‘self-defense’

Jersey Girl

1.7.11 | No Comments »

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Hi everyone, my name is Jordana! I am a Jersey Girl born & raised. In the time between fist pumping and refusing to pump gas, I am finishing up my Masters in Social Work at Rutgers.

I stumbled upon this site through a Tweet from Jessica Valenti, author of the Purity Myth – which I highly recommend you buy/download/borrow from your local library or friend.  I am a strong willed, opinionated lady who doesn’t mind speaking up for herself, so this blog was intriguing.

Initially, I thought I had no connection to The Line. I mean, I have a line… but, I thought, it’s never really been crossed. Maybe I’m just lucky that when I have chosen to kick a guy out of bed he’s left with his tail between his legs never to call again (and good riddance buddy!) Then, I remembered my recent conversation about Speak, another book you should pick up. It discusses the year following a freshman in high school’s rape, and has unfortunately been challenged in various contexts because of its controversial truths – and defended strongly by the feminist community. And remembering reading Speak, I remembered why am I who I am today.

How was it that I got the balls (or ovaries if you will) to say leave?  I was 15. He was 17, and he had a car, which made him so dreamy. He taught me all those things that seem grown at 15:  like how to smoke a cigarette. Then one night, in the back of said awesome vehicle, right on the edge of what was renamed “Date Rape Park” by people in school… he tried every maneuver he could conjure to talk me into the most bad girl of adventures: losing my v-card right then and there.

I froze. I kept saying I wasn’t interested. Finally, as I have annoyingly over-protective parents I screamed “OMG! I was supposed to be home 15 minutes ago – Get me home NOW!” And I got lucky because that was enough. How I managed to have him move away from me, put on pants and take me home I’ve never quite figured out.

After that night, I didn’t want to see him ever again – and since we went to different high schools that was easy.  The hard part was the weird feeling I was left with. I had become so engrossed in the idea of a boy making me “cool”/ a badass that I didn’t think at all about me. It took some learning, loving, and growing up but I’ve learned I can be badass all by myself. My line is where I want it to be, when I want it to be there, and I’m not afraid to tell you – will you listen?

Telling the Whole Story

8.26.10 | No Comments »

Charlottesville, Virginia is a a relatively peaceful town.  It has been honored by numerous publications as a great place to live and work. In 1998, Reader’s Digest even named it as one of the top 10 places to raise a family .  But despite our glowing reputation, we’ve been in the news several times in recent years for things besides our golf courses — including the disappearance and murder of Morgan Harrington, the murder of student athlete Yeardley Love, and Liz Seccuro’s much-belated justice in her decades old rape case. The University of Virginia, which seems to be at the heart of most of these incidences, was cited in 2009 as a particularly egregious offender in a report on the lack of honesty and transparency in campus sexual assault cases by the Center for Public Integrity.

But in the past month, the University has sent out several e-mails notifying students of attempted sexual assauls in the area around the school.  In all three instances, a stranger accosted a woman and wrestled her onto the ground and into nearby bushes.  All three women struggled and managed to fight off their assailants. The incidences, separated by several weeks, were not committed by the same perpetrator — two women assaulted on the same night reported that their assailant was a young white male with blonde or brown hair, the third woman described her assailant as Hispanic and in his thirties.

Now, don’t get me wrong — the school was right to notify students of these events.  This represents a real risk.  Both occurred in areas where students live, work, and walk through on a regular basis.  What worries me, though, is the constant reinforcement of the “stranger in the bushes” myth.  In this case, it was very literally true.  But we know that upwards of 70% of rapes are committed by a non-stranger.

If students receive notification only when a stranger assaults someone, but never when a friend, roommate, partner, father, uncle, dentist, acquaintance, or co-worker is the perpetrator, we will only become further entrenched in the delusion that we are only in danger when walking alone at night.

This brings me back to a constant conflict I face — as a survivor of a drug-facilitated stranger rape, I nevertheless firmly believe we need to challenge the prevailing belief that most rapes are committed by strangers or that bars are full of men slipping GHB into women’s drinks.  As I sit in my rape crisis hotline advocacy training, we are frequently reminded that most callers, and indeed most victims of any sexual assault, will have been assaulted by an acquaintance, friend, or relative.  Sometimes I feel that my own experience is being erased, negated, and denied.  I struggle to remind myself that this isn’t about me or my experience, and that there is plenty of attention already paid to that specific type of sexual assault- but that doesn’t change the danger of telling an incomplete story of rape and assault to women everywhere, and specifically on college campuses.

We need to move away from the warnings of “ladies, watch your drinks” and “don’t walk home alone.” (That’s not to say we should stop watching our drinks or taking self defense classes, but these bits of advice should not form the dominant cultural narrative on sexual assault.) We need to begin telling the whole story, and telling people the truth.

The situations advocates, professionals, academics, activists, survivors, and other groups work to raise awareness about and prevent are scary, wrong, and unjustifiable – no matter who commits them.

