Blog – Page 3 – Resolve. Preventing Violence. Transforming Communities

Preparing Girls for Dating, Parties & Friendships

When I was checking out colleges as a teenager, I was concerned about safety on campus. So I asked questions. I noticed many schools had blue light emergency phones on campus, and many of my questions centered around their presence or absence. I experienced a rude awakening when I encountered a student generous enough to answer my questions.

She was passionate and indignant as she noted the blue lights were nowhere nearby when her “friends” who she trusted raped her. She told my 17-year-old self that rape usually happens by someone you know.

That conversation stuck with me for over a decade, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from having to learn it firsthand. Even majoring in Women’s Studies did not prevent me from entering an abusive relationship during my college years.

What I needed were concrete skills and strategies. I needed to think of safety as something that I should be conscious of in my relationships, not just when I was walking alone at night. I needed to learn to connect behaviors in my relationships to larger patterns of abuse. I needed to practice having difficult conversations, and I needed to see breaking up as an option that did not indicate failure. I needed someone to tell me that while it is always the perpetrator’s fault and never the victim’s, that I could take action and do something about it.

Whenever I think of the lack of preparation we give girls for the situations they are bound to face with dating, parties and friendships, I keep coming to one conclusion: It’s just not fair.

It’s simply not fair to know, as adults, the situations our young women are bound to face and not prepare them with the skills to negotiate them. It’s not fair to ask them to depend on the men around them to have good intentions in order to stay free from violence. It’s not fair to only arm them with “don’t wear a short skirt” or “run away & get help” as their only defenses to complex situations.

As a teen, I didn’t know the right questions to ask. So, as adults, we need to ask the colleges and universities where we send our children how they prevent sexual assault on campus — with programs, not just with security staff and emergency phones. We need to ask our college prep and high school programs how they are preparing girls for situations that could seriously jeopardize their academic success as well as emotional well-being. And we need to ask them how they’re preparing boys for situations they may face and how they can become agents to stop sexual violence as well.

Intuition & Trust

This past week I fixed my first flat tire on my own. It felt like a tremendous success story, not just as a woman with a flat tire, but as an IMPACT success. Three men stopped and offered help, and I realized I trusted them, and trusted them for very good reasons!

Ironically, “broken down on the side of the freeway” is the scenario that I use most in teen and adult classes when demonstrating verbal and physical skills in context. When I introduce the scenario, I sometimes hear gasps or murmurs of agreement, especially from women, as that is a situation that truly worries them.

In classes, the Suited Instructors play characters that say all sorts of nasty things as they approach, being suggestive, lewd, and simply not going away when I say I’ve got help on the way.

In real life, that’s not what happened. The first man who stopped asked if I had help on the way, and when I said I was trying to remember how to do it, he gave me some pointers. Then he wished me luck and drove off. The two men who came after also asked if I needed help and each of them also went away once they saw I had it under control.

I thought about how I knew I could trust them: None of them got very close to me. They all were friendly and helpful, commiserating and making jokes, but none of them tried to bond with me through the experience or sought to gain my trust through a quick encounter. There was no presumption of a relationship because I was on the side of the highway with a problem and they were men with knowledge and experience.

Oftentimes when people think about intuition, they think of it as “How do you know when something’s not okay?” For some, though, we know quite well when things are not okay. It’s more of a question of how to know when things are okay and when to relax

I was elated after the experience, not just because I conquered a flat tire independently, but because I got to relate to these men from a place of trust and lightheartedness, instead of feeling suspicious or worried as I might have in the past. When I count the ways IMPACT has freed my life, this is one of the most valuable ways to me: I can truly be present with my entire community.

When Confronted with Road Rage, I Had a Paln

A few weeks ago when I was driving, I noticed a car get out of my way and then abruptly pull behind me. I was puzzled when he turned into the same parking lot as I did, parking nearby for the same business. I was unsettled enough by the turn of events that I delayed in the car, thinking I would let him go in first to avoid further trouble, even if it turned out to be just a coincidence.

After a few moments of not seeing him pass in the rearview mirror, I decided I didn’t want to be late and got out to go in. I was startled to see him watching me as I crossed to the business. Instead of getting out to go to a destination, the man started his car and slowly drove past, looking me over, and then drove away.

I went in, noticing my feelings of confusion, anger and worry, and considered asking someone at the front desk to keep a look out. I also reviewed what I knew about his car and his appearance, wondering if I could identify him if he came back – worst-case scenario – and did something to my car.

