Empowerment Self-Defense Training is Sexual Assault Prevention

Much of the research published on Empowerment Self-Defense (ESD) has focused on young people in college or younger. In "Empowerment Self-Defense Training in a Community Population" Psychology of Women, Jocelyn Hollander and Jeanine Cunningham compared women who took an Empowerment Self-Defense course with a comparable group of women who did not take the course. The participants ranged in age from 18-77.  

In comparison to women who did not take an ESD course, those who did reported: 

• less sexual assault, including unwanted sexual intercourse, one year later
• greater self-defense efficacy
• more accurate knowledge about sexual assault and the possibility of resistance
• less self-silencing than those who did not take the course

Hollander and Cunningham make the case for Empowerment Self-Defense programs to be part of  comprehensive community efforts to  prevent violence against women. They make it clear that even though ESD training reduces women's risks of sexual assault, it does not mean that women are in anyway responsible for stopping or preventing violence. 

Hollander,  Jocelyn A. and Jeanine Cunningham. 2020. Empowerment self-defense training in a community population. Psychology of Women 1-16.

What About Those Safety Tips?

Once you've had a self-defense course, people are often eager to hear about the safety tips you learned, from how to wear your hair to what weapons to carry. In "Safety Tips for Women, Revised" on the IMPACT Boston Blog, Shay Orent offers a look at the dangers of safety tips and suggests instead:

• Know the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships
• Practice boundary setting
• Know the research

For her analysis of safety tips and more about ways to keep ourselves safe, check out Orent's "Safety Tips for Women, Revised" 

The Facts Behind the #MeToo Movement

In January 2018,  on behalf of Stop Street Harassment, Gfk conducted a nationally representative survey on sexual harassment and assault.

Some of the results found in "The Facts Behind the #MeToo Movement:"

• 81% of women and 43% of men have experienced sexual harassment and/or assault.
• 77% of women and 34% of men have experienced verbal harassment.
• 51% of women and 17% of men reported being touched or groped without their consent.
• 27% of women and 7% of men experienced sexual assault.
• Sexual harassment most often took place in a public space and was committed by strangers.
• Sexual assault most often took place in a private residence and was committed by someone known by the person assaulted.
• Women with disabilities and women who identify as lesbian and bisexual were more likely to experience sexual assault than other women.
• Men in socially marginalized groups were more likely to experience sexual harassment and assault than other men.

Some things you can do:

• Encourage someone to take an Empowerment Self-Defense program like the IMPACT Chicago Core Program
• Participate in the April 2018 Sexual Assault Awareness Month "Embrace Your Voice" Campaign
• Participate in International Anti-Street Harassment Week, April 8-14. 

The Neurobiology of Sexual Assault and What It Means for First Responders

Rebecca Campbell, Professor of Psychology and Program Evaluation, Michigan State University, has extensively studied the neurobiology of trauma and the criminal justice system response to sexual assault. She has found that emotional and physical manifestations of trauma can be misinterpreted, resulting in “secondary victimization” whereby treatment by law enforcement is experienced by victims as blaming and insensitive. Her goal is to educate first responders so that understand victims’ behavior (the neurobiology of trauma) and to change how the system responds to victims.

Hear her full presentation online.

Do the Effects of IMPACT Last?

One of the reasons IMPACT is such a powerful experience is that women who take the Core Program incorporate the tools and strategies they learn into their bodies.  We hear from many graduates how they used their verbal and physical skills years later without taking an additional self-defense course.   

Margit Cox Henderson and Jeanne Albright, along with assistance from Martha Thompson, Lisa Amoroso, and Theo Pintzuk,  conducted a study comparing IMPACT graduates the day of graduation and graduates who had completed the course 2-4 years earlier who were taking a review course.  Using videotaped scenarios from the graduation and from the follow-up program, raters assessed each participant for her use of self-defense skills (target selection, technique selection, strike accuracy, and technique quality).  In addition, participants completed a survey self-assessing their confidence in their current abilities to use specific skills in real-life situations. For the follow-up course, graduates completed the confidence survey at the beginning of the course and other grads after they completed the course.

