An Open Letter to the NPR Weekend Edition Staff and the Parents of College Students You Misled
Dear NPR Weekend Edition Staff and the Parents of College Students You Misled:
The August 24 program “Weekend Edition” produced a story on how some universities are “tackling sexual assault before parties start”, which underscores how important it is for parents, as well as colleges and universities, to prepare students in advance, and to remind them of the risk while offering them strategies to reduce it. This broadcast featured a clip of a conversation between a father of an incoming University of New Hampshire student, who is a doctor, and his daughter, “Kelly”. When Kelly asks her father specifically for advice (“What should I know about consent and assault and rape?”), Dad offers Kelly the following advice:
- Anticipate a situation before you get into it
- Always travel with friends
- Have a planned list of activities, night and day
- Avoid isolation
- Avoid substances
Kelly feels better, and Kelly’s Dad, who is clearly educated, informed, and appropriately concerned about his daughter’s safety and well-being, has done his job. And yet, what has she been told, really? Don’t ever be alone, don’t ever drink or use drugs, and keep yourself on a preset busy schedule. In other (vague) words, avoid, curtail, limit, distract, and then hope for the best. She might as well live at home and take all her courses online.
The take-home message of that list of rape avoidance strategies — inadvertently offered, perhaps, but communicated nonetheless — is that once danger is imminent, the outcome is a given. If one’s avoidance measures fail, there is no advice provided, implying that women do not have the option of fighting back.
And yet research has shown that girls and women are capable of safely and effectively resisting rape and sexual assault. Self-defense training is one critical way to teach, and allow for the practice of, active and clear strategies for things you can say and do in a potentially dangerous situation, where someone is trying to rape or assault you. And the research tells us that these strategies make women feel safer, make them more empowered to set and assert their boundaries in a range of situations – including social and dating situations – and can effectively prevent an assault or a rape from occurring.
So NPR and parents, please have these conversations, and please include not only a guy’s legal obligation not to attack but a gal’s legal right to defend herself. Here’s our script for daughters:
If someone tries to rape or assault you, one thing you need to know is that you have the right to protect yourself – verbally or physically. You have the right to tell someone that what they are saying to you, how they are touching you, is not what you want, is not okay, is a crime; you have the right to yell and scream and call for help and make a scene to attract the attention of someone who might be able to help you. And you also have the right to physically resist – by pushing, shoving, hitting, kicking, with any part of your body that you can use – hands, elbows, hips, knees, feet – and against any part of their body – testicles, face, abdomen, arms, legs. And, you need to know these are all things you can do, and have the right to do, but that if you are in danger, we trust you to make the best decision for yourself that is going to keep you feeling as safe in the moment as possible. And that means that while we want you to know that it is okay for you to do these things, it doesn’t mean you have to or you should. You do what’s best for you, and we will love and trust and support you, no matter what.
Not that anyone asked, but here’s our script for sons:
If you want to do something physically intimate with someone, tell them and ask them. If the person you’re with has been drinking or using drugs, consider them incapable of offering meaningful consent and move on. If the person is reasonably sober and makes it explicitly clear that the desires are mutual, great. Do not assume you can pick up signals or hints. Do not ever attempt to impose yourself or your will onto another person. It’s neither sexy nor legal. Don’t treat anyone as an “easy lay.” If you don’t understand these principles, you just might get your ass kicked.
That’s the way to tackle sexual assault before the party starts.
Sincerely,
Jill Cermele and Martha McCaughey
The Top Five Things You Need to Know Before Heading Off to College
As we head into August, the internet is bursting with advice for the college student. As college professors, we certainly want students to come to college prepared, and given the news coverage over the last few months about sexual assault on college campuses, we thought, surely, that information about the risk of sexual assault and how to protect oneself, particularly for first-year college women in the first few weeks of the semester, would make it onto these lists. (Actually, we thought no such thing, but we were hoping, optimistic feminists that we are.)
