Recently found http://www.safercampus.org/ a movement led by students to create change in campus sexual assault policies.

I especially like the section in their free downloadable Guide to Reforming Your Campus Sexual Assault Policy called “Hostile Questions and Answers”.  A great overview of some of the most common questions we all get, the hidden meaning of each, and some useful and not useful responses!

-Katy

This month I saw an amazing performance by New Visions: Alliance to End Violence in Asian/Asian American Communities.  This community-based theater group stages scenes in which a husband is verbally abusing his wife in front of family and friends, and then invites audience members to stop the action, step onto the stage in the role of a secondary character, and speak up.

In one re-play, a man stepped into the role of the abusive husband’s friend and spoke to him earnestly, firmly, and kindly about his behavior.  In another, audience members spoke about the power of the mother-in-law in many southeast Asian families, and their desire to see that character break silence in support of her daughter-in-law.

Placing all the responsibility on the victim for ending violence doesn’t work (although of course many survive and manage to get out even without family support). 

Placing all the responsibility on the perpetrator may be ethically or legally accurate, but it also obscures the roles of those in his family and his community who taught him how to abuse women.

And that brings me to this incredible link.  It’s a self-defense project based in a Nairobi, Kenya community with local instructors.  I was enjoying their page of success and survival stories, when I ran across an amazing testimonial from a mother-in-law (Mary Wangui, third story down) fearlessly protecting her daughter from her son.

Self-defense is not just physical – it’s verbal, emotional, psychological, spiritual.  A lot has to be transformed for most women before they can ever defend themselves physically.  We have to believe that we are worth defending, that defense can work, and that we can live with the consequences of setting and defending our boundaries before we can even imagine taking defensive action.  There’s a saying that change happens in this order:

 #1 Awareness

#2 Acceptance

#3 Action

My favorite advice columnist, Cary Tennis at salon.com, expresses this in a wonderful way in his response to a letter from a woman who describes being sexually harrassed by her boyfriend’s “friends.”

 I especially like the way he refers to our innate will to protect ourselves as a “pure moral reflex”.

On August 31, 2008 two young women successfully defended themselves against attempted abduction here in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Both women were out jogging in a normal, safe, residential neighborhood in a wealthy small town in the Midwest.  The 20 year old fought off a man who jumped out of the bushes.  Later that evening, the same man grabbed a 16 year old and forced her into his van.  She fought back and jumped out.  Both young women probably saved their own lives with brilliant quick thinking, courage, and a fast and forceful response.

Here’s the story in the Ann Arbor news.  May I recommend that you skip the lengthy comments section?  Not surprisingly, the public commentary on these success stories provides a perfect example of victim blaming, hatred of women and girls, and really bad self-defense information.

Lousy Self-Defense Pseudo Tip #1:
Don’t jog at night.

Reality:
The majority of attacks are by men you know, attacking you indoors during daylight hours.  If you’re really concerned about assault and trying to better your odds – you should feel most relaxed outside, alone, at night.

Lousy Self-Defense Pseudo Tip #2:
Females should never be alone.

Reality:
Uhmmm…. What planet are you living on?  No one, male or female, has the option to never be alone!  What is this – the ancient Greek model for protecting women?

These ridiculous suggestions (which seem to always be accompanied by outrage and a false sense of superiority) remind me of a friend of mine in high school.  She’d seen a movie once in which someone drove off a bridge, was trapped in the car by her seatbelt, and drowned.

She never wore a seatbelt again.

The self-defense equivalent is to shout at women “Never go out alone at night!”  It lends a false sense of security at best and at worst tells girls and women that they’re bad for leaving the house and have caused their own attack.

Jogging doesn’t cause rape.
Being alone doesn’t invite abduction.
Women don’t cause men to attack them by flaunting themselves on the sidewalk.

And seatbelts don’t cause traffic fatalities.

The best defense against attacks?  Fight back like they did!

Maybe inspired by the upcoming U.S. election and the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about violence prevention.  Some people are surprised to learn that I’m a committed non-violence and peace activist.  After all, the simplest level of what I teach includes how to kick someone in the head until he’s unconscious. 

OK, so that’s violent!

A meditation teacher helped me to reconcile that incongruence .  I’d shown her a video of one of my IMPACT classes, basically some quite intense, realistic and violent self-defense against attempted assault.  Lots of shouting and kicking and knock-out blows.  I have to admit I was nervous about her reaction; I was eager at the time to be perceived as a spiritual and peaceful person. 

We chatted a bit about karma –  including the long-term negative consequences for those who commit violence.  She pointed out that it’s not doing the perpetrator any favors to allow him to harm you, and that “sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone is to stop him from hurting you”. 

And if that requires you to knock him out, so be it.

And of course the linkage between peace and self-defense is long and deep, here’s a wordy article from the Quaker community detailing the historical use of some of the terms.