Feeling Lucky? Part I

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“I was lucky!”

I hear this a lot, both in the media and from students. A woman or girl defends herself successfully, fights off an attacker, but then minimizes her good work by crediting chance.

You probably already know the story of one of the most crucial breakthroughs of modern medicine. Dr. Alexander Fleming inadvertently left a petri dish uncovered over a weekend. When he returned, he saw that mold had infested the dish. But before he threw away the spoiled experiment, he took a closer look and saw the mold was killing the bacteria. And thus the path to penicillin, and other antibiotics, was born.

Radioactivity was brought to light when physicist Henri Becquerel stored a chunk of uranium in a drawer besides an unexposed photographic plate. When he took them out a week later he noticed that the rock had left an imprint on the plate in the absence of light. Working with his students Marie and Pierre Curie, they discovered radiation.

And popsicles were invented in 1905, when eleven-year-old Frank Epperson left his soda-making gear outside, in the cold, overnight. The next day, the water and flavored powder mixture had frozen — along with the stick he’d used to stir the mixture. (Twenty years later, the adult Epperson applied for a popsicle patent.)

In all these instances, it took an observant person to see what most of us would call a “mistake,” and find the opportunity.

“Luck favors the prepared mind,” said by Dr. Louis Pasteur.  All three were lucky, and they were prepared.

Your safety will depend, in large part, on your ability to recognize opportunities to fight back, to see an attacker’s vulnerabilities, and to exploit weaknesses. Luck in self-defense does indeed favor the prepared mind, despite so-called “mistakes.”

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LIghtning Strikes Twice — In the News Again

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After Deborah Horne from KIRO TV interviewed me about what women can do to stay safer, my evening class got a visit from Alison Grande and another cameraman from KIRO. They spent about an hour filming and briefly interviewing a couple of the students, and used probably about 20 seconds in this segment:

 

I have to say I’m glad that the media is also presenting what women can do for safety, not just recommending we stay home, quivering, until the police catch the creep(s).

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Self-Defense Makes Local News

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Several highly-publicized incidents of stranger attacks on women, and self-defense comes to the media mind.  Four women have been assaulted in Seattle’s north end, generally considered fairly residential and safe. KIRO TV News came out to talk with me, and here’s their evening story for Tuesday February 12:

If the above video doesn’t play on your browser, visit the KIRO site for viewing.

Later that evening they came to take some video of a class I was teaching. While we were not the “feature,” they did show some really good work by our students.  I’ll post that one when I find the video online.

Visit my website for more info on taking a self-defense class.

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Can’t Buy Me Love

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But money can buy anything else.

If you’ve been following me on Facebook, you know I’m taking domestic violence advocacy training through DAWN (Domestic Abuse Women’s Network, serving South King County). We cover lots of topics: social justice, economic justice, basic family law, basic protection orders, suicide, teen dating violence, batterer intervention, safety planning, chemical dependency, trauma, LGBTQ issues, religion, available resources, . . . it goes on and on, deeper and deeper.

And money is a recurring theme. Access to resources is probably the most important factor affecting what you can do to keep safe. Abusers very often try to control access to bank accounts, funds, and pocket change.

In all my self-defense classes, I tell students that they need to have their very own bank accounts. Their name, and only their name, should be on it. This account needs to have enough money to live on for 6 months to a year. This is your safety hatch.

Perhaps an insecure partner, even abusive spouse, will whine. “Sugarplum, we’re married now, we don’t need separate accounts. Why are you holding out on me?”  Or maybe, “Honey, don’t you trust me? You must not care about me the way I care about you.” Or even, “You have all that money separate, you must be cheating on me!”

Once upon a time, in this land of the free, women were not legally entitled to own property, including their earned wages. Any and all income, regardless of who earned it, belonged to the male head of household. I emphasize in my classes that the slow change in the law, giving women the right to retain their earnings, to buy and own property, to save and spend and invest, is a critical precursor to effective self-defense. Otherwise, you have nowhere to go.

I’ve taught far too many women who ended up homeless or in transitional housing. Keep the account. In your name. Only.

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