Sadly, though, we found nary a list that even mentioned assault, let alone one that suggested that the young woman heading off to college might need to know of the risks and therefore offered her valuable information about effective ways to defend herself should someone try to rape or assault her.
But no. What we found, instead, were suggestions about how to confront the problems of packing, laundry, and the Freshman 5/10/15.
So it’s not that we don’t think that it can be hard to know what to pack when you’re leaving home for 4 months; we certainly encourage you to figure out how to operate a washing machine, and healthy nutrition is always a plus. In fact, as professors, we’d also encourage you to read your syllabus, do your homework, and proofread your papers.
However, what we really want you to know is that if you are a young woman in college, the risk of someone raping or sexually assaulting you, or trying to, is high; the data (you’re going to hear a lot about data in college, so get used to it) from a lot of different sources says that anywhere from 1 in 5 women to 1 in 3 women will be raped or sexually assaulted during her college years.
What we also want you to know is that there are things you can do to protect yourself.
We trust you’ll figure out what to bring, how to set up your room, and how to declare a major, so we’re not going to give you any advice on how to do that. Instead, here are (drumroll please)….
THE TOP FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RAPE OR SEXUAL ASSAULT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES:
- RAPISTS ARE NOT ALL STRANGERS. Statistically, a person who tries to rape you is going to be someone you know, and quite possibly someone you know and like – a friend, a date, a partner. So it is important to be aware of the people you know, not just your surroundings, and to pay attention to how you feel when you are around the people you know. Go with your gut, and trust your instincts.
- ALCOHOL IS TRICKY. Alcohol is implicated in an enormous number of rapes on college campuses, and here’s what we know about drinking alcohol: intoxication can impair your judgment, slow your reflexes, and leave you more vulnerable to dangerous people and situations. Yep, there are criminals (yes, rape and attempted rape are CRIMES) that will try to get you drunk in order to more easily commit an assault against you. Know this: being intoxicated does NOT, we repeat, NOT, mean you are responsible for someone trying to rape you. No matter what. However, for a variety of reasons – health, safety, GPA, avoiding the Freshman 5/10/15 – we recommend drinking legally and responsibility, knowing your limits around alcohol and other drugs, and being aware of the risks associated with drinking.
- YOU ARE ENTITLED TO HAVE AND SET BOUNDARIES. You – not your date, your roommate, your friends, your family, your professors – YOU get to decide what is safe, comfortable, and desirable for yourself, and those get to get to be different for different people, or different at different times for the same person. And no one has the right to push or override those. NO ONE. And what that means is this: YOU GET TO SAY NO. And we know how hard “no” can be to say. Lots of people, but women and girls in particular, often have trouble saying “no” (“NO!”) because they are worried about appearing mean, rude, hurtful, or (gasp) bitchy. And as college professors, with over 40 years teaching experience between us, we’re telling you it’s okay to say no, and in fact, it’s okay even if someone thinks you’re mean, rude, hurtful, or (gasp) bitchy. Here’s our best advice to anyone who tells you otherwise: Fuck ‘em. (You may quote us on that.)
- THERE ARE THINGS YOU CAN SAY AND DO TO STOP SOMEONE FROM RAPING YOU. You may have heard a lot of (perhaps) well-intentioned but (in our humble, data-informed) opinion, stupid advice on this point that says the opposite, like: Don’t fight back, it won’t work, you’ll get hurt, you’ll make him mad, you’ll make things worse…. In fact, here’s what we know from the data (are you tired of hearing us say “data” at this point? Too bad.):
- YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIST. Self-defense is a human right, and those aren’t just pretty words. You have the legal right to defend yourself, and that means against a rapist, too. And it gets even better – keep reading:
- RESISTANCE CAN WORK. Resistance means a lot of things: walking with confidence, telling someone not to touch you, pushing or shoving someone away from you, kneeing someone in the testicles (“Most incapacitating pain EVER,” our male friends tell us), and more. Fighting back – verbally or physically – against a potential rape or sexual assault makes it LESS likely that the perpetrator will be successful and MORE likely that the perpetrator will fail. Self-defense can work, even if a perpetrator is male, is larger, is stronger; you can use it to prevent or thwart an assault from happening.
