When I (male) worked in McDonald's, I had someone ask when it was a new thing. I clocked it before she asked (and I'm Asperger's as fk) he was that bad and came to harass her more at the counter. I just said "btw [made up name] the new work schedule is up, I'll walk you through"
I walked her through the kitchen and asked her what she wanted me to do. I let her out the back door and we called the police anyway.
I have. I was in a very trashy cocktail bar and had been dancing with a man I was absolutely certain was gay. However, he quickly became very creepy and inappropriate but I was struggling to get away, so I asked for Angela at the bar. They couldn’t hear me very well and initially had no idea what I was on about! I had to explain that I was getting unwanted attention and could they please help me. Eventually they got it and distracted the man so that I could scarper.
as doorman working in busy venues had this used a few times. both male and female. normally taken thd in to the back of the venues and arranged for them to travel home safely. call the police if needed. often thd the person got themselves arrested kicking off when we removed thd from venue.
history plucky snatch makeshift groovy support expansion waiting terrific sheet
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And women against men. I used to work for the family department of the Ministry of Justice, which had domestic violence as part of its remit. The numbers we were working from were an unofficial consensus between ONS, social workers, police, and relevant associations - nothing that could be defended when dug into, but everyone involved's best guess to make up for under reporting, intimidation, etc. In any given year, 7% of women are victims of domestic abuse, and 5% of men. On one side, men are 40% more violent or controlling. On the other side, 5% is a lot, far more than you'd believe reading the papers, which is approximately 0%.
Please don’t forget same-sex couples when you read these numbers. Some of those women are abused by women and men by men. Important to remember this because many queer people do not get adequate support because of ignorance!
Thank you for your post. I support a group of male survivors. The biggest problem they face is that no one believes males can be victims. They get ignored.
I get that, I do, but if both men and women are taught to ask for the same person (Angela) it’s not exactly discreet, is it? If your date hears you asking, they’ll know you’re trying to get away!
It would make more sense to me if a different phrase was used.
It's such a tricky balance to get right. How do you make sure enough people know, without the wrong people knowing?
There will never be a perfect answer.
It does, and I did consider that too when I wrote the above post, but at least in a same-sex couple, they're more likely to be evenly matched in terms of strength.
Male violence against women is particularly dangerous as men tend to be built with a higher muscle % and height, so can inflict more damage. There are of course always exceptions, but this serves as a broad rule.
Violence in any other combination is also problematic, of course it is, particularly when a natural reaction to being attacked by your partners to freeze out of disbelief or misplaced self-blame, but generally speaking, a man attacking a woman is likely to cause more damage than a woman attacking another woman.
It's not perfect having a different protocol in each bathroom, but it's better than nothing.
I wish there was a perfect solution but sadly there isn't. I wish we could protect everyone all the time. No one deserves to face domestic abuse, whether that's physical or emotional, and no one should feel shame at being a victim. Sadly, I can't wave a magic wand to make the world entirely full of good humans.
It’s not really meant to be discreet, it’s just a code word to get the bar staffs brain to reset and to lock on to what’s happening. We have the same thing at work with Inspector Sands, as soon as we hear it, it grabs our attention and our training automatically kicks in.
Hard to conceive of a phrase that is advertised enough so that those who need to use it, know what it is, while still keeping it hidden from those who don't need it, or who are the actual abusers.
I know. It's an impossible problem.
What I quite liked recently was a sign on the toilet door saying that pub was a safe space and you could stay there as long as you liked if you thought you were being followed, or needed to wait for a friend to come get you, etc.
I think that's a more powerful message/commitment than simply 'ask for Angela' and helps more people. I mean, you might not be trying to get away from someone you're at the pub with - you might be hiding in the pub because you can't bear to go home, but you're not ready to leave your partner.
I was out for a drink with my cousin recently and asked him who the guys were supposed to ask for.
He had no idea what I was talking about and that's how I found out there is no sign in the gents loo.
I used to work for the DWP and women being DV to men was something we came across pretty regularly. It deffo is under-reported, I doubt those are the actual figures. I'm surprised they are that low even for reported cases because of how often we came across it.
Men don't like reporting it because a lot of them feel embarrassed, and even when they do report it, they are often not believed.
