Major Article on Self-Defense as Primary Prevention
Eh hem, drumroll please…. Our major article is available here on the Univ of NC repository. By “major” we mean full-length academic article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, namely Trauma, Violence, and Abuse. (Well, ok, by “major” we also mean that it took us a really long time and we kinda hope that Joe B. invites us to the White House to discuss our ideas with his Task Force.) In this article, we trace the meaning of “prevention” in the sexual assault prevention efforts on college campuses, and question why self-defense training is rarely a part of those efforts. Given that national attention, and new compliance mandates, have been heaped upon college campuses for their sexual assault problem, we think it’s a key time to review the scholarship on the efficacy of self-defense. Once you see all that in one place, it’s hard to accept people claiming that they don’t include self-defense in their anti-sexual assault agenda because we lack evidence for its effectiveness, or because it’s not “primary prevention”. Indeed, we argue that it is gender ideology, not a lack of evidence, that explains the tendency to exclude self-defense from our sexual assault prevention efforts. Moreover, we stress that self-defense is not secondary prevention but primary prevention as self-defense is a key protective factor in the public health model of rape prevention. And, because we’re all about solutions, our article ends with specific ways college campuses can incorporate self-defense into various sexual assault prevention efforts.
Protest the “Asking for It” Rhetoric by Dissing Self-Defense?
Kate Harding is advertising her new book, Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture–and What We Can Do about It (2015, Da Capo Lifelong Books), with an excerpt in The Guardian.
This makes us feel really old. First, rape culture has just risen? As if. Second, the hopeful subtitle “and what we can do about it” is not going where we hoped it might. We’ve been through this so many times that we should have predicted that Harding would include self-defense in her lament about all the disempowering things women do, but shouldn’t have to, in order to avoid or otherwise protect themselves from rape. Harding states in The Guardian:
“There’s something wrong with expecting women to remember that they should always go for the groin, or the eyes, or the armpit, or the upper thigh, or the first two fingers (I am not making any of these up), and that it only takes five pounds of pressure to rip off a human ear, and if you hit someone’s nose with the palm of your hand and push up just right, you can drive the bone into their brain and kill them.”
It’s too bad Harding does not say what that “something” is that is wrong with self-defense. Maybe it’s that women are too delicate and pure to envision themselves doing such violent things. Or perhaps it’s that women should not really be that vigilant about standing up for themselves. Or maybe it’s that women shouldn’t have to worry their pretty little heads about the violence that is out there in the world. After all, it’s hard for ladies to remember so many things (like when Barbie reminded us, back in the 90s, that math is hard). Men are actually victims of violence more often than women are; would Harding say there is “something wrong” with men needing to know how to handle (de-escalate, resist, thwart, or otherwise survive) a violent encounter?
Harding goes on to state:
“By the time we finish high school, our brains are already filled with such rape-proofing basics as the appropriate skirt length for discouraging violent attacks (long); the number of alcohol units that can be consumed before one is thought to have invited sexual assault (one, tops); a list of acceptable neighborhoods to visit alone in daylight; another of acceptable neighborhoods to visit alone after dark (just kidding – there are none); and a set of rudimentary self-defense moves (“Solar plexus! Solar plexus!”).”
For Harding, encouraging women to learn any self-defense is akin to telling them to wear a burka–victim-blaming nonsense that restricts women’s freedom, blames women for rape, and, regardless of its effectiveness, diverts our attention from getting men not to rape:
“This ubiquitous idea that, by controlling our behavior, appearance and whereabouts, we can keep ourselves from being raped does nothing to help women (let alone potential victims who aren’t women). It merely takes the onus off the rest of society to seriously consider what we can all do to prevent sexual violence.”
We wish Harding would talk to women who teach and take self-defense classes. If she did, she would learn that making women aware of their rights to defend themselves, and offering them training in self-defense skills, empowers women to move freely about the world and make the choices that are best for them – choices like how short to wear their skirts, or what beverages they consume, or which neighborhoods they frequent, or yes, whether to go for the groin or the solar plexus if someone is trying to assault or rape them. Even though she published with a nonacademic press that is geared toward attracting a wide audience, we wish Harding would have done her research. If she had, she would know that, unlike much rape-avoidance advice women hear, self-defense expands women’s freedom and, moreover, really does challenge the rape culture.
Picture Yourself Rotating THESE in Space
Remember those images of shapes broken up into little square boxes, and the multiple choice test asking you to picture the same shape rotated differently? 
Such spatial reasoning is a stereotypically male skill. Well, a study out of the University of Berlin shows that women who were asked to imagine themselves having stereotypically masculine personality traits–strength, risk taking, assertiveness, and the like–performed as well as male peers on the spacial reasoning test immediately following this picture-yourself-as exercise, while women who were asked to imagine themselves having stereotypically feminine personality traits–agreeableness, caring for others, etc.–performed much lower than male peers on the special reasoning test right afterward.
“Gender priming” influenced women’s performance, big time.
This reminds us that allowing women to imagine themselves with the assertiveness and entitlement to fight back against an assailant can make an appreciable difference in their actual ability. If you can picture testicles rotated in space, you might be more likely to be able to actually rotate them in space if a guy you’re with won’t take no for an answer.