- MORE IS MORE. Stronger levels of resistance – both verbal and physical – make it MORE likely that the perpetrator will fail.
- YOU CAN’T TRUST LAW AND ORDER SVU AS YOUR SOURCE OF INFORMATION FOR ANYTHING. (We know this seems off-topic, but just hear us out.) And we say this as huge Law and Order SVU fans, but here’s the sad truth – they just make shit up*. And one of the things they say that’s not true, which you’ve probably heard before, is that fighting back is a bad idea because you’re more likely to get hurt. Just not true in most cases – in most cases, there are no difference in injury rates between women who resist and women who can’t or don’t.
- YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO IF SOMEONE TRIES TO RAPE OR ASSAULT YOU. One of the things that happens when we talk about self-defense is that people say things like, “When you tell women they can fight back, aren’t you telling them it’s their fault if they are raped?”, to which we say, “No, of COURSE NOT!” (Then we roll our eyes and mutter to ourselves because we’re really tired of hearing that.) We want women to know what their options are; we are not telling women what they should and shouldn’t do. Every person and every situation is different, and we trust women to make the best decisions they can for themselves in any given moment. Self-defense is an option, and if you know all your options, you can better make the best choice for yourself to stay as safe as you can in any situation – whatever that choice may be. We trust you.
So that should cover it. College is wonderful, and we want you to be as prepared for it as possible. This is the best and most important advice we have for you. Aside from that, we trust you to figure it out. Although we do think it’s important to tell you that if you overcook microwave popcorn, it will stink up your entire dorm for a week.
Go get ‘em!
Professor Jill and Professor Martha
*If any producers or writers for Law and Order SVU are readings this blog, the authors are totally available for consultation on scripts and dialogue. Totally.
AN OPEN LETTER TO CAMPUS RAPE PREVENTION EDUCATORS ADOPTING THE BYSTANDER INTERVENTION MODEL
Dear Campus Rape Prevention Educators Adopting the Bystander Intervention Model:
The White House tapped the University of New Hampshire’s bystander intervention program, Prevention Innovations, as a model for sexual assault prevention at the national level. Chances are you have or are adopting that comprehensive bystander intervention program or one very similar to it. UNH’s program trains individuals not only to identify dangerous or potentially dangerous situations, but how to intervene actively and safely. A second leg of that program is a social marketing campaign, which includes posters, bus wraps, and buttons that show realistic situations and potential bystander responses.
This social marketing campaign centers on a “Know Your Power®” theme. This community-mobilization approach enlists men as allies in the struggle to stop rape by telling them how powerful they are. Similar to the old campaign that placed in men’s restroom urinals stickers that read, “You’re holding the power to stop rape in your hands,” the “Know Your Power” campaign tells men they have the power not to rape.
And to rape. That’s right; implied in the message to men – and to women– that men have the power to stop rape (presumably by other men) is the message to men – and to women – that men also have the power to rape if they want to or if no bystander intervenes.
Women apparently can train as bystanders alongside men, and thus, at least in theory, have the power to intervene as a bystander in select situations and in particular ways. Sadly, though, nothing in these campaign materials suggests that there is anything the woman targeted for assault can do, in the moment, to stop the assault.
And that’s simply not true. Women are, and can be, enormously powerful. Resisting sexual assault is a viable option. It can work. It does work. Women can do it, men can do it, kids can do it. Of equal importance, women gain a sense of empowerment when learning self-defense. We want to emphasize that the research shows that women need to know their power. Women have the power (and the legal right) to fight back.
