SELF DEFENSE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

Meet Rock Panera, a security professional, who teaches simple moves that women and children can execute in their own defense. I took this class just before we moved from Birch Bay, yesterday. We are now in La Conner, Washington, sitting though a heavy rain this morning with a very weak signal.

Here he demonstrates what to do when an assailant comes from behind you and pins your arms. You are not helpless. You have many options. You can go half limp and your body weight means the assailant has to hold you up, giving you a chance to break free and run. Or you can stomp on his foot and make it hurt. Keep moving, keep elbowing and punching.

But, the best way, is to wrench yourself to the side which makes one of his arms extend and puts him off-balance and giving you, or even a young child, the chance to put an elbow to his crotch, break the hold and run, run, run.

If an assailant tries to grab your clothes and pull you toward him, or pin you to a wall, you grab his clothes and keep your arms extended if you can and he will have less control. If you are holding his clothes whatever he does to you, he is doing to himself. But the end game is to break that hold, the minute he takes a hand off of you, bash him, with your head, knee to the groin, stomp a foot and run. Always run, as fast as you can.

Assailants look for women with long hair, because it is the easiest way to control a woman. If you are grabbed by the hair, you lace your fingers together and put your hands on top of his and press down and flail your elbows until he has to change his position. Then bolt. Always, attempt to break his hold and run.

This little guy wrenched away from his mother and elbowed her where it hurt.

He put the kids through the moves and it was amazing how they responded. I thought this class was a worthwhile reminder of how to be pro-active should you ever, by whatever circumstance, be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He put me in a choke hold from the front. Instead of trying to pry his hands away, he instructed me to reach out and clap his ears hard with both hands. I couldn’t reach his ears. His second was to dig fingers into nose and eyes, or to use the heel of your hand and strike his nose, hard. It can actually be a death-dealing blow and doesn’t take a great deal of strength.

In today’s violent world, unless you are trained or a karate expert, you won’t be likely to execute or even remember some fancy move, nor have a chance in a fight. It is best to defend yourself by getting away from your assailant and run and scream.

I agree. Both of my daughters were accosted as young women, and I was put at risk several times as a child and talked my way out of a rape by two men when I was 17.  Luckily we got away unharmed. You are never too old to be a victim. I was glad I went to the class, because sometimes we need a reminder.

Rock emphasized that none of these break control and run plans may work if a knife or a gun is involved. But, each individual must make that instant decision based on the perceived danger of their situation.

 

WOMEN HAVE TO FIGHT.

House Republicans let the Violence Against Women Act Expire just days before mass protests in India about brutal rapes. The Medieval attitude in India is similar to what it was and still is in the U.S. in many ways. Blame the victim:  She was wearing tight jeans or a revealing blouse;  she was drinking in a bar, or she wandered into the wrong part of town, she wasn’t a virgin, she is too friendly with the wrong kind of men. An eleven year old victim was wearing make-up and looked 20. The message, it is okay to rape a 20 year old?

Add to that supposedly intelligent elected officials describing pregnancies from rape “a gift from God”, and “women lie regularly about rape.”  All the rapes that didn’t result in pregnancy, are they a gift from God too?

Steubenville, Ohio teens joked online about the unconscious teen who had just been raped. They are middle class Americans, not sociopathic monsters, but officials in Steubenville decided these young football players had made a mistake and downplayed the consequences of their act. The message, if you are a hotshot athlete, it is okay to rape and joke about it?

Thousands of women are raped in the military but know if they report it they will lose their jobs and never be promoted. When they do report it, the man is rewarded and the woman punished. Another powerful message of unequal justice for women and the need for special protections for women who endure the most violence of every kind at every age.

Here are rape statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Sexual assault…it’s not about lust and desire, it’s a violent crime of POWER, CONTROL and DOMINANCE

• Every 45 seconds someone in the United States is sexually assaulted.
• 1 out of every 7 women currently in college has been raped (2), however, 9 out of 10 women raped on campus never tell anyone official about the rape.
• 1 in 10 men is raped in his lifetime , 1 in 7 of those victims will have been assaulted before the age of 18.
• More than 61.5% of rapes are never reported to law enforcement.
• Approximately 28% of rape victims are raped by their husbands, 35% by an acquaintance, and 17% by a relative other than spouse.
• 74% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by assailants well known to the victim.
• A female child victim is 7 times more likely to be re-victimized as an adult.
• Nearly 6 out of 10 sexual assaults occur at the victim’s home or the home of a friend, relative, or neighbor.
• 1 in 15 rape victims contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD) as a result of being raped.
• 1 in 15 rape victims become pregnant as a result of being raped.
• The United States has the world’s highest rape rate of all countries that publish such data- 13 times higher than England and more than 20 times higher than Japan.
• An American woman is 10 times more likely to be raped than to die in a car crash.
• 61% of rape victims are females under the age of 18.
• Contrary to common belief that violent crime rates are notably lower in rural areas, an  analysis of location data collected for the National Women’s Study found that 10.1% of women living in rural areas had experienced a completed rape as compared to 13.6% of women living in urban and suburban communities—hardly a notably lower rate.

These statistics are not the most recent, but the incident of rape has increased, not decreased.

I take this very personally because I fended off two rapists working together when I was 18 years old and working for the Sheriff’s Department. I was at a bus stop near a field in San Leandro, 9:00 at night.

I was followed by a stranger and talked myself out of a rape walking home from a babysitting job when I was 12 years old. The parents came home drunk in a cab and shoved me out the door to fend for myself without a dime for a phone call in my pocket. What saved me is this man, age 25, knew my brother. Weeks later he was arrested for rape and murder, convicted and sent to prison.

My oldest daughter was the victim of a “crotch dive” three times in three different cities where she worked. Once while running early in the morning, once in a shopping center parking lot in the daytime, and once in a movie theater. Incidents like this are frightening and demeaning.

My youngest daughter was assaulted by 5 young boys approximately 12-13 year olds in France while waiting for a bus. She backed up against a wall and kept cursing and swinging her purse at them until some adults appeared and they fled.

Movies will have you believe that attacks against women happen in dark alleys by a single intent perpetrator by a women who uses poor judgement. Statistics tell a sadder story of assaults by family members and friends.

I wrote to my representative to protest that vote, not that it did any good. But, educate your daughters, your nieces, your sisters. Find out what kinds of defensive moves work best. Carry mace or pepper spray available in small hand held containers. Rapists like girls with long hair. It is easy to control them by grabbing them by the hair. Put your hair up inside of a cap while running.  Screaming and being loud and fighting will sometimes divert an intended assault to an “easier” victim. Put your phone down your bra if you feel insecure. Run if you have the opportunity as fast as you can anywhere. Toss your purse and valuables in your pursuers path, if you have them, except your phone is in your bra. Run up on someone’s porch and pound on the door and scream. Roll up into a ball if you are knocked down. Or if grabbed from behind, sink heavily to the ground and roll up into a ball and scream and kick.  But, the best move is to be prepared.  Be aware of where you are. Walk quickly and purposefully. Stay away from dark places. Always carry your keys balled up in your fist with the sharp end protruding through your fingers when in a strange place headed for your car.  It is a weapon. There are so many different situations, bars, date rape drugs, elevators, home invasion. The Web will offer many suggestions. Check them out for your young girls going off to college. Be safe.