Claiming the Right to the Park: Teenage Girls, Safety and Belonging in Public Green Spaces

Teenage girls’ use of urban parks is often constrained by safety concerns. Their experiences in these spaces are shaped by multiple, intersecting forms of exclusion, including harassment, the threat of sexual violence, gendered design features, and normative judgments about who belongs there. This paper develops the concept of a right to the park to examine how exclusion operates, and how girls believe it might be challenged. Using Q methodology with 50 girls aged 13 to 18 in West Yorkshire, the study identifies three worldviews on how barriers to this right can be addressed: ‘Change Parks’, emphasising inclusive design and responsive management; ‘Change People’, focusing on shifts in behaviour and social norms; and ‘Change Society’, calling for structural change to gendered power relations. Across these perspectives, exclusion limits girls’ freedom to use, belong in and benefit from parks, and constrains their participation in shaping park space. Conceptually, the paper frames the right to the park as a moral claim to flourishing, belonging and voice in the production and governance of public green spaces. It concludes by outlining implications for inclusive planning and park management that shift safety from an individual burden to a shared public responsibility.