Abstinence, Coming to a Store Near You

8.4.10 | 4 Comments »

One of the most consistent problems with technology is how we use it. Culturally, we’ve been known to abuse virtual and digital technology for social purpose – we are, after all, the Americans that played “The Sims” without batting an eyelash at the absence of homosexuality, and the Americans that released, re-released,  and updated “Grand Theft Auto” without removing the violence against women. And now, we are going to use new, modern video game technology to scare women out of their sexuality – and reinforce that unwanted sex is their fault.

According to Gizmodo:

The University of Central Florida has developed a full-body motion-control video game that promotes abstinence. It lets tween girls control avatars that are placed in social situations that may lead to making out and, gasp, sex.

HOLD ON A MINUTE. So a new video game that depicts women in sexual situations – well, that isn’t exactly new. But this is certainly a spin on the situation: players, female players of course, are outfitted in motion-tracking bodysuits (think those fancy green-screen suits they use now to make accurate animated character movements) and placed into situations where “sleazy guys and sparkly vampires approach them to make out and pressure them to have sex.”

And, you guessed it- girls get points for saying no.

The premise of the game is to put presumably younger women into sexual situations that are scary and intimidating, and encourage abstinence based on an actual fear of sex. (I’m pretty sure a better game would have sleazeballs wearing suits and not harassing, assaulting, and coercing the women in their lives.) The main messages include: Sleazy men exist and will harass you, and that is okay. Sleazy men exist, and that is okay. Sex is not okay.

Casey Chan ends her Gizmodo piece with the remark, “I’m not saying it’s not going to work, but…it’s probably not going to work.”

Here’s to hoping she’s right.

‘Hey Baby’ Could Be A Strong Starting Point

7.21.10 | 4 Comments »

Catcalling and street harassment is a popular topic on WIYL, and with good reason; a 2008 study by Holly Kearl revealed that 99% of women have faced unwanted verbal come-ons, some more lewd and violating than others.

I live in a more industrial part of Brooklyn, across from a junkyard (complete with “Beware of Dog” sign) and a block down from a recycling collection center, where workers, mostly 25-50 year old men, sort bottles and cans from surise to sunset. Every day I walk by this operation on the way to the subway, and every day, without fail, I encounter some form of advancements or catcalling. There is something so frustrating and violating about being hit on during your unavoidable walk to work at 9 AM, harassed only because you are a young female walking by yourself. I never leave my apartment anymore without sunglasses and headphones, as to avoid eye contact and be able politely eschew all advances by feigning ignorance of them even happening, coping mechanisms that I am ashamed of having to take as a feminist and strong, empowered woman. “Powerless” is the only word to describe the options presented when harassed on the street; you can either walk by silently, or confront the perpertrator, risking physical escalation and conflict.

As Kearl said in a Huffington Post article about street harassment:

Street harassment is not a joke about construction workers; it is a problem that touches every woman’s life at some level and prevents women on a whole from achieving equality. More research needs to be conducted to better track its prevalence and to uncover the root causes, and in the meantime, let’s make it illegal. While laws do not solve problems, they can help change social attitudes, deter the undesired behavior, and provide affected persons with options for recourse.

This no-win scenario is the main idea behind the video game Hey Baby, a first-person shooter in which you get to gun down street harassers, and the sleazeballs are replaced with headstones engraved with their catcalls. The game may seem a bit extreme, murdering those who just want to tell you you’re “gorgeous” (my favorite response to which is, “I know I am, thanks for the reminder, ASSHOLE”); the come-ons, however, are sometimes just as extreme, with men approaching you to to inform you that you’re asking to be raped. The game is an intriguing concept in and of itself, but the commentary from male gamers has also proved englightening. Says Kieron Gillen of Rock, Paper, Shotgun:

The game’s rubbish, of course. But the one thing it does well is show how what you may think is an innocuous compliment feels in the context of a woman’s life. You approaching a woman in the street and being what you think is politely flirty is a different thing when, down the street, someone’s suggested that maybe you’d like to suck my dick and you’re a fucking bitch if you don’t.

From her perspective, it’s a culture of harassment she has to either politely deal with or ignore.

From your perspective, you’re just showing how you feel.

That your passing desire means you get to derail a woman’s life whenever you feel like it is the absolute definition of male privilege.

If you’re a man, and you’ve acted like this, the woman you do it to, beneath the polite smile she has to offer, has probably fantasised about you dying.

Seth Sciesel of New York Times pointed out that in the game, the attackers are relentless, and there is no end in sight to the harassment. Our point exactly, Schiesel. Hey Baby has no score, no levelling up, and no end goal. The game is painfully realistic in that way; you are trapped in a situation in which you question wearing your tank top or shorts before leaving the house, where you take an alternate route to avoid facing certain areas you know are rife with street harassers. I’ve found that it is difficult to get men to join in on conversations about consent and sexual harassment, and sexual assault, but perhaps Hey Baby is a good place to start.

Opined Schiesel:

Just as I have never been sexually harassed, I have never accosted a strange woman on the street. After playing Hey Baby, I’m certainly not about to start.

