Today is Wednesday, Sept 22, 2021.  The first day of Autumn!  It’s like a week or so ago someone flipped a switch, and virtually overnight we went from Summer to Fall.  That’s just the way seasons change in the Emerald City.

In last week’s class a participant shared a bystander intervention success story.  She has this neighbor who, when he sees young kids or smallish older women walking by on the street, aggressively approaches them.  He would yell profanities, gesticulate menacingly, and try to get uncomfortably close.  Those targeted, their reactions were — not surprisingly — fearful; they’d try to make themselves smaller, sometimes even apologize, and try to back away as quickly as possible.  Angry yelling dude

This student had had enough of the spectacle.  One recent day the neighbor had begun his rant on yet another older woman walking her small dog.  My student strode near to him (keeping distance of course) and told him to leave, to stop harassing people.  Yes she did raise her voice.  The neighbor was taken aback, and he left.  And, ever since then, whenever he sees my student, he retreats back to the safety of his own abode.

We had been doing more work with bystander intervention since the beginning of the pandemic in our virtual classes.  It is a valuable skill so I’ll be bringing it more into my longer classes (those would be the 5 hour Self-Defense Seminar and the 6 week Self-Defense 101).

A lot of us envision bystander intervention as something scary we would do with angry strangers on the street, or bus, or grocery store.  And those instances are important.  Most opportunities, however, will arise in more familiar settings, and involve people we know.  People with whom we’ve some history, and can often guess their reactions.  And it’s great to learn and practice some skills to make your day-to-day living smoother and more peaceful.  I’ve got a full range of classes coming up this fall, and I’m slowly getting my winter offering up online.

Do you have a bystander intervention success story you’d like to share?

Stay safe, live life.

Today I’m back to “red flags.” These are the hints that something may be awry. Also called gut feelings, intuition, instincts, it refers to trusting yourself when you’re uncomfortable or sensing something amGirls learning about red flags and trusting their intuition when sensing something wrongiss. Some red flags are subtle, some really blatant. They are all specific behaviors that somebody is doing that bumps into one of your boundaries.

Red flags also come in different “flavors.” By that I mean they are tactics to try to take down specific boundaries. Consider these three red flags, and what they have in common:

▪ Keeps asking you out after you’ve said no
▪ Pushes you to drink alcohol or use drugs
▪ Refuses to wear protection when engaging in sex

If this were a class setting, I’d give you a few seconds to think about it. If you want to, take a bit of time yourself to think about these three.

What they have in common is an explicit rejection of boundaries you’ve already stated.

If you’ve already said no to dating, repeatedly asking is not flattering. At best, it’s awkward.  At worst, dangerous and (very) rarely life-threatening.  Do you really want to go on a date with someone who ignores your boundaries?

Alcohol and drugs are known to impair our cognitive functions and physical reactions. Indulgence should be a choice. If someone is pressuring you, wonder why. Never underestimate the human need to fit in, to belong. Perpetrators will frequently exploit that, especially in a social situation.

Refusing to wear protection when having sex. What could possibly go wrong? The statement assumes you’ve already had a discussion, or you’re having the discussion. Maybe you’re not ready for parenthood, or don’t want to deal with an STD. Now do you think the person with whom you’re having this discussion is unaware of potential risks? They’re aware all right, just don’t feel it’s a big deal for them, and your boundary is just a nuisance.

As I’ve already said, the flavor of these three red flags is that of explicitly negating your boundary.  Of saying your needs are just preferences, probably trivial, and not taken seriously. You may be past the state of sensing something amiss, you could very well be experiencing some strong feelings of violation, or embarrassment, or even shame that your boundaries were disregarded. We all know that many boundaries do change over time and with different people, and you get to decide which are more fluid and which are more fixed. Because your freedom to make your own choices, to be able to trust yourself in sensing something wrong, is essential to real personal safety.

Speaking of which, our Personal Safety Essentials class is happening tomorrow night. Self-Defense for Teen Girls ages 12-14 is this coming Sunday, and Self-Defense for Teen Girls ages 15+ is March 13th (but that one may be full now). I should be posting a Spring schedule in the next week or so.

Stay safe, live life.

It is now October.   Eerie in October.  The touch of the autumn air in the morning is damp and foggy; even after the fog burns off and the sun emerges, there’s still that after-chill. Leaves, turning brilliant reds, yellows and orange, are just beginning to drift to earth.  The coral maple in my front yard is pretty nice!Eerie in October coral bark maple tree

Halloween, just one evening of ghosts and ghouls, spirits and spectres, will be here in the wink of an eye.  Just three days from now.

