Making safe spaces safer: Political activism, therapeutic culture, and the evolution of feminist consciousness-raising, 1968-1988.

Abstract

This article explores one of the origins of the notion of "safe space." Its aims are twofold: First, by using the early history of feminist consciousness-raising (CR) as a lens, it draws out consequential shifts in the methods and rationales for creating and maintaining psychologically safe group environments. Second, by doing so, the essay aims to complicate contemporary debates surrounding the use of safe spaces. The rules we today associate with the establishment of such environments (demanding confidentiality, suspension of judgment) were initially prompted by egalitarian concerns about power imbalances within CR groups. As the method circulated beyond circles of radical feminists in the early 1970s, however, its aims and targets changed, letting it converge with self-help and encounter groups. The reform-oriented National Organization for Women both aided in the wider diffusion of CR while also constricting the practice. As the epistemic aims of CR became deemphasized in the process, such groups now more often took on emotional-supportive functions. Safety concerns, in turn, shifted toward protecting participants from the potential psychological harms of group experiences. These psychological safety measures were subsequently adopted by psychologists and educators, whereas in activist circles, in the 1980s, safe spaces, similarly, became places of refuge from external oppression and internal strife. Making safe spaces safer in this way represented a fundamental shift in how psychological safety within group environments was conceived. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).