Their Wits About Them

Over 30 years ago, Denise Caignon and Gail Grove published Her Wits About Her: Self-Defense Success Stories By Women. The book is a compilation of different ways that women have defended themselves against attack, using the tools they had available to them.

IMPACT Chicago shares blogs and Facebook posts of local, national, and international self-defense stories.  Below are some stories that we have shared recently on the IMPACT Chicago blog or on Facebook.  None of the targets of violence were responsible for the violence they experienced. They used their wits, voices, and physical tools to prevent, interrupt, stop, report, or name violence.

Awareness, Assessment, Voice 

• IMPACT grad Michelle Schmitt shares her story of "When Unsafe Behavior Happens in a Safe Space." 

• Amber Stuart explains her decision not to share the details of the violence she experienced as a way to honor the complexity of her experience. 

• Meredith Gordon's daughter, a first grader, told her mom that she had learned about consent in school that day. Sometime later when her pediatrician put his hands on her cheeks, she said: "You need to ask permission before you touch me.” He responded: "You are right. You are the boss of your own body."

• Nathalie Birli paid attention to what her attacker was saying and used what she heard to persuade him to return her to her home and once home, she called the police and he was arrested. 

Yelling, Strikes, and/or Kicks

• A teen who was hit in the head with a hammer when a man attempted to kidnap her fought back. She said yelling and fighting is what saved her. 

• Herron had taken a self-defense workshop three weeks before being attacked in a restroom stall. See the t-shirt she made to show the words she yelled at the would-be rapist and the squiggly lines are the GPS trail of her defending herself.

• A man pushed a University of Chicago student to the ground & tried to put his hand up her skirt. She bit his arm & he ran off. 

• Some boys at a high school who saw a transgender boy's selfie taken in the boys' bathroom were angry and decided they would walk into the girls’ bathroom to take their own selfie “as a form of protest." The first boy to enter the girls’ room was met by a girl ― who kneed him in the groin. With that, the “protest” was over.

• Two men attacked a woman in Bucktown. They pushed her to the ground and one man punched her in the face. She punched one of the men in the groin. The men fled.