Of course, stressing self-defense is never a reason to let men or society or the university off the hook for ending rape culture. Indeed, if more men thought more of their campus coeds knew how to break their arm, we’re pretty sure they wouldn’t feel off the hook.
And would it really be so offensive or too radical to tell women to know the power they have? So far, though, colleges are telling men to know their power and telling women to know their nines (as in Title IX of the Educational Equity Act).
Can we guarantee that self-defense will work for every person in every situation? Of course not. Nor can bystander intervention programs make that claim, and as far as we can tell, no one asks that those programs do. We teach swimming even though some people will still drown, we recommend the flu shot even though some people will still get flu, we tell people not to smoke even though some people will still get lung cancer….you get the idea.
But it does work, and we should also be telling those stories. Sexual assault awareness and prevention materials must include stories of thwarted assaults, not just completed ones. If our stories consist exclusively of bystanders saving victims, we teach everyone that once an assault is in progress (because not all bystanders will intervene, and not every assault has a bystander), there is nothing that can be done to stop it. And that’s not necessarily or always true.
Hence, we recommend that all campuses offer self-defense training as an option and, importantly, that colleges and universities frame this as part of their mission to fulfill the federal mandate to educate all new college students in sexual assault prevention. Not all students might want to take self-defense training, and that is fine. But without self-defense as part of the sexual assault prevention and education efforts on campus, we are telling women that they are to rely on concerned bystanders, university policies, and the law for protection against acquaintance, date, and party rape. We might as well tell women, We’re here for you, we’re creating knights in shining armor to come rescue you—and if they don’t, princesses, it’s gonna happen.
Only self-defense training reminds everyone – no matter their sex or gender, no matter their sexual orientation, no matter their assault or perpetration history – that women are not damsels in distress, and men are not magical omnipotent creatures.
The message of the University of New Hampshire bystander intervention program is “Know Your Power.” That should not just apply to men and bystanders. We beg you to know (and teach) her power. The message of bystander intervention programs is don’t be a bystander. We want women to know they don’t have to wait for one, either.
Sincerely,
Jill Cermele and Martha McCaughey
An Open Letter to Jon Stewart about the “The Fault in Our Schools”
Dear Jon Stewart,
Kudos to you and correspondents Jessica Williams and Jordan Klepper on a brilliant, hilarious, and unfortunately, all-too-accurate take on sexual assault on college campuses and the radically different messages offered to men and women on how to negotiate their college experiences with regard to fun and safety – um, that would be fun for men, and safety for women. Because, as we know, from all the typical “how to avoid sexual assault advice” out there, we tell men to have a blast, and women to hunker down, look out for red flags and green dots, travel in groups, and hope for the best. This is exactly the skit I would have done had I not been a double-major-in-psychology-and-theatre-arts-who-dropped-the-theatre-arts-major-to-a-minor due to…well, a total lack of acting ability. There. I said it. Despite my bitterness about my thwarted acting career, I’m no less appreciative of a fabulous performance when I see it.
But you forgot Part II, Jon Stewart, where you show what college women are actually capable of doing in the face of assault. Show what self-defense looks like. Show that it can work. Without that, we are left with only a great parody of the status quo, without reminding everyone what’s WRONG with the status quo: it’s damaging, it’s sexist, it’s inaccurate, and it’s NOT what we should be communicating to women or men about sexual assault. So don’t stop there, Jon. Keep ‘em coming! Part II…I can see it now: Jessica Williams and Jordan Klepper in “Transforming Rapists: The Age of Extinction. Or “A Million Ways to Have Rape Die Out in the West, And Anywhere Else”. Or “Kneed for Speed.” Let’s incentivize that.
Jill Cermele and Martha McCaughey
Top Ten Reasons We Should Offer Self-Defense Training to College Women
10. Frat guys make an alcoholic beverage they call “the panty dropper.”
9. Miss USA recommends it, and she’s a hot babe (and is also a fourth degree black belt).
8. A testicle twist is far more effective at stopping a rapist than even the best feminist literary criticism.
7. According to Pantene shampoo, you can kick a date rapist in the knees as long as you say “sorry” afterward, or beforehand, or during, or as long as you don’t say “sorry,” although it’s admittedly confusing (sorry).
