Out of all your friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances, what percentage have had meaningful self-defense training? And by meaningful I mean training that gave them lots of physical practice, in a wide range of defense scenarios, and left them feeling stronger and more capable. 10%? Less?

In my personal experience, most of us will answer “None” or less than 5%. But if you ask that same group of people – I can guarantee you that more than 5% of them have worried about being assaulted. In fact, it’s not unusual for women to experience some fear of being attacked on a daily or weekly basis. And of course the actual risk of facing assault is quite significant, here’s just one link to some pretty overwhelming statistics.

So why haven’t we all taken a self-defense class? Why isn’t personal safety training mandatory for every grade school, middle school, high school, and college curriculum? Why don’t employers offer it like they offer health care packages, parking passes, and credit union membership? Why are we often taught to swim, sew, cook, hunt, drive and balance a checkbook – but not taught how to protect ourselves? I think the answers to these questions are complicated, and I promise not to write you a 1,000 page treatise as my first blog entry!

Here’s one explanation: Self-Defense is to Sexual Assault what Breast Self-Exam is to Breast Cancer. Regularly examining your breasts for lumps or changes is one of the best defenses you have against breast cancer. This simple action helps detect the disease early, when it’s most treatable. BSE protects us from breast cancer.

In an analogous way, meaningful self-defense training protects you against sexual assault. It’s a positive, proactive step to take, and greatly decreases the likelihood that you’ll be victimized or that an assault will progress past the initial attempt. Because it makes me feel bad. The whole time I’m doing it, I’m thinking about cancer. Or worrying that I’m doing it wrong. Who wants to think about breast cancer? I can think of at least a hundred things I’d rather think about at any given moment. So I don’t do it. And I rob myself of the action that could actually protect me.

So I have a lot of compassion for people who don’t sign up for self-defense training. Who wants to spend an afternoon, or a month, or a year thinking about the possibility of being assaulted, maybe even sexually? Even worse, who wants to think about their children being attacked? But if you could rape-proof your daughter, would you? What would it be worth to you? Who else do you care about? How uncomfortable or uncertain would you be willing to be, in order to provide meaningful protection to someone you love? To yourself? OK, I’m off to go raise my arms in front of a mirror now.