I had plans to be there for over an hour, and for the first few minutes, I was preoccupied as I decided what I wanted to do and worked out what I thought happened and why he went away.

This could be a story about fear and the dangers of driving these days. It isn’t though – for me, at least. For me, it’s a story with two important components.

I had a plan. In fact, I had several plans. As events unfolded, I sifted through my plans and shifted them as I took in more information. Instead of feeling panicked, I was weighing my options.
I’m a rather petite woman. More likely than not, I was not the person he was hoping to get into a verbal argument with and then hit. Undoubtedly, he’d had a bad day, if not a hard time for a while, and was looking for someone to take it out on. I wasn’t that target. If I was a man, things might have been different.

I love the small fact encompassed in Point #1: We cannot control the world around us and avoid every situation, but we can plan for when things happen.

Point #2 is more complex and sad for me. Violence against men is largely unacknowledged and minimized or misinterpreted (for example, calling a situation a “fight” instead of an “assault”). It is unfair for men to be expected to not only be able to defend themselves, but also the women and children in their lives with absolutely no training at all.

Men are targeted because of being men just as women are targeted because they are women (as are LGBTQ individuals, older people, etc.)

We all deserve to have the assurance of having a plan, instead of having to depend on circumstance and not being an assailant’s “ideal target” in order to stay safe.

When Feeling Safe Isn’t Enough

When I took my IMPACT class years ago, I thought my biggest concern was safety. And it was, in many ways. My fear of violence really affected my life in a negative way. However, my biggest concerns could have been better described as:

wanting to understand how to trust others in a way that was more nuanced than an all-or-nothing approach
wanting to understand how I could speak up for myself without feeling mean
wanting to feel –not just know– that my body belonged to me & I could dictate my experiences
wanting to understand that previous bad experiences were not my fault & yet that they didn’t have to be repeated

Another IMPACT chapter recently noted that concern about safety was not the top reason why students enrolled in their classes. That initially surprised me, and I wondered if that could possibly be true for our students if we surveyed them.

I read the director’s email, and I noted that the top reasons for registrations in their chapter actually echoed many of my feelings and things I’ve heard in classes.

Listening closer to participants in recent classes, I noticed people talking about wanting:

to be able to protect their families
to heal from past hurts when they’d hit a wall with their progress
to be more assertive in their professional & personal lives
to be able to control their anger
to not have to ignore homeless people & others on the street
to have better relationships
to not always be kicking themselves after a difficult conversation with things they wish they had said.

While I believe feeling safe is an underlying aspect of being able to address all of these other issues, I love and feel honored to be a part of a curriculum that people feel they can come to in order to address such diverse needs.

What Do You Do to Prepare?

Traditional safety advice for women says women should:

•Never go out late / after dark.
•Always stay in groups.
•Not go to bad neighborhoods.
•Carry keys between their fingers.
•Carry mace / a gun / a whistle.
•Check under their cars / in their backseats before getting in.
•Not wear short skirts.

Women often prepare themselves by doing any / all of the above, or by worrying; as if worrying every day could protect us from the pain of an assault. We oftentimes apply this same or similar safety advice to our children.

I looked for a personal safety program that went beyond this list because I was outraged by the idea that I should have a curfew imposed on me that did not apply to men. I wanted to be able to do things independently; I didn’t want to always have to be with a friend. I was frustrated by advice that ignored the fact that some of us live in or work in bad neighborhoods. I was incredulous that this advice didn’t acknowledge that though many worry walking on the street alone, that the majority of the hurt we’ve experienced was by someone we knew, not someone lurking in the parking lot. And I resented the implication that I brought any abuse I endured upon myself.

In truth, following the above protocol did not keep me safe, but it did make my life smaller and made me more fearful.

It’s interesting to me that ultimately these are our choices. We can do these actions every day that result in increased fear and suspicion of others, particularly those that may fit a certain stereotype; or we can invest time in learning life skills.

When we learn skills, our lives open up with possibilities.

Twenty hours assured me that I didn’t need to worry about what I was wearing, that, in fact, clothing would neither deter nor attract the typical assailant. A couple weekends in the classroom meant that I opened up to men again, because I understood the difference between a nice guy and someone who was willing to cross my boundaries, regardless of how I felt. After the class, I trusted myself to react to signals I was receiving both from those in my life and strangers, instead of making excuses for them or denying what was clearly happening. After four days, I felt a change in my body, knowing that it was a safe place that I could now protect.

We all prepare for violence and hurtful events in life differently. Preparing should make us feel safer and our lives bigger, not more scared and more retracted. What do you do to prepare?

