The UNSAFE Movement

​Project Inspiration
​“We have historically thought of safety as simply being free from physical abuse, free from sexual abuse, free from emotional abuse, and free from neglect. This type of safety is a critical first step on the road to being well. But, we need to broaden our definition of safety to also include this concept of feeling safe; a concept that we call psychological safety.”
- Jeanne Preisler

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Project Description
​If you’ve ever studied psychology, you’ve probably heard of humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow is most popularly known for his development of the hierarchical needs triangle. This hierarchy suggests that human beings must fulfill their most basic needs before they can fulfill others.

Physiological needs such as food, water, warmth, and rest are some of our most basic human needs. Also included in the basic needs level of the triangle are safety and security. Although Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is one of the best-known theories of motivation and has been around since 1943, we have yet to grant equal opportunity of the first two levels of needs to a majority of the world’s population. In this project, I chose to focus on the ideas of security and safety, physically and psychologically, and how we might decrease the gender gap in safety on Michigan State’s campus by making visible the places where women feel unsafe.