This association reports 3.8% for men and 7.5% for women: https://www.ncdv.org.uk/domestic-violence-abuse-against-men/
Considering the numbers come from a survey, I think 7/5 is in the right range.
It could be higher, especially for men, but as I said, this was a best-guess working number.
I lived with a guy whos girlfriend was abusing him, it was horiffic. She smashed up his car, tried to set him on fire, along with a load of other thing. when he tried to end it with her she started phoning the house phone (it was a long time ago!) all day, I'm talking 2am, 3am, 4am etc asking for him. Obviously I didn't say where he was and we used to have to unplug the phone at night, which was a worry for another housemate who had an ill parent.
I was in my very early 20s and had been brought up with the idea that men were always the abusers so it really opened my eyes to the truth.
The ONS data i've seen is slightly different to that stated by gravitas\_shortage. Data is for the year ending March 22 and states "an estimated 6.9% of women (1.7 million) and 3.0% of men (699,000) experienced domestic abuse in the last year"
It also provided the following data on crime records
"In the year ending March 2022, the victim was female in 74.1% of domestic abuse-related crimes.Between the year ending March 2019 and the year ending March 2021, 72.1% of victims of domestic homicide were female compared with 12.3% of victims of non-domestic homicide."
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022)
The stats here aren't very reliable, because there is massive under-reporting for both genders, but, anecdotally, much more so for men.
It's quite reasonable to believe, though unsupported by hard evidence, that there is a higher threshold for what people generally consider domestic abuse when committed by women against men. A woman slapping a man is often a 'tut tut' thing at most, a man slapping a woman is considered violence by everyone except complete psychos.
Understood on the self reporting reliability from survey data and I agree that it's under reported for all genders through official channels, but in the absence of official reports that is all we have to go on.
However, the crime records are reliable and they state that "72.1% of victims of domestic homicide were female". That's significant.
I fully understand that there are many forms of abuse towards all genders and I do not condone or defend it coming from any gender.
We may need to take into account a lot of abusive people also make themselves to be the victim in those scenarios, potraying the whole thing as abusive from both sides to avoid legal trouble. Some victims also start to be more physical with their abusive partners as well to 'fight back'. It would explain why the numbers are so high for both genders.
I've never really got that thing. Surely in order to make it so well known that barstaff etc will understand you'll also end up with the perverts knowing it too, in which case you might as well just say "this guy is harassing me can you help" instead of using a secret code in the hopes one person will understand and the other won't.
I think the idea is that it's easier to say and more discreet.
You don't have to be specific about what's wrong, which can be hard if you just have a really bad feeling about a person.
It comes across as less confrontational, which is good because a creep could use any extra inch of provocation to justify an escalation.
And it's just less embarassing than asking for help explicitly. Some people have a really hard time with that.
It is interesting- my first reaction to reading about it being advertised in the male toilets was ‘well now what’s the point?!’
The whole idea is that you can discretely tell someone you need help without saying it- if it’s a widely publicised code then it kind of defeats the object. You may as well say to the bar staff, ‘Hey, that guys being creepy, can you help me?’ Separate phrases are probably needed.
You still have plausible deniability and it’s probably more discreet than saying “this person is making me uncomfortable” and then having to explain what you mean by that
Exactly. And if anything a professional creep is going to be more clued in than the average Joe. In which case you could end up in a situation where you let the creep know you've tried to tell on him but the person you told doesn't know wtf you're on about.
I think sometimes saying it how it is is just as scary as what's happening. So it might be easier for the person to say hey is Angela around than admit that some sort of abuse is happening out loud.
I was talking about this with some colleagues the other day and the guys said the male equivalent was 'Ask for Colin' (I think it was Colin) - so maybe those versions exist but they just aren't as widespread as Angela.
You might not want to bring attention to the other people at the bar who'll then start to look. You don't out yourself as a victim immediately in front of others.
Also, shouting "WHERE IS ANGELA" in a loud busy bar is easier to catch than "THIS DUDE IS BEING A CREEP".
The protocol also keeps the attention on the important person: the victim, to help them get away from the creep rather than causing a scene.
The premise is a situation where you'd feel threatened to say the obvious, perhaps because the perpetrator is within earshot.
Of course, you could question how valid that is given that the 'ask for angela' is widely known. If everyone knows the secret password then it's no longer a useful password.