Protecting Our Communities After Tragedy

Imagine, for a moment, hearing about a tragic car accident. Imagine overhearing bits and pieces about a driver swerving out of control and hitting oncoming traffic at a speed of over 75 mph. You see clips of family members of those who died sobbing on the news. People talk about it for over a week.

How would you perceive that story? How long would it take for you to recover?

Now, imagine that same story but that you had never heard about seat belts, never learned the rules of the road, how to maintain safe distance, and how to look around your car and rearview mirror for irregularities. In fact, imagine you were told that you would be cared for in that sort of situation by people who said they could handle it, but still look fearful.

How would you perceive that story and how would you feel about getting into a car again? How long would it take you to recover?

Now, imagine you are seven years old.

Having tools makes all the difference. It doesn’t mean car accidents never happen, but it means that you have an understanding of how to deal with the risk and that the story plays in your head differently.

Just as you wouldn’t teach a new driver about car accidents and drunken drivers first thing, school shootings are not the place to start a discussion about child or school safety. Even trained officers and military struggle with how to deal with shooters — this is not the topic to begin with for teachers, families and children!

Just as car safety begins with learning about adjusting mirrors and looking both ways before pulling out of the driveway, personal safety for children has the same basic steps.

Teach them to trust their intuition. Teach them how to get help and what to say. Help them practice setting a boundary and saying no. Help them learn simple physical strategies to stop an assault.

By teaching them to deal with scenarios like bullying and unwanted touch, you prepare them for situations that are statistically far more likely and that they can do something about, and you empower them to deal with the terrifying stories that, unfortunately, they will continue to hear as they grow older.

I highly recommend the following articles from Kidpower for caregivers and others:

Helping Children Regain Their Emotional Safety After a Tragedy

How to Empower Kids in the Face of Armed School Violence

Tragic Shootings: Kidpower Answers to Common Questions About How To Be Safe

Boundary-Setting for Better Relationships & Community

A theme often discussed in parenting and social worker circles is that though we may be motivated to always be kind and helpful, at times our children/clients actually may be better helped by hearing a boundary set than by a kind word. For those new to either arena, this can be confusing because the whole reason they decided to have kids/help was to offer more compassion to the world!

Yet setting boundaries is part of creating community. Setting boundaries appropriately is not about punishment – it is about maintaining and improving relationships.

If I say something that strikes a friend a little off, I expect him/her to tell me so I know not to do it again. I would be absolutely mortified if I found out that I’d been doing something for 6 months that significantly bothered a friend. I think most of us would. Yet, we have very little way of knowing what we’re doing without getting some feedback.

In our classes, we teach students how to give effective feedback to others about how we want to be treated. It can range from, “I feel upset when you borrow my car without asking. I need you to ask first” to “I’m really enjoying spending time with you, but I’m not ready for that” to nonverbal cues like putting one’s hands up.

My friend may be simply learning about what works for me; however, it may also be something s/he learns about the world. When I set boundaries, I am not “schooling” my friend about how s/he should treat people – a lecture probably wouldn’t be very well received! However, if s/he hears a boundary from me and from a few other people in a way s/he can hear, s/he might change his/her approach.

The physical skills we teach can be taken in a similar vein. The perpetrator is always responsible for his actions and must be held accountable; change always has to originate with him. IMPACT has programs that also work on primary prevention and changing social norms. However, if an assailant does attack me, he will quickly learn that I am not okay with being treated that way.

For whatever reason, the assailant believes that it’s okay to treat people harmfully; by multiple people clearly communicating that it’s not okay — or by one person demonstrating it forcefully — perhaps that impression may unravel.

It’s up to all of us to set social norms. Ultimately, I cannot control another person’s thoughts or actions. But hopefully setting boundaries for myself, and by each of us setting our boundaries with each other, we can change the accepted status quo. This can be a part of making our community better for everyone.

Train for Hard Times So that Everyday Life Is Easy(er)

Most of us understand that running on the treadmill, racing across a court to hit a ball and lifting large amounts of weight has no real inherent value or direct translation into everyday life. It’s very unlikely I’ll need to run five miles, be able to respond to a flying object or lift 100 pounds in modern daily life.

Yet, practicing for these situations makes it so that everyday activities like climbing the stairs to my apartment, keeping up with a small child and lifting a suitcase all become considerably easier than they would be otherwise. We train hard so that everyday life is easy.

