Tag: Survivors

Why We Don’t Do Demonstrations at Resolve

We often get asked to do self-defense demonstrations for large groups at events, school assemblies, or outreach fairs. We are always honored when someone is interested in promoting our work and supporting our outreach efforts; however, several years ago we started declining when we were asked to do these demonstrations. While we have had many productive discussions with individuals in our community about this decision, we know it can seem confusing at first – so we wanted to explain.

As an organization that serves many survivors of violence, working in a trauma-informed way is critical to how we do this work. This is one thing that makes Resolve (and Empowerment Self-Defense overall) unique and effective. Unfortunately, we do not believe we can meet the criteria of being trauma-informed while doing demonstrations.

1. It is a feature of trauma that survivors oftentimes need to be able to anticipate what is coming. That simply isn’t possible to guarantee with a demonstration, particularly in a space where people are coming and going. In our classes, we always let people know what is about to occur. We show it and break it down before we invite students to practice the skills themselves. This is not just useful for students with trauma histories; it’s good pedagogy.

2. People need to opt in to doing the work of self-defense as a healing modality. When someone hasn’t opted in, something that could be deeply healing has the potential to be harmful, which we explicitly don’t want. For many of us that are survivors, our Resolve/IMPACT class did “what 10 years of therapy could not,” as one graduate stated. However, in order for it to be healing, it must be done with active consent. We teach affirmative consent to youth and know how critical it is in all things- and especially in relation to trauma.

3. It is important to the process to be able to create a “container” in class. That means that we can help people process anything that arises. At demonstrations, the goal is to be inspiring a large number of people who may be moving in and out of the space, yet we can’t be sure that everyone is leaving inspired. We design our programs so we have sufficient staff that can easily check in with students and notice reactions they might need help processing even when someone does not verbalize what they are feeling right away. Being attentive to the emotional needs of our participants helps them leave the class feeling confident and empowered.

4. We are sometimes asked to do a demonstration as a form of entertainment, to bring some excitement to the stage or event. The type of self-defense we teach simply is not entertainment. While physical skills others might present are demonstrated like a stunt for a movie or as a sport, the scenarios we teach students to prepare for are real-life scenarios, such as attempted sexual assault. When scenarios are highly realistic, it means they may bear a close resemblance to situations that viewers may have experienced in their own lives. In a classroom situation, students have the support to move through reactions they might have to that content to a place of action where they are practicing defending themselves in that same scenario. In a demonstration, while the hope is that they might identify with the person demonstrating self-defense, it is unfortunately more likely that they may freeze in their experience of their own memory.

We also know that when it is viewed as entertainment, there is always a desired emphasis on stranger scenarios- in order to show physical skills, particularly against the padded suit that the instructors playing characters wear. This does not reflect the reality of how sexual violence, in particular, most often happens. The part of the class that is oftentimes most transformative for students is learning to set boundaries with people we know! But a scenario where we are setting a boundary with a date we really like, or with an uncle, is not the type of demonstration that organizers are typically hoping for.

5. Sometimes people who are passionate about self-defense and violence prevention feel puzzled when others are not as interested or engaged as they would like them to be. This can sometimes lead to a desire to shock others into caring and being engaged. We understand – we are incredibly passionate about this topic as well! However, in our experience, when people aren’t engaged in this topic, it usually is for a reason. Demonstrations get people’s attention, but oftentimes not in the way that we want. Even for someone with no trauma history, the reality of interpersonal violence can be shocking. We would not want participants to be exposed to the harsh language that characters (instructors replicating common assault scenarios so that students can learn effective verbal strategies) sometimes use without a larger framework and container, as stated above. We never want people to feel shock in relation to our classes and the skills we teach -we want people to feel support, empathy, and interest. Some of us – especially those of us with trauma histories – may feel a sense of urgency in getting those around us involved and invested, but shock oftentimes makes people averse to the topic or approach being shown. When someone feels like their boundaries have been violated because they weren’t prepared for something, they generally do not move towards that topic. But when someone is able to learn about our programs on their terms, they are more likely to see the value in our approach and engage in the issues.

6. Yelling and hearing others yell — especially women and others who have been discouraged from being vocal and taking up space — can be transformative for participants all on its own! However, even for someone who doesn’t approach the stage or demonstration area, yelling can be disorienting and can sometimes bring up painful memories for survivors that they are not prepared for. The majority of adults who take our classes are survivors, and they do things to get ready for these classes. That preparation can range from talking with their therapist and making a plan for the support and resources they will utilize around classes to having a burrito and quiet cup of coffee the morning of class – But the point is that they know what’s coming, and they are opting in and preparing however is best for them.