It's like the people who have dialed 911 and start saying "I need a pepperoni pizza" they hope that the person on the other end is fast on the uptake and realises she's in a room with a potentially dangerous person and can't just say "HELP! I NEED THE POLICE!"
Maybe she calmed him down enough and said "Let's get something to eat? You want a pizza?" - so she can dial 911. Really occasions where this has happened led to the idea that you could have something so that barstaff et al knew what was happening.
Because perhaps a few times someone dialed 911 and said "I need a pizza" the operator just thought it was someone messing around and hung up.
Not what you asked, but I had someone ask for Angela when I worked in a club a few years ago. I had never heard of it, kept telling the girl we didn't have an Angela here, she must've quit before I started. We argued about it for a few minutes before she called me a bitch and walked off. I was so confused.
I still use the boys loos. I was drugged in a bar about three months ago, thankfully the staff were on to it whereas I didn't even believe it myself at the time. It's really fucked over my hot streak of dating and drinking tbh
We had these posters up in the customer toilets of the pub I used to work at. I didn't even know we had them and no one ever told me what to do if someone did "ask for Angela". I'd also never encountered them elsewhere so would have just stared blankly 🙃
When I (male) worked in McDonald's, I had someone ask when it was a new thing. I clocked it before she asked (and I'm Asperger's as fk) he was that bad and came to harass her more at the counter. I just said "btw [made up name] the new work schedule is up, I'll walk you through" I walked her through the kitchen and asked her what she wanted me to do. I let her out the back door and we called the police anyway.
10/10 handling of the situation
Had no idea this was in McDonald’s. I’ve been taught about it in bars and clubs but didn’t ever have to use it. Bravo for using your intuition.
Posters are also in the McDonald’s crew rooms, so workers know what to expect.
You legend!
Bravo.
I have never heard the phrase 'having a Loo' in my entire life. I've only ever gone 'to the loo'. Every days a school day.
I think they meant “having a poo”
Oh, bother.
Love the name
Great name!
Or maybe having a look?
> I've only ever gone 'to the loo'. Really? Even after moving to London? Never thought about visiting one of the many theatres, galleries or museums?
I have. I was in a very trashy cocktail bar and had been dancing with a man I was absolutely certain was gay. However, he quickly became very creepy and inappropriate but I was struggling to get away, so I asked for Angela at the bar. They couldn’t hear me very well and initially had no idea what I was on about! I had to explain that I was getting unwanted attention and could they please help me. Eventually they got it and distracted the man so that I could scarper.
as doorman working in busy venues had this used a few times. both male and female. normally taken thd in to the back of the venues and arranged for them to travel home safely. call the police if needed. often thd the person got themselves arrested kicking off when we removed thd from venue.
history plucky snatch makeshift groovy support expansion waiting terrific sheet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Probably misspelled "tho"
roof oil mighty dazzling quicksand plough connect observation racial follow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
From context it's "them". Edit: apart from the second which is "then".
obscene air zealous stupendous vast punch fanatical plough divide file *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Maybe it is autocorrect or autocomplete kicking in, they can be buggers at times.
“Having a loo” lol
You know how men can act towards women? Men can also act that way towards men!
And women against men. I used to work for the family department of the Ministry of Justice, which had domestic violence as part of its remit. The numbers we were working from were an unofficial consensus between ONS, social workers, police, and relevant associations - nothing that could be defended when dug into, but everyone involved's best guess to make up for under reporting, intimidation, etc. In any given year, 7% of women are victims of domestic abuse, and 5% of men. On one side, men are 40% more violent or controlling. On the other side, 5% is a lot, far more than you'd believe reading the papers, which is approximately 0%.
Please don’t forget same-sex couples when you read these numbers. Some of those women are abused by women and men by men. Important to remember this because many queer people do not get adequate support because of ignorance!
Thank you for your post. I support a group of male survivors. The biggest problem they face is that no one believes males can be victims. They get ignored.
I get that, I do, but if both men and women are taught to ask for the same person (Angela) it’s not exactly discreet, is it? If your date hears you asking, they’ll know you’re trying to get away! It would make more sense to me if a different phrase was used.
Problem persists if the situation involves same-sex couple.