Similarly, in IMPACT classes, we practice de-escalating situations with irrational yelling men; we practice getting out of or defending ourselves in situations with rapists and murderers and practice setting boundaries with people in our daily lives. Hopefully we never have to use the more drastic skills in real life. If we do, at least we’ve learned strategies to be better prepared for these difficult situations. Yet setting boundaries with people we know is the most frequent scenario our students experience.

We practice beyond those situations (over-train) for the same reason we might choose to exercise. Climbing the stairs daily doesn’t make them that easy to climb. It’s the muscles I’ve built in the gym or on the field that make the stairs pale in comparison.

When we develop our capacity to deal with the terror and adrenaline we might feel with rape and murder, we learn we can get through the discomfort of giving a co-worker difficult feedback. We know we can deal with a partner’s pain when we say that something needs to change in order for it to work. We can navigate the fear of rejection we might feel when telling a date we aren’t ready for intimacy or when standing up to a bully or harsh family member.

Being able to knock someone out is simply of no use to us if we can’t or don’t communicate with those closest to us. We must learn to face the truly difficult situations in order to develop our skills to face deeply uncomfortable situations.

The paradox in this case, of course, is that by developing the skills to defend ourselves, we greatly reduce our chances of ever needing to do so physically. All of this becomes possible because we were willing to over-train ourselves once.

How Leaders Should Speak about Sexual Assault

Todd Akin’s recent comments give us an important opportunity to consider what a true leader for our communities should be saying about sexual assault.

Leadership means sometimes saying things that challenge the social norm. And let’s be clear- in a country where 1 in 3 women experience sexual assault, accepting rape as a tragic yet inevitable part of life for women is the norm.

True leaders would denounce rape unequivocally and state clearly that the blame always lies with the rapist and never the victim. True leaders would acknowledge that there are few consequences for rapists today. They would acknowledge that when 1 in 3 women experience sexual assault, as a society we are doing something to create rapists. They would understand this requires committing to deep cultural changes and invest time and energy into making this happen in our schools and in our media.

True leaders would also acknowledge the power and bravery that women and girls do possess – in their abilities to learn to speak out about what’s happened to them, advocate for themselves and others, and defend themselves in a culture that is otherwise not supporting them and keeping them safe.

Creating change with sexual assault requires a full systems approach. Preventing a sexual assault for one woman is not enough. Even sending one man to prison is not enough. If we truly want our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our wives and our friends to be safe, we need to create change on a much larger level. Our nation’s dialogue about rape deserves more attention than a footnote in a conversation about contraception. It’s up to our leaders to initiate and support these changes.Let’s take this opportunity to re-focus on what we want to see in our leaders and our society, not just what we don’t want.

I’m Not a Violent Person

Whenever there has been a high profile serial rapist in the news, inevitably someone says, “Don’t you just wish he would pick you, so that you could kick his butt and teach him a lesson?”

I understand the motives behind the sentiment, but my answer is always a resounding “No.”

I don’t ever want to have to hurt another human being in that way. Don’t get me wrong — I will, if necessary. As a student at IMPACT, I worked hard to re-activate my fight-or-flight response after years of being socialized to freeze and do nothing. I realized I can be quite dangerous.

My resistance to violence in real life might seem confusing if you’ve seen me cheering women on when they deliver powerful knees to the groins of their would-be assailants. In truth, delivering a powerful strike feels pretty good once you get past how emotional it can be. Cheering others along can help students get through uncomfortable emotions and socialized responses that may be unproductive. And it feels good to be powerful and to own your own power. That is what I’m cheering for.

However, it would be irresponsible of me to not acknowledge the existence of the cycle of violence. The vast majority of assailants were victims themselves and now hurt others as a way of seeking to feel powerful. We must remember that it was violence that created the assailant’s actions. Beating these men up will not solve the issue of violence in our community.

In every class, even while talking about my work at dinner parties, I bear witness to the suffering that violence inflicts and the ripple effect that the trauma can create. I want no part in doing that to someone else.

Yet, I do believe there is a difference between “ordinary” violence and violence that is committed only as a last resort for self-defense. I believe with every ounce of my being that you and I both have every right to defend ourselves from an attacker just as an animal has every right to defend themselves against a predator. But do I want that to happen? Is that how I want to cast my vote for change in our community?

No.

Not at all. My heart aches at the thought of it. But I do think the world is a better place when people learn they’re worth defending and have skills to prevent violence, both physically and verbally. I am proud that IMPACT deals with different levels of violence prevention; I’m proud that we work with personal safety and community safety and cultural change. Clearly one single route to violence prevention is not enough.

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