This great piece by Susan Schorn, “Fear, Inc.,” published on McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, is worth reading.  While Schorn here focuses on the marketing of emergency preparedness supplies and gadgets–you know, like the ones for the zombie apocalypse–we are reminded of the many who have attempted to market self-defense devices to women simply by harnessing that culture of fear, attempting to make women feel even more afraid of male violence and even more vulnerable than they already do, and then selling them their product based to assuage the fear they just sparked.  Those hairy legs tights never really did take off, did they?

Our favorite is Sarah Haskins’s hilarious video parodying ads for home security systems.

Of course, empowerment-based feminist self-defense might cost some money (instructors do have to be paid), but it’s not about inducing fear or making women feel more vulnerable.  Perhaps some of the resistance to advocating women’s self-defense training has to do with it seeming like too close a cousin to the prepper movement.