October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Unlike Halloween, though, domestic violence is not limited to that one evening in October, nor should we be aware only these 31 days. Domestic violence is a wraith that stalks its prey all year long. Abuse victims can be haunted even after the relationship ends: they are more likely to suffer depression and anxiety than are others, often less able to form long-term loving and healthy relationships, and more likely to engage in harmful, high-risk behaviors, according to the DHHS Office of Women’s Health  [Sidenote:  I used to cite a page from the Center for Disease Control website for domestic violence, but it seems that page on the effects of DV has vanished and I could not find a comparable one on the CDC site.  Frankly, CDC, you lost some credibility with me this year — you know those COVID “recommendations” that were tainted by political ambition.  So how about you get back to recommendations based on science?  Then we can talk about re-building trust.  In the meantime, maybe we need to take a break from each other.]

In the 1970s the phrase “the personal is political” gained traction among feminists as women recognized that individual incidents and abuses were commonplace, even routine. And they were socially OK, and systemic.   What does that mean?

Let’s say you do not abuse your significant other, but your buddy does and you know about it but you ignore it, don’t bring it up, don’t ask about it, don’t offer help, don’t express concern, but hang out with your buddy like always, and so do everyone else, that makes is socially OK.  Socially OK means there’s no consequences for that behavior, and in the case of DV that should not be OK.  Systemic means that the issue isn’t taken seriously as a social problem, but rather as a rare individual issue or a personal failing, so few social resources are devoted.  That means there’s a lack of available assistance for someone who is being abused.  Furthermore, if said abused person decides to speak up, there’s a good chance they will end up socially isolated, financially damaged, and relegated to society’s fringes.  Also not OK!

Women have put up with abuse for various reasons. We heard that’s just the way it was, or that’s just life as a woman in modern America so deal with it. Or “boys will be boys.”  Or there would be consequences, such as sexual assault, physical battery, or homicide. Those possibilities would hang out like an elephant in the room, ignored and unnamed, a vile presence always felt even if invisible.

If you know a someone in an abusive relationship, please download this flyer and send it to them. If you are into planning and lists, take a look at this inventory for safety planning. Send it to their friends also — they probably feel like they’re watching a bad horror movie, powerless to intervene. In fact, send it to anyone you know. It may save them from this nightmare later. Do your part to exorcise this demon now, for the whole year.

I resisted watching this video for a couple of months.  Really, the first few moments of music made me want to hunker down with a glass of wine to go with the cheese.  I caved in only because a class of high school girls wanted to dissect it.  And, as I watched, the overly cute morphed into creepy.

You may have seen it — this video was all over my Facebook feed earlier this year.

“Slap Her.”  The one in Italian with boys ages 7 to 11.  An off-camera interviewer asks them a few preliminary questions, to prove they’re just regular joes (but smaller, and cute).  Name and age.  What do you want to be when you grow up, and why?  (Firefighter, baker, pizza maker — because they want to help people, make messes, like pizza.  Regular li’l joes.)

Next they are introduced to a girl.  Martina bounds into the frame.  Taller than the boys, looking more like a tween than little girl, Martina may be 11 or 13 years old.  A bit of makeup is balanced by the braces on her teeth. 

One more question is directed to the boys:  What do you like about her?  Various answers, all on appearance (well, they don’t know anything else about her since she hasn’t said or done anything, what else could they say? other than uhhhhh . . .).  Her hands, eyes, shoes, hair, . . . everything.  She is a pretty girl.

Enough with the questions.  On to commands.  The voice behind the camera tells them to caress her.  Then to make funny faces at her.  The boys comply, with varying degrees of awkwardness.

The final command: to slap her.  The cheesy music stops.  They boys look at the camera.  They seem not sure they really heard correctly.  They look at her, look at the camera, look at the camera some more.  They refuse.  And the cheesy music resumes, with the addition of a string orchestra swelling in the background.

The boys give various reasons.  Because we’re not supposed to hit girls (not even with a flower).  Because she’s pretty.  Because hitting is bad.  Because Jesus said so.  Because he’s against violence.  Because he’s a man.

Fade to text scrolling on the screen:  In the kids’ world women don’t get hit.