It’s time for another lesson from the University of the Bleeding Obvious.
Back when Miss USA, Nia Sanchez (we love you, Nia, even if you won’t return our phone calls), said that to combat the problem of sexual assault on college campuses more women should be offered the opportunity of self-defense training, feminist-identified pundits with access to HuffPo interviews flipped out. The concerns varied: some said that recommending self-defense training is putting the onus on women (rather than men) to prevent rape; others argue that self-defense training wouldn’t work because the likely perpetrator is someone known to the victim, and that’s not the “mind-set” for self-defense.
But the real head scratchers were those who rejected self-defense training on the grounds that it ran counter to feminine socialization. They understood that the fact girls and women are trained to subordinate their interests to boys and men, and that this feminine socialization interferes with defending themselves. Indeed, self-defense training is all about NOT subordinating your interests to men and boys. So opposing the recommendation to offer women self-defense training on these grounds (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/miss-usa-self-defense_n_5482117.html) seems to presume that we self-defense teachers and advocates do not understand this. What do they think, that self-defense teachers just show women a punching bag, offer them some chewing tobacco, and say “have at it”?
Let’s offer those most likely to be targeted for sexual assault the skills to intervene on their own behalf. Yes, for many of these people, and women in particular, such skills will contradict their socialization into femininity. Self-defense training is a kinesthetic experience that rattles the feminine training so tragically well suited to rape culture. That’s exactly what we like about it and why it’s so transformative beyond the individual women it helps.
DR. SEUSS’S SELF-DEFENSE STORY
Not in a box, with a fox, not on a train, but on a blog with Jane…
Everyone is excited about the recently discovered orphaned Dr. Seuss story. Dr. Seuss was an awesome, politically progressive storyteller. For example, Horton Hears a Who and The Lorax deal with environmental protection; The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is a critique of consumerism; The Sneetches is about the rich using cosmetic surgery to distinguish themselves and the technologists who profit from their efforts; and The Butter Battle Book is about prejudice and discrimination.
Ranking in the top 10 best selling Dr. Seuss books of all time is Green Eggs and Ham; ostensibly about a picky eater, it can also be read as a commentary about male sexual entitlement, with green eggs and ham being a thinly veiled reference to unwanted sexual intercourse. Sam-I-Am just pushes and pushes (“do you like them in a car? do you like them in a boat? with a goat?” etc.) until the other person finally gives in and, in a reversal of fortune typical of a porno, that person enthusiastically declares green eggs and ham likable after all.
That’s why we believe the Dr. Seuss story to be released today is the second part of Green Eggs and Ham and will be about women’s empowerment, as follows:
I am Sam. Sam-I-Am.
That Sam-I-Am, that Sam-I-Am. I do not like that Sam-I-Am!
Do you like green eggs and ham?
I do not like them,
Sam-I-Am.
Now, go away! You heard me – scram!
Would you eat them with an elf? The one who sits up on that shelf?
Not even with a little green elf.
Do you need me to repeat myself?
Maybe if you have a drink?
Then you’ll change your mind, I think.
If you get drunk as a skunk
You’ll eat green eggs and ham, I thunk.
Not with some drinks
Your hearing just stinks
Not with an elf
I decide – myself!
I do not like green eggs and ham.
AND I do not like YOU, Sam-I-Am
I do not like them, drunk or not.
So I will not eat them; not a shot.
What if I dim the lights and get you solo?
Then you’ll eat them – this I know.
Not with the lights dim.
Not with the lights bright.
Not in the day.
Not in the night.
Not in a plate or on a cone.
Now I want you to LEAVE ME ALONE!
How about in a bed—or on a train?
You’ll eat them then, without complaint.
Not in a bed or on a train.
I tell you, Sam, this is in vain!
But all the same,
How about in a tree?
In a tree you’ll like them; you will see.
Not at all, now let me be!
What if I now turn on the charm?
You’ll like them – and me – what is the harm?
Just one jump into the sack?
You say no now, but you’ll take it back…
Take it back? No, I’ll take your arm….
And bend it back to cause YOU harm.
I’ll get in your face and let you see
You really must take me seriously.
I’ll kick your legs
And you’ll stop asking about eggs
And as I deliver a
You stop talking about ham.
So listen closely, Sam-I-Am
Before you’re truly in a jam.
I will not eat them with an elf
Not with you, not by myself
I will not eat them drunk or sober
So back off now; this talk is over
I will not eat them day or night
And when you don’t stop, I’m gonna fight.
Not in a train, not on a bus
Not in a bed, not if you cuss.
I will not eat them here or there
I will not eat them ANYWHERE
I, not you, choose what I eat
What I wear, with whom I sleep.
And I do not want your green eggs and ham.
I’m done with you, now, Sam-I-Am.
MEN DON’T PROTECT YOU ANYMORE
“MEN DON’T PROTECT YOU ANYMORE” is the statement on a large electronic sign that greets you as soon as you walk into The Whitney Museum at its gorgeous new location in NYC’s meatpacking district. The sign, hanging above the ticket purchasing area, is one of many statements done in LED lights by American feminist conceptual artist Jenny Holzer.