The researchers found that whether a recent graduate or not, participants’ self-defense skills were strong and, further the skills of graduates who had taken the course 2-4 years earlier and those who had just completed the course were equivalent—that is, there was no reduction in skills years after completing the course. Although their skills were as strong as recent graduates, women who had taken IMPACT 2 or more years earlier had less confidence in their ability to use their skills in a real-life situation.

So, yes the skills last but confidence is slightly reduced over time. Since confidence is key to using the skills, consider taking a review course to invigorate your confidence in the strong tools that you have and in your ability to apply these skills to new situations.

Reference

Henderson, Margit Cox and Jeanne Albright with Martha Thompson, Lisa Amoroso, and Theo Pintzuk. 1994. "Women's Self-Defense Training: Do the Effects Last?" Paper presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association. May, Chicago IL.

Resistance Stops Sexual Assault and Does Not Increase Risk of Injury

Recent research confirms that fighting back against an assailant does not increase the likelihood of injury, but it does increase the likelihood of preventing sexual assault.

Jongyeon Tark and Gary Kleck published a study in Violence Against Women on “Resisting Rape: The Effects of Victim Self-Protection on Rape Completion and Injury.” Their research used data from the National Crime Victimization Survey to answer two questions, ““Are you more likely to be injured when being assaulted if you protect yourself?” and “What self-protection actions are effective in reducing rape completion?”

This study specifically focused on the sequence of self-protective actions and injury: whether injuries were inflicted prior to victims taking self-protective actions (and therefore irrelevant to the question, “Are you more likely to be injured when being assaulted if you try to protect yourself?”) or after taking self-protective actions. The researchers looked at a variety of situations including those in which the victim was attacked or threatened with a gun, attacked or threatened with other weapons (including knives), attacked without a weapon (hit or kicked), and threatened without a weapon.

The results showed that while it is not uncommon for victims of rape or attempted rape suffer injuries, few of these injuries were inflicted after the victim took protective actions. Resistance was rarely followed by the assailant inflicting further injury on the victim.

The researchers also studied specific self-protection actions to determine which actions are most effective. Some of the self-protection actions included were: victim attacked offender with gun, victim attacked offender with other weapons such as a knife, victim attacked without a weapon (hit, kicked, etc.), victim struggled, victim yelled at offender, victim ran away, victim called police, victim tried to attract attention, and victim cooperated or pretended to.

The results found that, “no form of victim resistance was associated with significantly higher risk of rape completion than non-resistance.” The most effective tactics for avoiding rape completion were:

a) Running or driving away/hiding/locking door

b) Attracting attention/calling for help

c) Physically struggling

d) Unarmed attacks on the rapist

This is very much in line with what we teach at IMPACT; if you can safely leave the situation, do so (prevention), if you can’t safely leave, use verbal techniques first (use your voice), and use physical skills as a last resort. These self-protective actions reduce the risk of rape by 86%.

Katie Skibbe, IMPACT Chicago Instructor-in-training

See Jane Fight Back

Self-Defense scholars Jill Cermele and Martha McCaughey have created See Jane Fight Back, a website covering research on women’s self-defense.

Located at http://seejanefightback.wordpress.com, See Jane Fight Back includes:

· the latest research on women’s self-defense

· critiques and reflections on ways that research about self-defense is ignored and reasons why

· self-defense advice

Recent postings include:

· An Open Letter to Girls’ Life Magazine about their advice to girls to say NO, but not offering any backup (Martha McCaughey)

· An Open Letter to Vice-President Biden and the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault (Jill Cermele)

· Self-defense training should be part of a college’s sexual assault prevention and education programs (Martha McCaughey)

· Falling Short: The White House Task For to Protect Students from Sexual Assault (IMPACT Chicago Martha Thompson)

Jill Cermele, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Drew University in New Jersey. The focus of her research is on women’s resistance to violence and the construction of gender. Along with McCaughey, Cermele edited the Violence Against Women special issue on self-defense. Two self-defense articles by Cermele are “Telling Our Stories: The Importance of Women’s Narratives of Resistance” published in Violence Against Women (2010) and “Teaching Resistance to Teach Resistance: The Use of Self-Defense in Teaching About Gender Violence” in Feminist Teacher (2004). Cermele has worked with Prepare Inc. to bring IMPACT self-defense training to faculty, staff, and alumnae at Drew.