I really wanted to get sucked into the cuteness.  But I could not, even when accompanied by a glass of red rhone.  The “creepy” factor just overtook the “cute.”  Let’s count the ways:

  1. Martina doesn’t talk.  She giggles, behind her hand, at some point.  She is portrayed more as a Disney automaton (an object) than a real person. 
  2. Martina is an object labeled “girl.”  The boys are asked what they like about her after having first met her.  What can they say, really?  Is the interviewer leading the boys to believe that the only parts worth assessing are what’s visible?  That’s annoying.
  3. The really creepy part for me began when the interviewer told the boys to caress her.  Huh?  How about ASKING HER?  With all the media coverage these past months about “consent,” this stands out in an out-of-touch way.
  4. So by the time it got to “slap her,” I was past annoyed.  The cheese was spread thick, and no wine was cutting through that stinky layer.

But we all know that in the real world, women and girls (and boys and men, and transgender and questioning) do get hit.  Is the question we’re left to ponder how that happens?  What transpires between the magic of childhood and the mundanity of adulthood to make violence okay?  I think the structure of the video makes that clear:  both boys and girls got pigeonholed in very hetero-normative boxes, where girls are pretty objects (for boys) and not to be hit, and boys are active agents. 

The whole point of learning self-defense skills is NOT to beat up others, nor to lock yourself in an apartment cell to keep harm at bay, nor even to set up invisible impenetrable boundaries.  You learn self-defense so you can go out and meet others and travel and study and go to parties and gatherings and meet other people and make friends.  You get to pick your wine as well as the cheese, or decide whether or not you want either.  You learn skills so you can be happy and successful and expand the scope of your activities.

So you are an active agent in your life.  Anything less is cheating on yourself.

Postscripts: 

While this has the look and feel of a PSA, it is not.  This video refers viewers to Fanpage.it, is an Italian news company (too bad I don’t know if this news company is more like the New York Times or the National Enquirer).  No references to domestic or dating violence resources are provided at the end, which diminishes the value of the video.

Here are a few other YouTube comments on this viral video.
    •    Sad that the NFL has become so susceptible to parody:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNPfT0-Ss3g
    •    Kids React had these American children watch and comment:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar20hv0rpBM (Lucas’ reaction to why abuse happens:  They are dumb)  These kids were also asked would girls hit boys, and some believed yes.
    •    While in India, girls were asked to slap boys:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np4xpXYV1rE

This afternoon I taught a class for tween girls (and a mom or two), and afterwards one mom and I were talking about this “blaming the victim” of rape nonsense.  She mentioned that one of her friends, many years ago, was raped right after her high school graduation.  The girls was at home in bed, and a robber with a gun broke into the house. He raped her.  The police later asked her what she was wearing.

I remembered a speaker from the 2011 Seattle SlutWalk with the same story.  I asked if the women spoke at SlutWalk and the mom said yes.  Got the speaker’s name, found her on YouTube, and here she is, just as I remembered.

If you do not see a video here, or it is not playable on your device, you can view it directly on YouTube.

And the most important takeaway is that she was raped because a rapist made a choice to commit rape. True then, true now.  True always.

A few days  ago I posted about a FOX News “pundit,” Liz Trotta, who expressed incredulity that women would enter the service and not be expecting sexual assault. The whole episode reminded me more of an old Monty Python routine (“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!”) than real news commentary in how surreal Trotta’s opinions were.

Former Marine Sarah Anderson wrote a truly AWESOME piece about Ms. Trotta’s inane comments, and at the end asks us to sign an online petition demanding that FOX fire Trotter. I signed, and I highly recommend you do too.

I looked up “pundit” in Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary, hoping for some pithy and witty quip to quote. Nothing. I think it’s the season for a new, updated dictionary.

Take this quick quiz to find out how much you do know about that part of global violence relegated to the inside pages (if at all) in most newspapers.

http://saynotoviolence.org/node/2138/take

Really, this will only take about 4 minutes of your time.

OK, taking a quiz by itself won’t end the violence. But there is this marketing acronym: TOMA. That’s Top of Mind Awareness. Those items you hear about or see most often get more attention and action. More action against violence is (to quote Martha Stewart) a good thing. Duh! (to quote Charlie Sheen, who I still do not fear).

PS – Want to learn what you can do to keep yourself safe, as well as actions you can take to make your community safer? Self-Defense 101 for Women.