This message can, of course, be interpreted in multiple ways. Here at Chez Jane, we see it as a reminder that women’s liberation comes, at least in theory, with new risks and new responsibilities for self-protection. While some women have resisted feminism precisely because they preferred the old patriarchal bargain that promised women some protection from poverty and men’s brutality, that bargain was kept intermittently at best, and often with serious strings attached. Feminists have always hoped that women could, individually and collectively, challenge the system that made economic survival and physical safety conditional on patriarchy.
Jenny Holzer’s electronic sculptures, projected statements, and her texts printed on Tshirts, electronic signs, and billboards are famous for their power, their insights, their sensitivity, and their willingness to traverse public and private, body politic and body. Holzer’s narrative statements render the invisible visible, voicing what we might be thinking in silence. Holzer makes up her own statements, but more recently has worked with texts written by others. Sure, these texts are often from literary greats or declassified military documents, but we can’t help hoping that our own statements become Holzerisms in LED lights:
WHY ARE YOU WAITING FOR A BYSTANDER TO SAVE YOU?
SEXUAL LIBERATION COMES WITH THE NEED FOR SELF-DEFENSE
FIGHT THEM OFF
I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE MY OWN BYSTANDER
MY RESISTANCE DOESN’T REQUIRE YOUR APPROVAL
I AM THE ONE WHO CHOOSES MY BOUNDARIES
MY RESISTANCE CHANGES THE RAPE CULTURE
ONLY I MAKE MY SEXUAL CHOICES
SEE JANE FIGHT BACK; SEE DICK RUN
If Jenny Holzer ignores these Jane-generated #Holzerisms, we will settle for dominating the feminist fortune cookie industry.
And really, if any of you would like Jane’s printable feminist fortunes with our favorite recipe for homemade fortune cookies, just say the word and it’ll be our next blog post.
Hey, CDC: Friends Don’t Let Friends Deny the Effectiveness of Self-Defense Training
The CDC is going to have an increasingly difficult time ignoring the data that show how effective self-defense training is for reducing completed sexual assaults. As Dr. Jocelyn Hollander points out in the Huffington Post, “the CDC has steadfastly refused to consider self-defense training as part of its approach to preventing sexual violence. And because other major organizations – including the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and a large number of universities and colleges – rely on the CDC for their research, self-defense training has been completely left out of the current rush to develop effective prevention strategies, especially on college campuses.”
The CDC’s approach is a public health approach, which means they want to use data-driven methods to prevent the problem of sexual assault–including changing the cultural norms that support and perpetuate the problem. For some reason, the CDC and others have either not known about the research on self-defense or they have been aware of the research but dismissed it as not truly prevention-oriented. After all, CDC researcher Dr. Sarah DeGue stated skeptically that a man who finds himself thwarted by a woman who defends herself against his aggression could move on to a woman who is untrained or otherwise more vulnerable. Thank goodness public health officials didn’t see the polio vaccination that way. Not everyone has to be vaccinated to make a major dent in a public health problem.
Ok, not really the same thing? After all, rapists aren’t infections or diseases; they are oppressors. Well, thank goodness the ACLU doesn’t use this logic on oppressive abuses of social and political authority. If they did, they’d have no interest in educating people about their civil liberties and instead would say that such efforts are futile since a government official or corporation could only find someone who does not know their rights to oppress.
OK, then what about victim-blaming, or as countless newspaper articles have put it this past week, “putting the ONUS ON WOMEN to prevent sexual assault”? Thank goodness the American Red Cross doesn’t see it this way. If they did, they’d have little reason to certify water safety instructors and offer water safety classes to children. They do this because they know that learning to swim helps prevent drowning. As parents who had the onus of taking children to a public pool for Red Cross swim lessons (and onus is appropriate here because they didn’t always want to go, and when they did we went through this ritualistic struggle as a candy machine was parked strategically outside the swimming pool entryway), we must say that it would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about our children drowning. But we do–and hey, it turns out swimming is pretty darn fun, good exercise, and overall has multiple benefits. We think the same is true of self-defense.
Jocelyn Hollander gives this analogy: Imagine if researchers discovered that there was a way car drivers could reduce auto accidents by 50%. Would we not promote that strategy on the grounds that car companies should make the cars safer so drivers don’t have to do that? Would we not promote that strategy on the grounds that it puts the onus on drivers and could result in blaming victims of auto-accidents, not all of whom will engage in the safety strategy? Let’s hope not.
The point of the ecological public-health model is to use multiple methods to get at the root of a problem. Offering self-defense training is how we will do that. Ignoring self-defense or dismissing it as not truly preventative might ultimately turn out to reveal that unlike a polio vaccine, unlike swim lessons, and unlike knowing your rights, self-defense training involves a major disruption to the gender status quo. We don’t mind young ladies knowing their rights. We even suggest they “know their nines” (understand their rights under Title IX). It’s aggressively asserting those rights that seems so, well, unladylike.
And that it does is exactly why it challenges more than an individual attacker but an entire culture.
See Jane Fight Back 
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