We don't talk much in this country about sexual sovereignty. We say we are against rape, but we don't do much to change the social fabric which encourages women to be victim to it.
Since the vast majority of rapes are committed by men known to the victim, what we need to be doing is helping young women and young men learn about sexual boundaries, how to talk about them, and how to respect them. In a famous study it was found that 1 in 4 college age women had either been raped or experienced attempted rape. 1 in 12 of the men surveyed had committed an act which was defined as rape, but 84% of those men didn't think that rape was the right word to describe what they had done. I was shocked when I learned that statistic. It points to a huge failure to educate our young adults.
I've been teaching self defense to women for a few years now, and this is a diary about what I tell women, and what I have learned from working with them and myself around this topic.
Did you know that 10 lbs. of force will rip ears? That isn't much. When it's combined with the fact that no matter how much weight lifting a person might undertake, they just can't make their eyes more resistant to pressure, you have a very effective defense technique if you are trapped under a man and you have your arms available to you. Drive your thumbs into his eyes and then curl your fingers around his ears and pull towards you hard and fast. With any luck you will have genetic evidence trapped under your fingernails.
I spoke to a woman who stopped a grab from behind attack by stomping on the attacker's foot. She hit him with such force that she pierced his shoe with her heel.
Elbows are so dangerous that they are forbidden in most sports fighting. They are wicked sharp and excellent tools in close range situations. Practicing elbow strikes against a bag is fun too.
I point this out to give you skills, and also to highlight an important fact. In the movies, rapists are portrayed as very powerful and difficult to overcome. This is a theatrical trick to heighten tension. In real life, though men are often stronger than women, rapist don't want to be hurt and they don't want to be caught. They seek victims that they hope to be able to dominate easily and without physical force. Knowing that can help women to understand that they have a good chance to win if they fight back.
I thought, when I first started teaching self defense, that women would have a hard time in situations where they had to defend themselves physically against an attacker. To my huge surprise, this didn't turn out to be the case. Women who displayed powerful fighting skills fell apart when confronted by verbal abuse that they were expected to verbally defend against.
It makes sense really, because look at all the places in society we are trained to give up our voice. Through school, church, family interactions we are socialized to get along. Yes, that makes the majority of our encounters go smoothly, but it also inadvertently makes us less willing to make a scene or refuse to comply with directions when our safety depends upon it.
I encourage my students to keep track and make sure they use their voice to say no to something every day. There is more resistance to this than you might expect. Many women have told me that it feels rude to say no to people. But again, since most rape situations are perpetrated by men who know us on some level, learning to be comfortable saying no is an important survival skill. In many situations women who learn to work with boundaries can see sexual predators from far enough away that they don't find themselves backed into a lonely location and needing to depend on physical self defense skills.
No one teaches self defense to get rich. My classes trigger enough emotional stuff for women that it is hard sometimes to even fill up a class. I do this because I was raped and afterward in my healing process I saw places that I could have recognized my attacker's intent early enough to have saved myself the suffering. The woman I work with, who is also my partner, is a fifth degree black belt. Together we built a class that we believe is an excellent resource for women to use to protect themselves.
In the classes we trigger an adrenal response from our students so that they can learn what that might feel like in an attack situation. As we get used to the symptoms of the fight or flight impulse, we can start using the power it generates to give us extra strength. We do this by having the women close their eyes and then we push lightly against them with a target. Then they come out swinging and yelling NO! It really doesn't take much to trigger this response, and it is a useful response to make friends with.
The most important thing I think I teach women though, is that while predators might look like any one from any class or walk of life, they always behave like predators. Learning to identify how it feels when our boundaries are crossed, and learning to say no to anything that feels the slightest bit uncomfortable is a powerful tool that I think every woman should have at her disposal.
The thing I have heard over and over from women who have not experienced rape is that they had dads or brothers who told them to trust themselves more than they trust any men. Don't ever get into a car with someone you don't really know well. Don't allow your date to dictate where you will go in the early dating process. It all comes down to trusting yourself, and not caring if you offend someone by taking action to keep yourself safe.