- Women and girls voices matter, they have ownership over their own bodies, and are agents of change.
- Provide support to build positive social norms.
- The power and autonomy of women and girls is respected and expected.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Our Voices Matter
Feminist Empowerment Based Self-Defense Program models:
Monday, August 3, 2015
Self-Defense Deserves A Rightful Place
It is often suggested and many have stated that we need self-defense training because we can't simply wait for social change to happen. Of course THAT IS TRUE. But I don't like this thinking because it tacitly implies that IF social change - a decline in rape culture- were to happen, we wouldn't need to do or offer self-defense.
I can't 'like" this particular line of reasoning because the myriad powers and shifts that good training engenders goes FAR beyond stemming current day rape culture-and the need to solve this problem. I view self-defense and what it releases as a primal and powerful life force - and as must-know-skills. As long as there are a handful of people on the planet, self-defense skills will never be passé. And the mojo that it turns on has SO many ripple effects ...the courage it liberates, the confidence and fighting heart it engenders, the strengths that are applicable to all areas of one's life. And did I mention? It just plain feels good. Self-defense deserves a rightful place in the constellation of life itself.
I can't 'like" this particular line of reasoning because the myriad powers and shifts that good training engenders goes FAR beyond stemming current day rape culture-and the need to solve this problem. I view self-defense and what it releases as a primal and powerful life force - and as must-know-skills. As long as there are a handful of people on the planet, self-defense skills will never be passé. And the mojo that it turns on has SO many ripple effects ...the courage it liberates, the confidence and fighting heart it engenders, the strengths that are applicable to all areas of one's life. And did I mention? It just plain feels good. Self-defense deserves a rightful place in the constellation of life itself.
Melissa Soalt,
Founder, Creatrix, Author at Fierce & Female
Monday, July 27, 2015
Fight the Fear Campaign
Singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile’s Looking Out Foundation
invited IMPACT Chicago to offer a free self-defense program for women in the
Chicago metropolitan area. The Foundation is underwriting the cost of the
workshop and announcing it on their website
and during the Brandi Carlile concert tour.
Email info@impactchicago.org
to reserve your spot in the FREE IMPACT Chicago Fight the Fear workshop August
4, 2015, 6-8 pm, Knapp Center, 3145 W. Pratt in Chicago.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Tapping into Reservoirs of Courage and Confidence: IMPACT for Girls
So many impressions rise up when I reflect back on the [IMPACT for Girls]
training. I found the work IMPACT did with our daughters to help them
find and use their voices to be quite powerful, and emotional, too.
Unfortunately, in teaching our girls to be “nice”, our culture has also encouraged
them to completely disconnect from the power of their voices. Our
daughters learned how to use their voices to deter an assailant. They
also learned how to connect the power of voice with specific physical actions
to render an assailant incapable of harm. Then they practiced over and
over and over again so that these techniques became set in muscle memory.
This was very emotional to observe and I found myself choking up quite a few
times as our daughters tapped into a fierce Inner Warrior they may not have
known existed and let it out in order to practice protecting themselves.
Some of the girls had emotional reactions, too. And if they didn’t
yesterday going through the training, you might see it come out today or
tomorrow. I am so very proud of each one of them. They faced fear
and shouted, palm-striked, kneed, and sidekicked right into the heart of
it. It is my sincere hope that by doing so they tapped reservoirs of
courage and confidence they didn’t know they had.
With
Gratitude,
Adrienne
Ann
Minister
of Healing Arts
Upcoming Programs for Girls and College Women
Perpetual
Motion, 4057 N. Damen Ave , Chicago.
IMPACT
for Girls, August 1 and 2, 10 am - 2 pm
IMPACT
for Women Going to College, August 8,
noon-5 pm
Info@impactchicago.org for more information or to register:
Monday, July 13, 2015
Responding to Self-Defense Critics
Before Charlene Senn and colleagues had the opportunity to bask in the positive attention that their rigorous and important study[1] was receiving, the naysayers started:
Include empowerment self-defense in a multi-pronged strategy to stop sexual assault.
“The CDC has steadfastly refused to consider self-defense training as part of its approach to preventing sexual violence. And because other major organizations - including the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and a large number of universities and colleges - rely on the CDC for their research, self-defense training has been completely left out of the current rush to develop effective prevention strategies, especially on college campuses.” Jocelyn Hollander. “Why Isn’t Self-Defense Training Available to Every Woman Who Wants It? Huffington Post.
Self-defense training can help stop sexual assault
[In response to Senn’s research] “Dr. Sarah DeGue [CDC] stated skeptically that a man who finds himself thwarted by a woman who defends herself against his aggression could move on to a woman who is untrained or otherwise more vulnerable. Thank goodness public health officials didn’t see the polio vaccination that way. Not everyone has to be vaccinated to make a major dent in a public health problem.” Martha McCaughey. “Hey, CDC: Friends Don’t Let Friends Deny the Effectiveness of Self-Defense Training."
Follow the $
“Who takes issue with a program that cuts assault in half, you ask? The federal government, as it turns out….The two researchers [who cast] doubt on the value of Senn’s findings are both employed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), whose sexual assault prevention budget in 2014 was close to $50 million.” Susan Shorn. “Show Us the Money.” Bitchslap: A Column About Women and fighting.
