D. L. Hughley, Black comedian and author of the new book Black Man, White House, was interviewed the week of Aug. 11, 2016 on the Tavis Smiley Show.  Now, D. L. Hughley’s earlier book is called We Want You to Shut the F#ck Up, so we (a) already like him and (b) know to expect a degree of comedic audacity and brutal honesty.  That said, we really appreciated his jokes during the show about how White privilege informs expectations for safety.  Hughley brought up the cases from earlier this year when children tragically wandered into the zoo enclosure of the silverback gorilla and into the alligator-infested waters near Disneyworld.

“It is ridiculous the things that you see.  Like when I watch what happened with the tragedy with the alligator.  When a sign says ‘Don’t swim,’ don’t swim!  . . . . Alligators don’t read signs! . . . But I know what, when Black people see a sign that says ‘don’t swim’ you best believe we ain’t swimming.  That’s why they got a pool, right?! [Imitating a parental voice] ‘You better dip your toe in that bathtub and shut up, we’re at Disneyworld.'”

Perhaps some would criticize Hughley for “blaming the victim” of such tragedies, but a truth his comedy reaches links the expectation of safety from others in the world to White privilege.   Blacks, his shtick implies, have never been able to expect institutions and authority figures to guarantee their safety.  They have, instead, taught one another to watch out for dangers.  Black parents should not have to have “the talk” with their children, especially their sons, but they do.  They know that Black boys and men are far more likely than Whites to be targets of police brutality.

We know that women (of all races) are far more likely than men to be targets of sexual assault.  Offering girls and women tools for being on the lookout for signs of danger is just as rational a response to a violent and unjust world.  That’s why the many rape prevention educators who preach bystander intervention whilst refusing to talk about how women can learn to defend themselves sound like people who have had a privileged protection to the point of paralysis.  How about we make it easier for women to be aware of their surroundings, and act on their awareness, assert themselves, and hit or kick if necessary to get out of an attack? Nope- that’d be victim blaming, we’re often told. Women should be able to walk across their college campuses naked, and defenseless, we are told.  How about we shift our understanding of ourselves as powerful and empowered, and able to make choices that challenge rather than support the patriarchy?  That’s what self-defense training can do.

We know, we know. You can’t train an alligator but you can (supposedly) train men to be different, and less dangerous. This might be true, but self-defense training will work a lot faster than your training of men.  And guess what?  When women watch out for themselves, take themselves seriously, and defend their own safety, that sends a powerful “training” message to the men in their midst.

You can make Obama say anything you want thanks to techie geeks who invent cool apps. Don’t you wish he had really said this in connection with his Task Force on campus sexual violence?

http://talkobamato.me/synthesize.py?speech_key=4c4b3f83d6ac956864b42cd108fe4902

Thanks, Talk Obama to Me!  You said it–er, we said it, and wish he’d said it……

Open Letter to Prof. Tal Peretz

Dear Prof. Peretz,

We value your work in the areas of men’s anti-sexist and anti-violence activism.  As a sociology professor at Auburn, you were quoted in the LiveScience article about the science of preventing campus sexual assault. We admire your work advocating that we teach children about consensual behaviors on the playgrounds and in their homes.

However, we were very disappointed to read the quote from you, just after the reporter describes the incredible results that Charlene Senn’s empowerment self-defense training has, that

“We have far too much ‘here’s how you protect yourself’ [programs], when it’s not women’s job and not their fault. That whole way of talking about it really places the blame on women, when it should be on the rapists.”

Training women in how to set boundaries is just as important as your work training boys and men in how to honor boundaries others set.  So don’t worry, you will not lose your job if you also endorse women’s self-defense training.  As we have said to the late Kurt Cobain, both-and! You can both insist that we train men not to rape AND train women to resist any men who missed our memo.

Self-defense training does not place any blame for assault on women.  If you really want to support feminism and fight for gender equality, please re-examine your belief that there are too many self-defense/self-protection programs out there.

Sincerely,

Profs. Martha & Jill

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.

Last week all the employees at my workplace were sent an email offering us a service to help us achieve work-life balance.  No, it was not a raise, a massage, a paid week off, or a nanny.  It was the ability to subscribe to ComPsych Corporation’s GuidanceResources Online Web site. Once you register, you are promised access to useful information, news, interactive materials, and services in your area.

By the company’s own description, “GuidanceResources Online is home to hundreds of articles, assessment tools and multimedia presentations on a wide variety of topics.”

Need a carpenter?  On there.  Need to find childcare?  There.  Tips on coming out a work? Yep. Advice on why monogamy is the best and why cheating is a bad idea (and, let’s face it, will make you a less productive employee)?  Indeed.  It’s as if Oprah had invented this herself!

