Memo to the RAD Instructional Team re: Susan B. Anthony Poster
April 25, 2017
To: RAD Instructional Team From: I. D. Claire, RAD Instructional Team Re: Misfire with that Self-Defense Training Poster
Well folks, the votes are in. People on campus–especially the feminists!–have been complaining about our poster that promotes RAD self-defense classes with the Susan B. Anthony quote, “Woman must not depend upon the protection of a man, but must be taught to protect herself.”
I told the development team to get someone hotter, and preferably nonwhite, on that poster. But you didn’t listen. Sure, most of what passes for “rape prevention” on our campus is victim services and an attempt to get victims to report offenders. It’s up to us to promote the importance of self-defense training on campus. We sure as hell know the sexual assault prevention office and the women’s center aren’t going to do it. And the CDC still doesn’t want to embrace the data on the effectiveness of self-defense. We also know RAD self-defense classes play a special role in offering something that is truly preventative, and empowering to boot.
We want people to realize that self-defense is in line with feminism, not against it. How did Susan B. Anthony take us off message here? Time for a gut check. Susan B. Anthony is not hot. And she is associated with white feminism– in a time when we all have the vote already. (Post-feminism, anyone?) Plus, that old gal had no birth control so in order to stay free and have a lifelong career as a public speaker and feminist activist, she never got with a man. That sends the wrong message in today’s era of birth control and hooking up.
They’re also saying our poster promotes victim blaming. Certainly college campuses display posters that say if you don’t lock your dorm doors then you almost deserve to have your laptop stolen, and people don’t go hollering to the Dean of Students that this message is victim-blaming. Maybe the campus feminists are just looking for a reason to dismiss self-defense. Still, could we do more?
Let’s be sure our posters show images of women fending off known assailants in the most likely ways. No more street scenes where the money shot is the woman getting the thug in a headlock. We’re teaching boundary setting, verbal self-defense and, when those fail, physical resistance tactics. dare, can you turn that into a graphic? Ditto: the most likely places we teach women they’ll defend themselves– their dorm room, on a couch, floor, or bed, at a party, &etc. Rhyanna, for now, change the image of Susan B. Anthony to bell hooks (a young bell hooks!!). Find a quote that captures feminism being pro-self-defense, but also pro-sex, pro-drinking, pro-choice, and pro-football. Jessica, for a longer-term strategy, look through recent issues of Cosmo and Glamour for current celebrities who might have said something great about kicking ass. Maybe Beyoncé.
Feminist Juijitsu
There were no courses called “Feminist Juijitsu” when we were in college. But if you’re a student at the College of Charleston you can enroll in just such a class.
We learned that incoming frosh who sign up for the course sometimes think it’s about “feminist juijitsu” in the figurative sense. We enjoy imagining what this version of “feminist juijitsu” might be:
“I got my health insurance to cover the cost of my birth control pills after telling them my menstrual cramps were a health condition… feminist juijitsu!” or perhaps, “I went out on a date with three boys and never once paid for my own bourbon… feminist juijitsu!”
But, all joking aside, when students enroll in the Feminist Juijitsu course, they are learning feminist juijitsu in the literal sense. Students actually learn how to wrap their legs around an opponent who has climbed atop them, and squeeze the opponent’s neck with thei
r clenched thighs and locked lower legs. They also study scholarship about gender and violence in our society, and research on the prevalence and prevention of interpersonal violence.
There are two courses taught as complementary components by Amy Langville, John Venable, and Kristi Brian. (The three instructors are pictured here practicing the moves they teach their students.) The first-year students take a First Year Experience course doing readings and assignments in a regular classroom along with a physical course practicing combat moves in the juijitsu tradition.
According to Urban Dictionary, juijitsu means “the practice of gentleness”. Somehow, we like the idea that the feminist practice of gentleness involves putting a sexual predator in a headlock.
See Jane Fight Back 
Recent Comments