Stop either/or thinking and funding
“We agree that men should stop raping! We agree there needs to be a systemic challenge to culture. We are squarely behind third party interveners, female and male. However, sexual predators are canny about attacking when no "good guys or gals" are around. What then? Write the CDC and tell them to stop their either/or thinking and funding.”Ellen Snortland. “A Deadly Double Standard." Huffington Post.
[1] Charlene Y. Senn et al. “Efficacy of a Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2015
[2] Dana Bolger “Smart study finds “resistance program” helps women avoid rape—but at what cost?” Feministing June 11, 2015.
[3] Melissa Healy “Sexual assault prevention program cuts risk of rape nearly 50%, study says.” Science Now June 10, 2015.
[4] Jan Hoffman “College Rape Prevention Program Proves a Rare Success.” New York Times June 10, 2015.
Martha Thompson, IMPACT Chicago Instructor
- Self-defense is an individual solution to a social problem.[2]
- Self-defense places the responsibility for prevention on potential victims not on perpetrators.[3]
- If a woman defends herself, then the perpetrator will just rape someone else.[4]
Include empowerment self-defense in a multi-pronged strategy to stop sexual assault.
“The CDC has steadfastly refused to consider self-defense training as part of its approach to preventing sexual violence. And because other major organizations - including the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and a large number of universities and colleges - rely on the CDC for their research, self-defense training has been completely left out of the current rush to develop effective prevention strategies, especially on college campuses.” Jocelyn Hollander. “Why Isn’t Self-Defense Training Available to Every Woman Who Wants It? Huffington Post.
Self-defense training can help stop sexual assault
[In response to Senn’s research] “Dr. Sarah DeGue [CDC] stated skeptically that a man who finds himself thwarted by a woman who defends herself against his aggression could move on to a woman who is untrained or otherwise more vulnerable. Thank goodness public health officials didn’t see the polio vaccination that way. Not everyone has to be vaccinated to make a major dent in a public health problem.” Martha McCaughey. “Hey, CDC: Friends Don’t Let Friends Deny the Effectiveness of Self-Defense Training."
Follow the $
“Who takes issue with a program that cuts assault in half, you ask? The federal government, as it turns out….The two researchers [who cast] doubt on the value of Senn’s findings are both employed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), whose sexual assault prevention budget in 2014 was close to $50 million.” Susan Shorn. “Show Us the Money.” Bitchslap: A Column About Women and fighting.
Stop either/or thinking and funding
“We agree that men should stop raping! We agree there needs to be a systemic challenge to culture. We are squarely behind third party interveners, female and male. However, sexual predators are canny about attacking when no "good guys or gals" are around. What then? Write the CDC and tell them to stop their either/or thinking and funding.”Ellen Snortland. “A Deadly Double Standard." Huffington Post.
[1] Charlene Y. Senn et al. “Efficacy of a Sexual Assault Resistance Program for University Women.” New England Journal of Medicine. 2015
[2] Dana Bolger “Smart study finds “resistance program” helps women avoid rape—but at what cost?” Feministing June 11, 2015.
[3] Melissa Healy “Sexual assault prevention program cuts risk of rape nearly 50%, study says.” Science Now June 10, 2015.
[4] Jan Hoffman “College Rape Prevention Program Proves a Rare Success.” New York Times June 10, 2015.
Martha Thompson, IMPACT Chicago Instructor
Monday, July 6, 2015
Teaching Women to Defend Themselves Stops Rape
The New England Journal of Medicine just published the results of a rigorous study of first-year female students at three universities in Canada. About half (451) took a self-defense course and the other half (442) received the more common method of brochures about sexual assault. Participation in the self-defense course significantly reduced the risk of rape.
These findings are consistent with earlier studies that have found that girls and women who take self-defense are less likely to experience sexual assault. Jocelyn Hollander, University of Oregon, studied approximately 300 college students, about half of whom took a self-defense course and about half who didn’t, following up with them a year later. Stanford School of Medicine along with Lurie Packard Children’s Hospital and NO Means No Worldwide studied over 400 girls in Kenya before and 10 months after taking a self-defense course. In both cases, women and girls who had self-defense training experienced substantially lower rates of sexual assault. These findings are consistent with Sarah Ullman’s review of a decade of self-defense research that active resistance is effective in interrupting sexual assault.
These findings are consistent with earlier studies that have found that girls and women who take self-defense are less likely to experience sexual assault. Jocelyn Hollander, University of Oregon, studied approximately 300 college students, about half of whom took a self-defense course and about half who didn’t, following up with them a year later. Stanford School of Medicine along with Lurie Packard Children’s Hospital and NO Means No Worldwide studied over 400 girls in Kenya before and 10 months after taking a self-defense course. In both cases, women and girls who had self-defense training experienced substantially lower rates of sexual assault. These findings are consistent with Sarah Ullman’s review of a decade of self-defense research that active resistance is effective in interrupting sexual assault.
Monday, June 29, 2015
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.
Hear her full presentation online.
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