The Chosen Few: Lesbian Footballers in South Africa

6.12.10 | 1 Comment »

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The World Cup has officially begun in South Africa. Recently BBC news featured a segment about the all-lesbian football club, The Chosen Few, in Johanasburg. Andrew Harding spoke with striker, Tumi Mkhuma about the football club and its importance as a support group for these lesbian athletes who are harassed constantly because of their sexuality. Tumi refers to her football teammates as family and Harding concludes that football is making a real difference for these women in South Africa.

As South Africa’s excitement for hosting the World Cup reaches its peak, these women remember Eudy Simelane, a member of the South African Women’s National team, who had been raped and murdered in 2008.

Eudy was murdered in what is called a “corrective rape.” They are targeted at lesbians, are horrifying, brutal, and continue to go on. Tumi told Harding,

Homophobia is rising, really rising. I’ve been through a lot in this community. I even have wounds in my body from being attacked for being lesbian.

Tumi knows who her rapist is and sees him in her neighborhood, yet justice has yet to be served. She is forced to see this man who brought trauma into her life, and nothing is being done to put him in jail. With the rise of homophobia, the team sticks together.

Take Action! Show your support and sign the petition to end corrective rapes.

Scared & Powerful

4.21.10 | 4 Comments »

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In 2002, I decided to take an IMPACT self-defense class because I needed to feel physically powerful, capable of stopping a person who tried to attack me.  I needed to know I could do something about my father’s too tight hugs and grabs and yelling.  On a mat in a gym in a simulated rape scenario which began with me crying and ended with me kicking a would-be assailant harder than I ever knew I could, I learned the beauty of being scared and powerful at the same time.

I found strength in my hips, power in my arms and legs, the precision in my fingertips. I learned that I didn’t need any special athletic talent—only training—to find the holes in what an abuser says about how he intends to hurt me. Like every human body, the words abusers use to scare their intended victims are full of weak places. When I find the weak place I find the opportunity to change the story. But I don’t change it to a story of how good I am at hurting another person, because that wouldn’t change anything.

I am in a rape scenario, lying down on the mat, crying. The instructor, playing the role of a perpetrator, pins my arms. I don’t have to fight arms with arms. This is not a contest. Instead I take the tension out of my arms and wait for a flaw in his body’s logic. I know my hips and lower body will throw him off if he gets on top of me and if he doesn’t, there is a limit to how much he can hurt me with so much of his body occupied restraining my arms. The minute he moves, I move. He has to let go of my arms to proceed and when he does, I will find a vulnerable part of his body to strike.

Learning self-defense means not having to live on the terms of anyone who has hurt me. It’s story of the intelligence a woman’s body finds when she finally believes that not every man can overpower her just by virtue of being a man.  The story is more than that, though, because before that class I was working to get distance from my father, but still enduring his hugs. Feeling my stomach in the back of my throat and wanting to turn my skin inside out to get away from him.

My sister’s college graduation fell between the third and fourth weeks of class and when I saw my father, my body found the posture I had learned to use at the sign of threat. Feet shoulder with apart, strong leg half a step back, hands in front of my body saying “stop.” When my father moved toward me for a hug, I said,

I’m not in a hugging mood

I hadn’t planned to do this, my body responded automatically.

What?

he said, and started coughing or laughing, I wasn’t sure.

I’m not in a hugging mood

I reiterated

But I’m your father

He tried to move around me. He tried to talk me out of the line I’d drawn. I was scared, yet proud of how loud and decisive my voice remained. I looked at his eyes and saw vulnerability. Literally, because the eyes are a common target used in self-defense, but even more than that. Abusers are not all-powerful.  They too are scared. They have lost kindness or empathy and want what they want so desperately that hurting other people to get it becomes increasingly possible. If they want someone close to them, they take away the choice to leave. Knowing how to apply strength to the vulnerable targets of someone’s body gives choice back to me.

It isn’t true to say that I stopped being scared of my father. I would no more stop being afraid of erupting volcanoes or falling rock. The change is this: after the class I became scared of my father the way a capable adult is scared of a driver speeding down the wrong side of a busy street. I was no longer afraid that I didn’t pacify him he would yell and his rageful words would obliterate me.

In the months that followed that class he yelled a lot—insistent phone calls demanding that I hear his version of the events that led my mother to seek an order of protection.  I learned to hang up. I learned to erase messages. I learned to be steady and confident, not to give in every time he yelled, and eventually he yelled less.

I need to resist the temptation to declare myself the winner of some contest because the minute I do that I stop advocating for safety and start defending my ego. This is not about beating my father or anyone else. It’s about having a life that is not diminished by abuse.

The hours I spent in that basement gym elbowing the duct-taped helmeted instructor who was playing the role of a perpetrator gave me the confidence to know that I am every bit as capable when I’m afraid as I am when I’m calm. There is beauty in the ability to advocate for safety—first our own, then someone else’s—when we’re feeling fear because we feel fear when we stretch ourselves. We feel fear when we maintain integrity in the face of someone trying to undermine us. This is what it means to say, “stop” and “yes” at the same time.

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