Martha MCaughey, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology at Appalchian State University , one of the 16 campuses of the University of North Carolina. McCaughey’s academic focus is on the intersections of gender, sexuality, science, technology, social movements, and the media. McCaughey is the author of two books related to violence and self-defense. She edited with Neal King Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies (2001) and Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense (1997).

Self-Defense Training Prevents Sexual Violence Against Women

Jocelyn Hollander's recent study into whether self-defense training prevents violence against women is a cogent report further supporting the case in favor of such programs. The main goal of Hollander's study was to explore a possible relationship between women who complete an empowerment-based self-defense class and their subsequent victimization. While her research was limited in its design in that she could not use a completely random sample (she studied women enrolled in college classes), the results of her work are compelling, to say the least.

Hollander's main result was that women enrolled in a 30-hour self-defense class reported significantly fewer sexual assaults during the year after completion of the class than other women at the same university. This result was robust even when pre-existing differences between the groups were controlled for. As Hollander explored the results she obtained, she noted that not only was the overall quantity of reported sexual assaults reduced, but the severity was reduced as well. Secondary results also showed that the self-defense training increased women's confidence as well as their belief that they could defend themselves if necessary.

For those of us who have had the experience of participating in one of these self-defense courses, we can anecdotally report the increases in confidence and self-efficacy. Hollander's results continue to add to the evidence-based background for the success of programs like IMPACT Chicago. More conclusive evidence means that we are closer to the wider acceptance of empowerment-based self-defense training as a primary prevention strategy. Hollander recognizes the enormity of these implications:

"Sexual assault is a widespread problem with far-reaching effects for both individuals and communities. Virtually every other prevention strategy has proved ineffective at reducing sexual victimization. If self-defense training reduces women's subsequent risk of sexual assault, it would provide an effective and fairly simple way to reduce women's vulnerability to violence."

Empowerment-based self-defense techniques are simple, effective and at the same time, revolutionary. These classes teach that women are physically capable of defending themselves, which is something the majority of the world believes to be impossible. This work by Hollander moves groups like IMPACT Chicago one step closer to being taken seriously as a viable primary prevention measure for sexual assault. Graduates know that it works and while we believe this should be enough to convince people to offer classes like these on every college campus, once the evidence has been collected, it will be even harder to refute.


Molly Norris, IMPACT Chicago Instructor and IMPACT Chicago Recruitment Team Leader

Women Aren’t Weak or Crazy!

One of the most difficult things for people who take or teach women’s self-defense to comprehend is the lack of attention to self-defense against sexual assault in scholarly literature and activist work on women’s safety and prevention of and resistance to sexual assault. Seemingly unconsciously accepting old ideas that women are weak or crazy, anti-violence activists and scholars often assume women are incapable of self-defense or that if women do learn to defend themselves that they will unthinkingly beat-up any man who crosses their path.

Martha McCaughey and Jill Cermele have co-edited a Special Issue of the scholarly journal Violence Against Women in order to bring self-defense into the international and national conversation about stopping sexual assault. They have assembled five research articles and four reflection pieces in Violence Against Women Special Issue: Self-Defense Against Sexual Assault: March 2014; Vol. 20, No. 3 (available through a university library). IMPACT Chicago will feature one article a month for the next nine months. The Table of Contents is below along with the month when a summary of an article will appear on the IMPACT Chicago blog.