6. Guys won’t join the bystander intervention movement as a “good way to meet girls.”
5. Being a damsel in distress is sooo 1849, unless you listen to the White House Task Force recommendations, in which case it’s sooo 2014.
4. Two words: Steubenville, Ohio.
3. Sometimes red flags require black eyes.
2. As feminists, we’d really like to reclaim the term “ball busters.”
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON WE SHOULD OFFER SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING TO COLLEGE WOMEN:
1. Because college women need to kick George Will’s ass, which would totally give him that victim status he’s been coveting.
Martha McCaughey and Jill Cermele
10 reasons why advocating self-defense training for women is feminist and not victim-blaming.
- SELF-DEFENSE CAN WORK. There are decades of data, referenced by the National Institute of Justice, that support the effectiveness of self-defense, verbal and physical, in stopping rape and sexual assault.
- Self-defense advocates and instructors know that rape and sexual assault is always the fault and responsibility of the perpetrator, and never the fault or responsibility of the target, victim, or survivor.
- Self-defense offers women an option for risk reduction and maintaining their safety in ways that increase their freedom to the world, rather than limiting their freedom and options the way that relying on avoidance strategies and male protection does. In fact, the reliance on the men in our lives to maintain our safety is problematic; according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, almost 80% of the perpetrators of sexual violence against women between 2005 and 2010 were family members, intimate partners, friends, or acquaintances.
- Self-defense is a legal right open to women just as it is to men.
- Self-defense challenges the notion that women’s bodies are inherently vulnerable to men’s and the notion that men’s bodies are unstoppable.
- Self-defense challenges the belief that rape is thwarted only by the perpetrator “coming to his senses”, through bystander interference, or divine intervention.
- Self-defense training changes the broader culture that supports rape culture (or did you think it was just coincidence that so many guys think assertive women aren’t sexy?).
- Self-defense training teaches women the skills that facilitate the setting of healthy emotional and physical boundaries.
- Self-defense is empowering, and can change women’s beliefs about what they are capable of and what they are entitled to.
- And finally, for all these reasons, SELF-DEFENSE ALSO TEACHES MEN NOT TO RAPE.
Jill Cermele and Martha McCaughey
Announcement and Essay from Amy Jones, coordinator of Peaceworks
“My Dream: Self-Defense Scholars and Instructors Working Together” by Amy Jones
http://impactchicago.blogspot.com/2014/06/my-dream-self-defense-scholars-and.html
WAY TO GO, MISS USA. WAY TO GO.
June 9, 2014
An Open Letter to Miss USA, Nia Sanchez
WAY TO GO, MISS USA. WAY TO GO.
On June 8, 2014, Nia Sanchez, (“Miss Nevada”), was crowned Miss USA. And, in the question-and-answer portion of the finals, she said something totally radical about sexual assault against women:
“More awareness is very important so women can learn to protect themselves….[Y]ou need to be confident and be able to defend yourself…That’s something we need to implement for a lot of women.”
We completely agree, Nia Sanchez. And given the influence you have as the newly crowned Miss USA, we are delighted that you shared this perspective on national television, so that the millions who may have been watching got to hear you say it. It’s a message that young men and women need to hear.
