Shawna Potter — 19 February 2020 on Rocket Shop Radio Hour

Shawna Potter joined guest hosts Mollie Allen and Cadence Gentley on ‘Rocket Shop‘, Big Heavy World’s weekly local Vermont music radio hour on 105.9FM The Radiator. Catch up with her at facebook.com/ShawnaPotterOfficial.

“If you have not experienced harassment that's awesome, I want that for everyone, but just cause it doesn't happen to you doesn’t mean its not real. You might be surprised at what you see on the street if you open yourself to see it. It’s imperative you listen to these stories, and once you recognize it, you can’t unsee it.” 

On Wednesday, February 19th, Big Heavy World welcomed an extra special guest for an exclusive interview. She’s an author, lead-singer of a hard core punk band, War on Women, a cross-stitcher, and an all-around badass. Shawna Potter came all the way up from Baltimore, Maryland for an author’s talk for her book, Making Spaces Safer, held last Tuesday at the Fletcher Free Library and for an interview here at BHW with our interviewers, Cadence and Molly, as well as an interview with VPR. 

Making Spaces Safer is a guidebook for anybody-- “it is meant to help allies and bystanders intervene for anyone of any identity who is being harrassed,” as well as venues and those who work there to recognize and respond to harassment. 

In response to what it was like to write this book, Shawna responds “Hard, it’s hard to write a book. I’m used to writing a few paragraphs for a song.” The book began as a zine, a guidebook of sorts, and then it took a little less than a year to write, “stealing an hour or two every night after work, being exhausted, planning war on women things, doing all these hobbies.” It wasn’t hard for her to think of personal incidents of harassment to write about, whether it happened to her or one of her friends because harassment happens, “At work, walking down the street, in a coffee shop, it happens everywhere.”

Potter began talking about harassment back in 2011 when she started the Baltimore chapter of Hollaback!, a people-powered movement to end harassment. Back then she had a couple of friends, you know “nice” ones, who questioned how she could write blogs about harassment because “it didn’t happen that often.” She realized you just didn’t really get it if it wasn’t happening to you. Flash forward nine years, “there is an onslaught of stories now, especially with the MeToo movement, people are starting to realize these things are real.” About those “friends” she mentioned before, she said she started to tell them about her own experiences with harassment, it was hard for them to hear, but then they start to understand, “oh this is a big deal.” 

“What would you tell your younger self or young women out there?”

She laughs and says, “I don’t know if I would believe future me.” But then more seriously, “You’re not crazy. This is weird. It’s not cool or normal for someone to say these things to you or touch you in the middle of the day. You’re not crazy for being pissed off by it. I used to be embarrassed or scared...but eventually you will find people who understand or believe you.” In her book she has advice for everyone, victims of harassment, bystanders, employees at venues, and even people who want to learn how to flirt without being creepy. So, it’s in everyone’s interest to read this book if you want to learn how to help those around you. 

Her advice to those being harassed who don’t know what exactly to do or say? “There’s a style for everybody and it’s okay if it changes overtime. If you don’t want to say something, delegate, ask someone else to do something about it,” to delegate is one of her 5 D’s of bystander intervention, along with Direct, Distract, Delay, and Document, the last being the final option because it does not help in the moment. Potter also adds that, “you are allowed to walk away or pretend to ignore someone. It’s not a sign of weakness, you just got out of a situation safely.” And her best piece of advice-- “It’s okay to make someone feel uncomfortable by telling them they made you uncomfortable.”

As the internet breeds a whole new realm of trolls who spread hate behind their screens, it’s becomes another place where we are vulnerable to harassment. Potter talks about a resource called Heart Mob, which is connected to Hollaback! but deals solely with online harassment. If you’re dealing with online harassment one thing you could do is, “ask your followers to drown out the hate with love” and if you’re not the original target of the harassment, “counter argue that troll, you’re not going to change their mind but it shows someone else that not everybody agrees with this jerk.” 

Her advice to young women wanting to get into music is simple: “Just do it...let it be messy, let it be bad,” if you want to pursue it full heartedly, then keep working and better your craft... and make sure you have a good drummer. Hopefully all music spaces will read Making Spaces Safer, which was the main intention behind her book, to guide venues to make it as easy as possible for everyone in that space to have a good time, “if they put everything in my book in place, it would be better for the band and for everyone.”

Shawna doesn’t consider herself a badass, at least not all the time. Although someone standing up for injustice and screaming political lyrics immediately qualifies you as one in my book, but since writing this book she’s felt an obligation to respond to harassment to anytime she sees it, “I feel like I owe it to humankind.” For the times she doesn’t feel like a badass she asks herself, “what would the lead singer of War on Women do?” And that usually involves, “standing up for someone or calling out bullshit.”

Making Spaces Safer is available at all libraries across Vermont, at Phoenix Books in Burlington, and online. Read it for yourself and pass it on to your friends--or anyone, the world is better if we are looking out for each other. 

There will also be Vermont state-wide programs around making spaces safer in Bennington, at the Bennington Free Library, on April 23rd and Rutland, at the Rutland Free Library, on June 30th.

Text by Selvi Ulusan

Photo by James Lockridge.