Introduction

In the autumn of 2011, a wave of mobilisation spread across the United States and beyond to protest growing economic inequality and the loss of democracy to the economic elite. Occupy Wall Street and its many corollary mobilisations inspired the imagination of a new generation of activists, reinvigorated existing activists and networks, and profoundly changed political discourse. The universalising message ‘We are the 99%’ provided a wide discursive base for building a movement. Creating a meaningful and enduring solidarity across social cleavages, however, proved more challenging, and was wrought with both internal and external obstacles. One test to the struggle for solidarity came in the form of allegations of sexualised violence and harassment in the protest camps. Starting in October, the concern was raised in a number of general assemblies and reports began circulating both in the news and on social media sites.

Internally groups grappled with how to respond to the allegations of violence. Some questioned the legitimacy of these claims or dismissed them as a symptom of larger societal ills and not a specific characteristic of the encampments. Others, however, committed themselves to addressing the gendered violence, through direct and indirect action. The varied strategies to construct ‘safe’ or ‘safer’ spaces, however, demonstrated a varied understanding of gendered violence, including who it impacts and the way it might intersect with other forms of oppression.

Complicating this struggle further was the external co-optation of these allegations to discredit the movement and justify eviction. Conservative media outlets seized on the spectre of sexual assault as a means to delegitimise the movement. Politicians later used it to justify the eventual evictions, introducing another form of violence. The co-opting and reframing of internal calls to address the gendered violence placed the movement in the difficult position of simultaneously addressing threats (of interpersonal violence) within the movement while fending off those (including state violence) from outside of it.

This chapter engages with the challenges and strategies for addressing gendered violence in protest camps, by examining the US Occupy encampments. It emphasises the importance of intersectional analysis as a means for better understanding the spatial politics of protest camps and for evaluating the efforts to address gender violence.