“During the 10 hours I was reporting on this story, I was groped 22 times,” writes Vera Papisova in Teen Vogue. Sexual misconduct is a too-common experience for women at music festivals. One survey found that more than 90% of female concertgoers have been harassed at a music festival or show.
“Of the 54 young women who spoke to Teen Vogue for this piece during the weekend-long event,” she continued, “all of them had a story of sexual assault or harassment that occurred this year at Coachella. Many of these accounts reveal patterns of predatory behavior harassers exhibited throughout the festival, and many of the reports I collected sound nearly exactly the same. Here are some of their stories, condensed for clarity.”
“Of course sexual harassment happens here,” said Ana, 19. “It happens to us at all concerts. At Coachella it is so many people that men will get away with touching you, and they think we don’t notice. It happened to me many times already, and I notice every time.”
“…Just the way people touch me when you’re walking through a crowd. Why are you touching me there? We’re trying to have fun and fit in here,” said Reagan, 16. “It’s scary, and you can’t trust the random people around you to help you. And with those bigger men, it’s just harder and it’s scarier to say something to them because they might get angry and violent. Like if you’re not nice, they might hurt you.”
Read the full story on Teen Vogue