Do we miss out on potentially valuable outreach opportunities when we decline demonstration opportunities? Maybe. However, it is important for all our outreach efforts to line up with our values. This means we prioritize making our services and public activities trauma-informed and supportive for whoever may be in the room.

Our organization, and others that teach ESD, work extremely hard to design self-defense classes that are trauma-informed; that are explicitly anti-victim blaming; and that are effective. The nuances and layered teaching methods that make our classes so powerful would be nearly impossible to convey in a 15 minute demonstration. Yet we know that this slower and more comprehensive approach to self-defense training works – we regularly hear from graduates who share how the class was transformative for them and how much more confidently they are living their own lives.

We are lucky to work in a community where so many people are passionate about violence prevention and self-defense, and we would love to help you learn more about our organization! We teach classes with graduations that are open to the public; we also do discussion-based classes and presentations, which are a great way to get started. If you would like us to do one of those talks for a workshop or a group, please let us know!

Making Sexual Assault Everyone’s Problem

The past few weeks have been overwhelming for many, especially for those of us who are sexual assault survivors. It’s easy to get caught up in the enormity of the problem – sexual assault happening at all levels of our society, no arena exempt.

And meanwhile, I think it’s important to credit those responsible for the increase in coverage and dialogue:

This moment is brought to you by the power of survivors.

To be sure, survivors are in different places in their journeys. Some are still struggling to understand that what was done to them was wrong; others are still finding the words to tell themselves, their diaries, their partners, and their friends. Others have been speaking out, fighting back against the shame of abuse for years – some for decades, including at consciousness raising groups, speak outs, rape crisis centers, and public protests like Take Back the Night rallies and marches.

As a movement, though, we have stopped short of identifying those who did violence to us.

Right now we are witnessing the incredible power of people speaking out. We know that one person speaking out frees others from shame, encouraging others to also speak out. And meanwhile there is a particular power gained when people speak out and name those who have harmed us. We know that it is incredibly rare for a perpetrator to have only one victim. So when one person speaks out, they not only free others to do so in general, but also embolden others hurt by that very same person to also name the harm done.

This takes working against the socialization many of us have received to be nice and not hurt others – even when we are being hurt ourselves. It calls for us to work against the grooming that person did to ensure we would stay quiet. It makes us confront the (strong) possibility of people dismissing us, minimizing or disbelieving what we have endured, and further violence – whether hateful language or physical harm.

These and more are all understandable reasons to not speak out. This is why Take Back the Night was so profound. Take Back the Night represented huge communities of women naming that what they experienced was not an individual shame, but a widespread social problem. It is no small act when young people and adults of all genders claim that title of “survivor” in our violence prevention and self-defense classes. I am honored to share the journey with others as they realize, truly, that it was not their fault, and all of the powerful things they did to survive.

However, I can’t help but notice that today we have massive numbers of identified “survivors,” and incredibly small numbers of accused.

This invariably has the effect of making sexual violence seem like a women’s issue, or an individual survivor’s issue, instead of the community problem that it truly is. This mindset discourages us from placing the blame for violence where it belongs – on the perpetrators. And we must focus on community change if we want to understand how to prevent future instances of violence.

This is exactly what some survivors are doing when they name those who harmed them– they are leading our movement forward. This means claiming our stories as our own. It means saying with authority: I know my own life. I have a right to speak. It means no longer protecting those who have hurt us. It means recognizing that there is no statute of limitations on our truth.

I find this inspiring, and I can’t wait for the next chapter that this opens up for us as we acknowledge exactly how rampant sexual violence is in our society and that we all have a responsibility for preventing it.

Rethinking Awareness as a Safety Strategy

Traditionally, awareness is taught as a series of tips. “Look around when you’re walking to your car.” “Don’t text or talk on the phone.” We often critique these tips as inherently victim-blaming as well as largely irrelevant since most violence, unfortunately, is committed by people we know. We also have noticed that awareness, in the larger sense, actually is less about looking around and more about a certain lack of denial about what’s going on.

Awareness is better defined as a willingness to see or bear witness.