Violence Against Women Special Issue: Self-Defense Against Sexual Assault

Special Issue Editors: Martha McCaughey and Jill Cermele

June Does Self-Defense Training Prevent Sexual Violence Against Women? Jocelyn A. Hollander

July Resisting Rape: The Effects of Victim Self-Protection on Rape Completion and Injury Jongyeon Tark and Gary Kleck

August Self-Defense Training as Clinical Intervention for Survivors of Trauma Gianine D. Rosenblum and Lynn S. Taska

September Exploring the Intersection of Race and Gender in Self-Defense Training Lisa Speidel

October The Group Dynamics of Women’s Self-Defense Training Leanne R. Brecklin and Rena K. Middendorf

November Reflections on Researching Rape Resistance Sarah E. Ullman

December Empowering Self-Defense Training Martha E. Thompson

January Self-Defense or Undermining the Self? Exploring the Possibilities and Limitations of a Novel Anti-Rape Technology Deborah White and Gethin Rees

February From Gun Politics to Self-Defense Politics: A Feminist Critique of the Great Gun Debate Jennifer D. Carlson

Our Senses Are Our First Line of Defense

Our senses are our primary means of connecting to our environment and our first line of defense when threatened. In the aftermath of trauma, the story of a survivor’s experience reveals itself as sensory fragments. By training ourselves and our students to cultivate the use of all the senses, we are better prepared to respond to danger and also more resilient.

When we talk about helping people “trust their instincts” we are talking about the development of sensory literacy and energy awareness, the ability to recognize and respond to subtle body cues essential for survival. Physiological responses happen immediately. They are pre-verbal. In self-defense, we want to be able to interrupt uncomfortable or dangerous situations early. By practicing tools to build energetic and sensory awareness, we can do this more quickly and more effectively. 

In the case of trauma, when we bring awareness to unconscious, non-verbal sensory cues and feeling states (images, sensations, emotions, etc.) and find language to describe them, we are helping the right and left hemispheres  come back on-line. We are helping people make meaning of previously un-integrated experiences. This makes it easier to manage difficult sensations and emotions and to take effective action. For this reason, when we do boundary exercises, it is important to ask people to notice the physical cues that indicate boundaries are being breached and then describe them - “How do you know when someone is standing too close, or moving too fast?” -  (i.e. - stomach clenching, body bracing, holding breath, changes in visual field, etc.). Becoming more conscious of body signals and learning to verbalize them helps to overcome some of the freeze response associated with trauma and strengthens the mind-body connection. Embodied awareness helps us make healthier choices in general because we can more easily recognize and move towards things that are life-affirming.

In “Why Cops Don’t Believe Rape Victims,” Rebecca Ruiz reports on recent studies in neurobiology and trauma to help us better understand the effects of traumas like sexual assault. The research highlights the fact that victim-survivors often have fragmented memories of sensory details, which often contributes to them being disbelieved. Victims have difficulty recalling important parts of traumatic experiences and providing a coherent, linear narrative precisely because they were victims of trauma, not because they are making things up.

Brain science can also help explain why somatic therapies – approaches that work with the senses – such as touch, taste, smell, and visceral reactions, can be more effective than cognitive therapies alone in helping people heal from trauma. With extreme stress, the pre-frontal cortex, particularly the speech and language centers, become impaired or shut down, while areas of the right side, which affect emotions and arousal, light up. When traumatic memories surface, rational thinking is essentially “hijacked” by the survival-oriented parts of the brain and nervous system, and is no longer as readily accessible. It becomes difficult to process information. If the two sides of the brain are not working together, the story will be chaotic and confused. A person may be flooded with sensations and emotions with no way to make sense of them. Or, the story may make logical sense but lack the emotional charge one would normally associate with painful events. 

The symptoms described are also true of torture survivors. Asylum officers receive some specialized training in how to recognize symptoms of trauma and PTSD which might include fragmented memories, flat affect, and dissociative states. Well-trained officers are likely to elicit sensory memories to help substantiate a victim’s story. Police officers need to have this kind of training as well. 

Diane Long has been teaching sex-positive self-defense for schools, shelters and social service agencies for over 20 years. A Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner and Nationally Certified Massage Therapist (NCBTMB), she has worked as a French interpreter at The Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis for 10 years. Diane currently serves on the Self-Defense Leadership Committee of the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF).