While campaigning in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said: "predators are cowards." Empowerment Self-Defense instructors have a lot of agreement about what predatory behavior is, but they don't all label rapists and predators cowards. See below for Lisa Gaeta Why I Call Rapists Cowards and Susan Schorn Why I Don't Call Rapists Cowards.
Why I Call Rapists Cowards
Lisa Gaeta, Founder
and CEO, IMPACT Personal Safety of Southern California
Rapists are cowards.
In our society and in our
movies and books, men prove their power by fighting other men or women who are
at least as strong as them, with similar skill sets and not knowing if they
will overcome or not. But the rapist chooses his victim to ASSURE himself that
he can’t lose.
Telling students that the man who is
attacking them is most likely trying to overcome something he feels he lacks as
a man, helps them to understand that he is not all-powerful. We give rapists
too much power. If we learn at a young age to speak up for ourselves and to
defend ourselves, we take control of the power over our own safety. My job is
to teach women how to stay safe in the face of imminent danger.
Strong, confident men don’t attack
people whom they perceive as weaker than them. Even the man who is a high-powered executive,
who verbally or physically abuses his family or kicks the dog when he’s angry,
is trying to overcome a feeling of powerlessness.
We do not teach our students to call
their attacker a coward. We teach them to de-escalate using verbal strategies
and body language. If that doesn’t work – although we have more success stories
about people talking their way out of a situation rather than fighting than
anything else – they are able to physically defend themselves.
I believe this to be the case because
our graduates do not present themselves as a good target. They BELIEVE that
they have the right and the skills to defend themselves if necessary. And
because that’s true, the attacker is deterred – because he’s a coward looking
for an easy target.
Why
I Don’t Call Rapists Cowards
Susan Schorn, Empowerment Self Defense
Instructor, Austin Texas
I appreciate Lisa's perspective
and wouldn't call it "wrong." I've often told self-defense students,
"You don't need to be stronger than an attacker; you only need to be
stronger than they think you are. And assault victims are often targeted
because of some perceived weakness, so any effort you make to defend yourself
will probably surprise your attacker and give you an advantage." When I say this to
students, I'm trying, as I think Lisa is, to break through the social
conditioning that makes women and other marginalized individuals feel helpless
in the face of threatened assault.
But I think defining
assailants as "cowards" limits our focus. It makes us think in terms
of brave men, who have abundant integrity and self-control and thus don't
"need" to assault others. In this dynamic, it's easy to position
"real" masculinity as honorable and protective, meaning that rape and
assault only occur when men don't have "enough" of the
"real" masculine traits. In a weird way, "rapists are cowards"
implies that men should refrain from raping anyone not because it's wrong, and
harms another human, but rather because it betrays weakness, and is, for that
reason, shameful. That's a fundamental dynamic of toxic masculinity: your
identity is built entirely on being brave/strong/silent, and thereby avoiding
shame.
Now, I have no problem
with shaming rapists. But I'm not keen on tying our disapproval of rape to
age-old stereotypes about masculine strengths. Those stereotypes are, by and
large, the reason we live in a rape culture today.
Lisa says that
"Strong, confident men don’t attack people whom they perceive as weaker
than them." This is a message I'm sure many young men have heard as they
grow up. And yet, I look around and see ample evidence that "strong,
confident men" do attack people whom they perceive as weaker—they
do it all the time. The #MeToo movement has shown us that many of them have
gotten away with it for decades. They do so, as Empowerment Self-Defense Anne
Kuzminsky says, because "Predators and their enablers behave in an
entitled, not necessarily cowardly way." In other words, the assailant
Lisa considers "cowardly" may still be extremely confident, and may
be possessed of all manner of privilege and status that allows them to
victimize people around them. I expect Lisa might say, "Well, that person
is still a coward, because they work hard to minimize the risk to themselves
when they victimize others." And I suspect an assailant in that
position—if they were being honest—would say, "Yeah. So what? You can call
me cowardly, but I'm getting what I want, and no one can touch me."
We may teach boys that
strong, confident men who don't attack others are admirable. But somewhere
along the way, the same culture that professes those values also teaches boys
that strong, confident men who take what they want and evade justice belong in
positions of authority and high status.
I do feel, like Lisa,
that the message "rapists are cowards" can help survivors and
potential victims re-frame their understanding of attackers' power. But it's
probably not going to be successful at reducing rape. Because the ideal of
gentlemanly behavior has been around for centuries, and rape still hasn't gone
away.