I can think of a number of times when I was ardently taking self-defense classes when I was younger, wanting to address fears based on a history of violence, where I was taught by very well-intentioned instructors to look in the backseat of my car when I got in, etc. Meanwhile, I was beginning to date people who teased me too much and crossed my physical boundaries, and my classes didn’t address these early warning signs at all.

I hope we all agree that the responsibility and blame always lies with the person who chooses to use violence and manipulation, and never with the victim. Meanwhile, I wanted to learn strategies to increase my own safety – these two simultaneous truths are what Lynne Marie Wannamaker describes as “the self-defense paradox.”

Unfortunately, the strategies for awareness I was being taught had nothing to do with the actual threats I faced. I would have benefited much more if I’d been taught about healthy relationships and dynamics of abuse, told the statistics of violence by strangers vs. people we know, and practiced better strategies to negotiate boundaries and deal with threats of physical violence.

Feeling unprepared or as though the reality of the truth would be crushing can explain our responses to everything from ignoring when someone is behaving as though they are about to steal in a local store to ignoring the signs of child abuse. It is rarely about literally not turning our heads and scanning the environment to see the behavior. More often, it is that we see it or hear it, and our brains thoughtfully screen it out in order to protect us from something that feels overwhelming.

For me, this is exciting, because it means that instead of thinking that we’ve been doing something wrong all our lives (not looking around), it simply means that we might benefit from believing ourselves more and discovering more tools to gain confidence in ourselves.

Not Quite Enough: White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault

Recently, the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault announced a series of actions to: (1) identify the scope of the problem on college campuses, (2) help prevent campus sexual assault, (3) help schools respond effectively when a student is assaulted, and (4) improve, and make more transparent, the federal government’s enforcement efforts.

These are all fantastic steps, and a huge growth in efforts and attention after several courageous survivors exposed the gross neglect and response to sexual assault on college campuses.

So, what is missing? Women. All of the prevention efforts are focused on bystander education and men’s intervention.

This is great, and all of us in the violence prevention arena agree that it takes men and women working together to end the cycle of violence. The vast majority of men are good. Most people want to help, and just need to learn how. Changing social norms through education about consent and bystander education is something IMPACT does and collaborates with others in the community to do as well.

However, research has shown that traditional gender role norms contribute to a culture that permits sexual violence. And yet, this important effort to end sexual violence is promoting an approach that does just that. Instead of men as perpetrators, it attempts to replace that with men as protectors and interveners. In both scenarios, women are still cast as victims without agency, with men in control.

As our colleague Martha Thompson at Impact Chicago writes, “The message of the White House Task Force that women should focus their attention on awareness of risks and avoiding danger because only men can stop another man from rape and sexual assault is an obsolete message.”

Those of us who work with survivors know of the incredible strength they have. It takes strength to come forward and report. It takes strength to break patterns; to risk losing one’s social status or job; to jeopardize relationships with family and friends; it takes strength to tell complete strangers some of the worst moments of your life.

Women and others targeted for sexual violence have an incredible amount of strength. That strength can be used for preventing violence as well. Women are also able to act as active bystanders. And research repeatedly shows that resistance is effective in reducing the likelihood of an assault being completed, and that resistance does not “make a situation worse.”

We need to examine prevention efforts to be sure they don’t contain echoes of the same gender norms that create gender-based violence in the first place. I greatly appreciate the avoidance of victim-blaming in the White House report, but excluding women entirely is not the answer. Instead, we need to engage women and others targeted for violence in prevention efforts that do not buy into oppression.

It is crucial that we, as a society, develop a comprehensive solution to ending sexual assault – one that includes all genders and one that emphasizes community change as well as individual agency.

Fighting Violence Where It Lives

(This article was written by Meg Stone, the director of IMPACT Boston, and originally appeared here.)

Usually, after a trend of violence committed by strangers, media outlets respond by offering women advice about how to stay safe. The tips are sometimes consistent with good research on which resistance strategies are most effective. Other times, though, safety advice consists of laundry lists of ways women should limit their lives (don’t wear headphones, don’t reach into your purse, keep your hands free at all times, etc.).

I am heartened when I see people addressing their feelings of fear by seeking out information and learning more about what they can do to protect themselves. At the same time, the safety advice most people are giving and getting is only relevant to a minority of assaults: those perpetrated by strangers.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, only about 13 percent of sexual assaults in the United States are committed by strangers. Perpetrators are much more likely to be dating partners, family members, and acquaintances.

So why do the news media, law enforcement officials and, yes, self-defense experts place almost all of their focus on helping women protect themselves from relatively uncommon acts of violence?