But no, there is no advice on having a successful and happy polyamorous relationship.

Nor will you find information on self-defense.  Through the search function no information on “sexual assault” comes up.  But searching on “rape” several articles come up.  Here they are.

Gardening?  Seriously?  And take care of cuts and scrapes but no need for a rape kit….  Of course self-defense training is not listed as one of the prevention efforts to engage in. Let’s quote in full the “Date or Acquaintance Rape” page:

It’s amazing what we learn when we read outside our field.  An article by William Scott (University of Bath, United Kingdom), “Public Understanding of Sustainable Development: Some Implications for Education,” published in the International Journal of Environmental & Science Education (2015, 10:2: 235-246), reveals that those engaged with sustainable development efforts face many of the challenges those of us doing sexual assault prevention face.

Specifically, Scott and his colleagues feel that they’ve done too much “downstream remedial” work (measures that deal with the consequences of harm) and not enough “upstream prevention” work (interventions to address the underlying causes of problems).  Sound familiar?

Scott describes an N.E.F. report, which “argues for prevention, and says that bottom-up prevention is best, with people and organisations becoming more resilient: building up their own immune systems, both literally and metaphorically, so that they become less susceptible to harm, changing attitudes and capabilities so that they are better able to take positive actions themselves.”

This is very much our approach with empowerment-based self-defense training. But just as with the other SD (sustainable development), with SD (self-defense) we find rather dramatic disagreement over whether it’s downstream remedial or upstream prevention. In fact, many feminists who are strongly interested in dismantling our rape culture do not emphasize SD on the grounds that it’s downstream remedial. We have long argued that SD can best be understood as upstream preventative.

According to Scott, that logic of prevention in sustainability education contradicts the “rescue principle” of so much philanthropy, charity, and health care.  Rescuing people downstream can feel good but does not do the upstream prevention we need done.  In that same way, bystander intervention programs, counseling services for victims, and training people to emphasize reporting on campus or in the workplace embody the rescue principle in rape prevention and education work.

Interestingly, Scott points out that many individuals and families are making efforts for sustainability, for instance by setting up a solar PV system.  At the same time, only government can bring about macro-level change through “policy shifts, regulatory change, economic levers, and investment activity, for example.”

Women’s self-defense advocates must remind people often that self-defense is not simply learning how to punch and kick.  It’s about learning a more entitled, assertive way of being in the world.  That attitudinal shift is remarkable, as Olga Kreimer notes in The Washington Post.  Being aware of your surroundings and speaking up assertively make powerful impressions on people.

And given the way our culture has trained women to put others’ needs and feelings before their own, women’s second-class status is often embodied in the way we dress, sit, stand, walk, and talk.  It’s no surprise, then, that women in self-defense training must practice speaking differently.

And it is worth practicing; here, we imagine how famous quotes might have been spoken by a woman trained in our sexist culture vs. how they were spoken by a more entitled, authoritative person:

Mr. Gorbechev, excuse me but I’m wondering what it’d be like if you were to consider maybe taking that wall down?

            Mr. Gorbechev, tear down that wall!  -Ronald Reagan

I know you’re trying and everything, but it kind of needs to be done, so could you just try to do it?  Thanks… When it comes down to it I’m thinking that, in the end, you will either have done it or not, you know?

          Do or do not, there is no try.  -Yoda

I’m so drunk, and I’m sure you’re really attractive although I don’t really know because beauty is pretty much in the eye of the beholder anyway, but how about I let you know in the morning when I’m sober?

          I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. -Winston Churchill

Let’s try and see if we can coordinate this and like, live together, you know what I mean?  Wouldn’t that be so much better than perishing together? I mean, how foolish would that be?

          We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Try to live the kind of life that will model how you want others to live, because if you want them to change you’ve got to show you’re willing to change, too, otherwise that would be hypocritical and nobody likes a hypocrite, and it’s important to be liked.

        You must be the change you wish to see in the world.  – Mahatma Gandhi

I really want you to like me, but I’m not entirely sure that this is the best way to achieve something since my wanting you to like me could lead me to compromise on something, and ultimately you might not like that.  

        If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.  – Margaret Thatcher

Um, that’s my daughter, so could you please leave her alone? 

         Not my daughter, you bitch!  – Molly Weasley

I know things can be really hard, and I’m so, so, sorry about that, and I hate to give you more to do, but maybe you want to do something…?

         Life’s a bitch.  You’ve got to go out and kick some ass.  – Maya Angelou