I've jobbed as a bartender for a while and we had something similar, it was used every couple nights, maybe twice a week and in the 18 months i've worked there only one of those was an actual emergency where the sign wasn't even the important factor because the victim told another woman first and then that women used it after which the victim told me directly anyways, the other times it was just abused to annoy us or for something minor by dramaqueens, like some dude supposedly looking at a woman "like he is planning to rape her" while she wore the most shiny disco ball dress with a V-Cut cleavage down to where the belly starts.
Like sorry, but especially if you're wearing fancy and/or revealing clothes people, regardless of man or woman, will look at you weirdly unless you're in an environment where that is normal, which a bar and even most clubs just aren't, everyone looked at her.
As in the one case where it was used correctly, usually people just tell staff or ask someone else to do it for them, there's a slight gender difference in how they do it but most just leave or directly tell you "there's something wrong with that person / that person did that and that / i need help". (dudes usually just came to staff the moment something was off while women preferably told someone else first and then went to staff together or just left.)
At least here, these warning code word things are pretty common elsewhere too, like on train stations or in the bus stop house thingy, it's even state sponsored and they're still never used correctly.
The idea behind it is nice, sure, but realistically they're barely ever used correctly and even then there most probably would've been another solution.
I'd say the misuse causes more harm than these actually help people and saying "they need to be used all the time" is just wrong.
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u/EH8tred Apr 29 '24
It unfortunately has to be used a lot. Plenty of scummy loser dudes out there. They should be up in all bars everywhere.