You may or may not have thought about what kind of a reaction you would get for that statement, and you may or may not have cared one way or the other. We, as academic feminists and self-defense advocates, applaud you. And we are disheartened, but not surprised, that this is not the response that you will get from all women who identify as feminists, and that in 2014, after decades of work by feminist scholars and activists advocating for women’s empowerment, broadly defined, that such a statement is still criticized. Consider the piece in Jezebel today, where Rebecca Rose takes exception to your comment, writing:
“While I certainly admire how hard she’s worked to obtain her status as a black belt, college women shouldn’t have to “learn to protect themselves.” College men should “learn not to rape.” But somehow I doubt we’re going to hear those words come out of the mouth of a national beauty pageant contestant anytime in the near future” (http://jezebel.com/new-miss-usa-says-women-need-to-learn-to-protect-themse-1587972074)
Rebecca Rose positions women learning self-defense against men learning not to rape—as if these are mutually exclusive choices, where one is clearly better/more radical/more feminist. Rebecca Rose also questions why women should “have to” learn self-defense. Well, why should we get mammograms, learn to change our tires, use birth control, get cervical screenings, or learn how to swim? For that matter, why should we learn to drive?
Here’s the answer: Because the best way to protect ourselves from risk, human or environmental, is to have any and all options at our disposal, any and all kits in our tool bag. Preventing sexual assault includes awareness and prevention work of all kinds, including working to teach men not to rape. But none of that precludes teaching women that resistance is an option—and a really, really good option in most cases.
Amanda Marcotte criticizes you in Slate, saying that self-defense probably won’t work, and that talking about self-defense is victim-blaming and disempowering to women, and even that self-defense will make claims of rape in court impossible. “Most disturbingly,” Marcotte writes, “the focus on self-defense allows some to argue that a rape doesn’t count as a rape unless the woman attempted to use violence in self-defense.” Marcotte goes on to suggest that “in a society where women are urged to take on the responsibility for stopping rape through self-defense, it becomes incredibly easy to start to see rape not as a matter of the rapist’s choices, but of the victim’s. Which, in turn, becomes an excuse to let rapists off the hook….” (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/06/09/miss_usa_on_campus_sexual_assault_nia_sanchez_a_black_belt_in_tae_kwon_do.html)
Don’t worry, Miss USA, we—like you—know that we do not live in a society urging women to stop rape through self-defense. Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to find any information about women’s legal right to defend themselves or where to get that training in any given campus’s rape prevention materials. It is not taught in public high schools along with CPR; it is not taught by the American Red Cross; and it is not recommended by the Center for Disease Control, despite their focus on sexual assault. Nor is it listed anywhere in the recent recommendations of the White House Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault. Overall, our culture still prizes docility and vulnerability in women and values strength and assertiveness in men. And in fact, in a culture that steadfastly refuses to acknowledge women’s rights to defend themselves against sexual violence, the question of “Did she fight back?” has been, and continues to be, trotted out in the legal arena as “evidence” as to whether a rape occurred. We have nothing to lose by letting women know this is a viable option. We cannot conceive of a reality where anyone would prefer to be the victim of a completed attack just to be able to successfully prosecute the attacker later (as if most college rape victims ever go to court anyway).
We also know that self-defense is not victim-blaming, and that self-defense is an option, not a responsibility. And we know that it does work in the vast majority of cases—according to LOTS of data, including that published in our own March 2014 special issue of the academic journal Violence Against Women.
While we support any legal response that women and girls have in the face of assault, we think it’s really important for them to know that self-defense is an option. And knowing that it’s an option is a whole lot better than sitting demurely by, crossing our ankles, whether in our Christian Louboutins, our Birkenstocks, or our Uggs, and waiting for someone to teach men to stop raping.
People like Rebecca Rose and Amanda Marcotte are going to assume that you don’t believe that we should teach men not to rape, that you have somehow naively accepted sexual assault as the natural course of things. We, however, are happy to see a lovely young woman advocate self-defense training—and we apologize for our fellow feminists who are using your beauty against you to indicate that you must not be progressive enough. They’re the ones who aren’t progressive enough. Keep up the fight.
Jill Cermele and Martha McCaughey
Open Letter to Vice President Biden and the White House Task Force on Sexual Assault on College Campuses
Dear Vice President Biden and the White House Task Force on Sexual Assault:
We’ve read the press release, explored the web site, and followed the mostly positive media coverage about the recommendations of the Task Force. However, as feminist self-defense scholars and activists, and as college professors, we find it interesting, and problematic, that women in the 21st Century continue to be seen as damsels in distress.
