe space to watch games.
TFG founder Amy Drucquer said: “We started This Fan Girl meet-ups in 2017 because of how intimidating it felt to walk into a pub as a woman. In 2022 the need to create a space where female fans feel safe to watch football still remains just as necessary.
“With past meetups, we felt like we were always able to create an inclusive and safe atmosphere on the ground in the particular pub we were in – but what about the other 47k+ pubs in the country? To effect more change, we knew we had to think bigger. This tournament, we hope our This Fan Girl Pub Charter will allow as many pubs as possible to create meaningful change for female fans in their venue, and a legacy for all fans in public spaces.”
For more information about the work of This Fan Girl, head over to their website.
- Words:
- Bradley Lengden
- Published on:
- Fri 18 Nov 2022