It’s because the steps we need to take to prevent rapes perpetrated by people we know are far more difficult. Looking for taxi medallions to ensure that drivers are properly licensed, or crossing the street when we suspect that someone is following us doesn’t disrupt our core beliefs about the people and places that are supposed to be safe.

We are conditioned to feel afraid in dark parking lots, but when we go on first dates, we want to flirt and connect. What if a new person we’re excited about dating ignores us when we say we’re not comfortable with physical affection in public? What if this person tells us we should lighten up and stop being such a prude? It’s painful to wonder whether those actions are warning signs that the person will disrespect other intimate boundaries.

When the concern about safety arises in our own families, the situation can be even harder. What if a beloved grandfather or uncle is touching a child or teenager in a sexually suggestive way? Keeping an act of abuse from escalating may require several family members getting involved. That means they have to be courageous enough to admit there’s a problem and trust and respect each other enough to address it together.

This can be painful. Sometimes too painful.

So instead, we focus most of our energy elsewhere. We become more vigilant about parking lots and taxi cabs. And as long as this heightened awareness doesn’t perpetuate racial stereotypes or cause us to limit our lives unnecessarily, it’s ultimately good. But I hope that this recent wake-up call doesn’t stop with strangers.

If reading the news has prompted us to have more conversations about sexual assault at our dinner tables and in our human resources departments, I hope we will also think about the thousands of acts of sexual violence that never make the news and what we can do about them.

– Meg Stone
Executive Director of IMPACT Boston

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.

The Effects of Fear & Violence: Mourning Trayvon

Trayvon Martin’s death, as well as the lack of charges brought against his killer, was horrific for many, but was not surprising.

Women often tell me of their rape aversion plans. They usually include: carrying their keys between their fingers, never going anywhere alone, watching their drinks, not wearing revealing clothes, not going out at night, etc. “Sometimes,” they wearily declare, “I just wish I were a man.” What we don’t usually talk about is the dangers men face, especially men of color.

Men typically are not told to restrict their behavior in these limiting and largely unproductive ways. They are not warned that they’re being reckless, or worse – provoking any violence they might encounter – if they don’t adhere to these rules.

Still, the concept of men as free from the effects of violence in our society is a deeply flawed one. When I teach about violence prevention in schools, teen boys often are resistant until they realize that I’m not just there to teach the girls. Then they express confusion and resentment as they describe learning to evade physical assault by aggressive men and boys, while simultaneously having to demonstrate they are not a threat to others.

A recent story with Donna Britt, mother and author of brothers (& me), on NPR discussed how she raised her boys. She and others are doing a great job of making public what they call “the talk” that African American parents give their boys when they make that transition from cute child to possible threat in the public eye.

This is an everyday reality for boys and men of color, and I’m glad that this is getting some media attention and acknowledgment. Yet, in a culture where we say there’s no way to predict violence, profiling is inevitable.

Soon the evening news will interview another neighbor who testifies the murderer next door “seemed so normal” and everyone will nod that there was no way anyone could have known. Then, everyone, including the police, will grasp at whatever they can– the latest mug shots, the characters from the last movie – to be able to predict the next act of violence. Because we don’t want to be caught off guard.

Safety is not worth this cost to our communities. There are ways of predicting violence – which means there are ways of preventing violence – that don’t include profiling random men of color and blaming victims. Why are we not exploring these?

In an entertainment culture, it is not popular to explore predictability. When there is a mystery, you can be sure that everyone will stay glued to his/her screens, anxious to keep track of the newest development. Meanwhile, this also ensures that sponsors’ advertisements will be watched while viewers eagerly await the next installment of the story.

Despite Gavin de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear, being on the bestseller list when it first came out over a decade ago, reporters still choose to interview the clueless rather than interview his team that studies how intuition works and the precursors to violence. As a culture, we treat those who know ahead of time as mystical outliers, never pausing to study how it is that the average person could foresee such a thing.

Those who accurately predict violence use behavior as their indicators, not hoodies or race. Concepts like forced teaming (pretending there is an alliance between you that doesn’t exist), using charm and niceness, giving too many details, typecasting, loan sharking, giving an unsolicited promise and ignoring the word “no” are all accurate ways of predicting when someone is acting manipulatively and possibly dangerous. Of course, in order to give credence to these ways of predicting violence and danger, we would have to admit that most violence happens by people we know and/or includes an “interview” process, rather than being a random shooting or a man behind the bushes who says nothing before grabbing his victim.