We applaud the Task Force for underscoring the seriousness and prevalence of the problem of sexual assault on college campuses, for highlighting the need for better data on the incidence rates, and for requiring colleges and universities to act. However, it’s striking that the only people who can act, it seems, are men. Men can stop raping. Men can serve as “bystanders” and stop their friends from raping. And (mainly male) university administrators can implement programs to reach men, and to better serve the (mainly female) victims that men have raped.
That approach presumes that women are sitting ducks. Easy targets. Rapeable. The best we can hope for, we are being told, is that campuses will adopt better policies, in compliance with Title IX of the Educational Equity Act for reporting the already-completed rape of women, and teach the good guys—the knight-errants roving from party to party—to save the damsels in distress.
But that’s not the best we can hope for. The highly regarded academic journal Violence Against Women just released an entire special issue in March 2014devoted to scholarship on self-defense against sexual assault, for which we served as the guest editors. In that issue, scholars present data on how effective training in and using self-defense can be for women. These scholars show that self-defense is usually effective in thwarting an attack (Dr. Sarah Ullman of the University of Illinois at Chicago); that self-defense typically results in no further injury to the women defending themselves(Drs. Jongyeon Tark and Gary Kleck of Hannem University in South Korea and Florida State University); that self-defense helps women of a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds (Dr. Lisa Speidel of University of Virginia) as well as women who have been previously victimized (Drs. Gia Rosenblum and Lynn Taska, trauma psychologists in Lawrenceville, NJ); that a good self-defense course is incredibly empowering in a number of ways for women, outside of their ability to thwart an actual attack (Dr. Martha Thompson of Northeastern Illinois University); and that because of the wide range of benefits self-defense training has, it actually helps change the gender norms and ultimately prevents sexual assault more broadly (Dr. Joceyln Hollander of University of Oregon).
We wish to be clear that women are not responsible for rape, no matter their behavior, their attire, or their level of intoxication; promoting self-defense training for women in no way suggests that the onus is now, or should be, onwomen alone to stop rape. Nor would we want to suggest that men who rape can’t ever change their ways, or that college administrators shouldn’t do more to ensure that there is gender equity in all areas.
But we do note, and question, the absence of self-defense as a goal that is part of an overall sexual assault prevention approach. Self-defense is no more individualistic than training individual bystanders to stop a guy before he rapes. Self-defense is no more victim-blaming than suggesting women communicate clearly on dates. Self-defense should be just as much a part of sexual assault prevention efforts as training bystanders and improving policies are. Besides, women really shouldn’t have to wait on government and university bureaucracies when, in a matter of weeks, they could learn the empowering, and effective, techniques of twisting the testicles, kneeing the groin, or gouging the eyes of Joe College Rapist.
Moreover, self-defense training doesn’t just teach women such physical techniques. It teaches women to take themselves more seriously, that they have bodies and lives worth defending, and that they are not pieces of meat, playthings, or pretty prizes of men. That, it seems to us, is an incredibly important message to give to women and their co-eds who are supposed to be learning that men and women are equally deserving of the right to an education. Practicing self-defense enables women to practice being taken seriously, in and out of a bedroom.
The White House Task Force urges colleges and universities to collect better data, to adopt better policies, and to protect the confidentiality of victims. We agree. But we argue that the Task Force must also urge college and universities to put into action what we know from the findings of decades of research: that women can safely and effectively defend themselves against rape, and that self-defense training for women benefits everyone. You want true educational equity? Then teach self-defense.
Martha McCaughey and Jill Cermele
Falling Short: The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault
Falling Short: The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault
From our colleague, Dr. Martha Thompson, Professor Emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University:
See Jane Fight Back 
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