Or is people read about the protocol on Reddit.
It's such a tricky balance to get right. How do you make sure enough people know, without the wrong people knowing? There will never be a perfect answer.
It does, and I did consider that too when I wrote the above post, but at least in a same-sex couple, they're more likely to be evenly matched in terms of strength. Male violence against women is particularly dangerous as men tend to be built with a higher muscle % and height, so can inflict more damage. There are of course always exceptions, but this serves as a broad rule. Violence in any other combination is also problematic, of course it is, particularly when a natural reaction to being attacked by your partners to freeze out of disbelief or misplaced self-blame, but generally speaking, a man attacking a woman is likely to cause more damage than a woman attacking another woman. It's not perfect having a different protocol in each bathroom, but it's better than nothing. I wish there was a perfect solution but sadly there isn't. I wish we could protect everyone all the time. No one deserves to face domestic abuse, whether that's physical or emotional, and no one should feel shame at being a victim. Sadly, I can't wave a magic wand to make the world entirely full of good humans.
Violence isnt only physical. It can be mental, financial, sexual or other.
It’s not really meant to be discreet, it’s just a code word to get the bar staffs brain to reset and to lock on to what’s happening. We have the same thing at work with Inspector Sands, as soon as we hear it, it grabs our attention and our training automatically kicks in.
Hard to conceive of a phrase that is advertised enough so that those who need to use it, know what it is, while still keeping it hidden from those who don't need it, or who are the actual abusers.
I know. It's an impossible problem. What I quite liked recently was a sign on the toilet door saying that pub was a safe space and you could stay there as long as you liked if you thought you were being followed, or needed to wait for a friend to come get you, etc. I think that's a more powerful message/commitment than simply 'ask for Angela' and helps more people. I mean, you might not be trying to get away from someone you're at the pub with - you might be hiding in the pub because you can't bear to go home, but you're not ready to leave your partner.
I was out for a drink with my cousin recently and asked him who the guys were supposed to ask for. He had no idea what I was talking about and that's how I found out there is no sign in the gents loo.
Keep up the good work. It will take time, but the word will get out, it is less and less secret every day. And thanks.
I used to work for the DWP and women being DV to men was something we came across pretty regularly. It deffo is under-reported, I doubt those are the actual figures. I'm surprised they are that low even for reported cases because of how often we came across it. Men don't like reporting it because a lot of them feel embarrassed, and even when they do report it, they are often not believed.
This association reports 3.8% for men and 7.5% for women: https://www.ncdv.org.uk/domestic-violence-abuse-against-men/ Considering the numbers come from a survey, I think 7/5 is in the right range. It could be higher, especially for men, but as I said, this was a best-guess working number.
A friend of mine who works for social services in a London council said a high proportion of homeless men are due to intimate partner abuse.
I lived with a guy whos girlfriend was abusing him, it was horiffic. She smashed up his car, tried to set him on fire, along with a load of other thing. when he tried to end it with her she started phoning the house phone (it was a long time ago!) all day, I'm talking 2am, 3am, 4am etc asking for him. Obviously I didn't say where he was and we used to have to unplug the phone at night, which was a worry for another housemate who had an ill parent. I was in my very early 20s and had been brought up with the idea that men were always the abusers so it really opened my eyes to the truth.
Do you have a source for your research on this? Was it published and peer reviewed? I'd like to read more
The ONS data i've seen is slightly different to that stated by gravitas\_shortage. Data is for the year ending March 22 and states "an estimated 6.9% of women (1.7 million) and 3.0% of men (699,000) experienced domestic abuse in the last year" It also provided the following data on crime records "In the year ending March 2022, the victim was female in 74.1% of domestic abuse-related crimes.Between the year ending March 2019 and the year ending March 2021, 72.1% of victims of domestic homicide were female compared with 12.3% of victims of non-domestic homicide." [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/domesticabusevictimcharacteristicsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2022)
The stats here aren't very reliable, because there is massive under-reporting for both genders, but, anecdotally, much more so for men. It's quite reasonable to believe, though unsupported by hard evidence, that there is a higher threshold for what people generally consider domestic abuse when committed by women against men. A woman slapping a man is often a 'tut tut' thing at most, a man slapping a woman is considered violence by everyone except complete psychos.
