Given the array of ways in which feminist criminologists, geographers, philosophers, and social scientists have addressed the experiences and politics of women's bodies in public space over the past quarter of a century, we might ask what there is left to say about women's embodied experiences of public space. Yet issues of social and spatial gendered justice have never been more pertinent in contemporary postindustrialist societies. As the material in this book will demonstrate, despite the fact that sexualised and gendered experiences of public spaces continue to be taken seriously in contemporary discourse, injustices and misogynies also continue to thrive. It is imperative, therefore, that critical analyses of the way women's bodies appear in public spaces remain at the forefront of feminist criminological analysis of social and spatial justice. This book marks an intervention in existing debates about women's bodies, public space and rape culture in order to think through ways in which rape culture – the normalisation of violence against women – might be contested. Transforming rape culture is not easy; the problems outlined in this book cannot be fixed by policy changes or legal reform (alone). They necessitate an overhaul in the way in which bodies think and act in public spaces, including the exclusions that we are all – in part – complicit in enacting. In order to do so, we must consider how these bodies disrupt public space and what can they do to transform it.

Penetrated spaces

In 2012, one unremarkable April morning in London, the following scene unfolds: on his hands and knees, a white man in a white office shirt, dark suit trousers and black shoes and socks wears around his neck a collar that is attached to a pink dog lead. His companion, a white woman, stands a little in front of him. She is also wearing formal-looking office work clothes. Her long dark hair is tied behind her in a plait. She carries what appears to be a cup of coffee in her right hand. The handle of her purple handbag rests on her forearm. In her left hand, she holds the end of the dog lead. Together they stroll, apparently leisurely, through the morning rush hour; the man crawls along the pavement on his hands and knees, and the woman walks upright, a few paces ahead of him.