To say that violence is predictable is not equal to blaming those of us who have experienced it in the past. It is empowering everyone to have more tools for the future so that we may live fuller lives and feel less fear. It is challenging our society to distinguish between paranoia, prejudice and real intuition.

Getting My Body Back

I was not very athletic or coordinated when I was younger. I absorbed what many of my peers learned: girls’ bodies are there to look at. I was more aware of my body as something in the mirror than I was of it being something for my own use and enjoyment. Then, after experiencing trauma, I didn’t feel safe in my body.  This made being truly present a challenge – no wonder coordination was difficult for me. I also was vulnerable, like many girls and boys, to feel that if I couldn’t win in competitive environments, it would just be better to not try at all.
When I took my first Women’s Basics class, I was still weighed down by these feelings. And yet, I succeeded in learning to defend myself. There was no competition between students, and all women were supported in learning the physical skills, regardless of size, shape or physical ability. I learned the skills, and more importantly—I learned that I could count on my body. I discovered its power and its capacity to learn through challenges.

This trust that I built with my body went far. Within a year of taking the class, I traveled abroad and became enamored with salsa dancing, easily losing uncomfortable weight that I had carried since an abusive relationship years before. Hiking mountains and doing sports weren’t things I used to imagine myself doing—but now they bring me incredible satisfaction and joy.

By getting reconnected to my body through IMPACT, I discovered more of myself. Re-establishing this mind-body connection empowered me to joyfully inhabit my body once again. Certainly we can all make vows to change habits in the New Year, but oftentimes there are underlying issues we need to address in order to help us truly succeed.

Feeling Safe & Being Safe

Personal safety and self-defense classes should make a person actually safer, feel safer, and feel less fearful.

Fear can make a person more closed off from the world- loathe to trust others, averse to talking with strangers, and hesitant to try new things, be in new situations, or visit new places.  Living in fear of violence is one of the more oppressive consequences of violence in our society.

I firmly believe that self-defense and personal safety classes should address that fear.  It should alleviate those symptoms.  If a safety program makes a person go out less, be more mistrustful, be less open to new people or new experiences, it has perhaps succeeded in mking him/her safer.  But it has not succeeded in making that person feel less fear.  It has not made his/her life more full or more joyful – and it is not the only means to safety!

To feel and be safer does not require us to feel afraid.  We are often told that to be safe, we must feel afraid.  However, it is possible to feel safe and be safe.

If a violence prevention or personal safety class doesn’t make you feel safer and less ferful, if it tells you to close off your life even more than you already have in order to be safe, take another one.  Closing off is not the only way to get security in this world.  It may seem counterintuitive, but we can actually feel more safe and more secure when we open up, once we have some criteria for judging and some skills for defending.

Without the Myth of Random Violence

Violence is seldom random.  Like all behaviors, violent behavior follows patterns that can be observed.  Once understood, these patterns can be prepared for.  I highly recommend the book, The Gift of Fear, in which the author Gavin de Becker breaks down the behaviors that manipulative or dangerous people use.  He goes into depth about how intuition functions to keep us safe.  At IMPACT, we teach an Intuition Development class on this topic.

If everyone understood that violence follows a pattern, it would have a profound impact on communities:

1.     Individuals would only be appropriately alarmed when a set of behaviors happen, and would feel at peace when they don’t.

2.     People could grow closer, not feeling suspicious of one another because of stereotypes or profiling or past experiences.

3.     It would make a lot more sense to learn a systematic approach to preventing, defending against, and mitigating the impact of violence.

4.     Victims/survivors and others affected by the threat of violence in our society could learn practical skills to avoid, prevent, and diminish violence in their lives and feel safer.  By gaining knowledge and skills, survivors can change the idea that it was something intrinsic in them, or that they are victims.

5.    Good people regularly profiled as potentially dangerous (men, people of color, those wearing baggy pants or piercings, etc.) could walk down the street and get into elevators without having to worry and put effort into not scaring others.

6.     Perpetrators of violence would be seen as using a set of behaviors to hurt and scare (have power over) others, and the behaviors would be addressed more, rather than demonizing the person.

7.     We could address the roots of violence and prevent it on that level, instead of continually having to provide victim services and lock up perpetrators.

Violence will always be shocking and upsetting.  By focusing on patterns, we discover the tools necessary to change how violence affects our communities.

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