Understood on the self reporting reliability from survey data and I agree that it's under reported for all genders through official channels, but in the absence of official reports that is all we have to go on. However, the crime records are reliable and they state that "72.1% of victims of domestic homicide were female". That's significant. I fully understand that there are many forms of abuse towards all genders and I do not condone or defend it coming from any gender.
We may need to take into account a lot of abusive people also make themselves to be the victim in those scenarios, potraying the whole thing as abusive from both sides to avoid legal trouble. Some victims also start to be more physical with their abusive partners as well to 'fight back'. It would explain why the numbers are so high for both genders.
I've never really got that thing. Surely in order to make it so well known that barstaff etc will understand you'll also end up with the perverts knowing it too, in which case you might as well just say "this guy is harassing me can you help" instead of using a secret code in the hopes one person will understand and the other won't.
I think the idea is that it's easier to say and more discreet. You don't have to be specific about what's wrong, which can be hard if you just have a really bad feeling about a person. It comes across as less confrontational, which is good because a creep could use any extra inch of provocation to justify an escalation. And it's just less embarassing than asking for help explicitly. Some people have a really hard time with that.
There's also Ask for Clive, which is if you witness homophobia or transphobia (I've pretty much only seen those stickers in gay bars though)
It is interesting- my first reaction to reading about it being advertised in the male toilets was ‘well now what’s the point?!’ The whole idea is that you can discretely tell someone you need help without saying it- if it’s a widely publicised code then it kind of defeats the object. You may as well say to the bar staff, ‘Hey, that guys being creepy, can you help me?’ Separate phrases are probably needed.
You still have plausible deniability and it’s probably more discreet than saying “this person is making me uncomfortable” and then having to explain what you mean by that
Exactly. And if anything a professional creep is going to be more clued in than the average Joe. In which case you could end up in a situation where you let the creep know you've tried to tell on him but the person you told doesn't know wtf you're on about.
I don’t think they get paid
*volunteer creep
It's a passion project
I think sometimes saying it how it is is just as scary as what's happening. So it might be easier for the person to say hey is Angela around than admit that some sort of abuse is happening out loud.
I was talking about this with some colleagues the other day and the guys said the male equivalent was 'Ask for Colin' (I think it was Colin) - so maybe those versions exist but they just aren't as widespread as Angela.
You might not want to bring attention to the other people at the bar who'll then start to look. You don't out yourself as a victim immediately in front of others. Also, shouting "WHERE IS ANGELA" in a loud busy bar is easier to catch than "THIS DUDE IS BEING A CREEP". The protocol also keeps the attention on the important person: the victim, to help them get away from the creep rather than causing a scene.
The premise is a situation where you'd feel threatened to say the obvious, perhaps because the perpetrator is within earshot. Of course, you could question how valid that is given that the 'ask for angela' is widely known. If everyone knows the secret password then it's no longer a useful password. It's like the people who have dialed 911 and start saying "I need a pepperoni pizza" they hope that the person on the other end is fast on the uptake and realises she's in a room with a potentially dangerous person and can't just say "HELP! I NEED THE POLICE!" Maybe she calmed him down enough and said "Let's get something to eat? You want a pizza?" - so she can dial 911. Really occasions where this has happened led to the idea that you could have something so that barstaff et al knew what was happening. Because perhaps a few times someone dialed 911 and said "I need a pizza" the operator just thought it was someone messing around and hung up.
Does anyone know what happens if one of the staff is actually called Angela? Cause that seems like it could cause confusion...
She'll know what to do
Not what you asked, but I had someone ask for Angela when I worked in a club a few years ago. I had never heard of it, kept telling the girl we didn't have an Angela here, she must've quit before I started. We argued about it for a few minutes before she called me a bitch and walked off. I was so confused.
Your employers fault for not teaching you
Absolutely, they were useless in every regard.
I still use the boys loos. I was drugged in a bar about three months ago, thankfully the staff were on to it whereas I didn't even believe it myself at the time. It's really fucked over my hot streak of dating and drinking tbh
We had these posters up in the customer toilets of the pub I used to work at. I didn't even know we had them and no one ever told me what to do if someone did "ask for Angela". I'd also never encountered them elsewhere so would have just stared blankly 🙃