“Safety had been a key concept in feminist circles since the ‘70s. All-female events or groups were commonly described as “safe spaces”—insulated from any hint of male violence. Safe could be a slippery word, though, sometimes used to mean less “free of danger” than “comfortable” or “unchallenged”—with the added intimation that anyone who dared to disagree was not just a dissenter but an attacker. Anything that wasn’t to one’s liking, if it could be framed as a political issue, could be described as a threat to one’s safety, and Mary was learning how useful this could be. “I saw how power was gained by talking about being a victim,” she said.”
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Sara Marcus,
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution
