The Fight Against Crime: Notes From the Front : Straight Talk Helps Women in Self-Defense
Issues of women’s self-defense may seem like old news to anyone who has been reading a newspaper or watching nightly news. Most people have seen dramatic pictures of women, frightened to walk alone, learning karate and carrying whistles.
But on a college campus, with young women who in many cases are living on their own for the first time, all these messages bear repeating.
That was the idea behind a program Monday at Cal State Northridge run by Tarzana-based Vision Empowerment Inc., or VEI. Invited by the First Strike Seminars and Black Family Unity at CSUN, VEI came to campus to give women “a checkup, from the neck up,” says VEI President Tevis Verrette.
VEI’s program differs from other women’s self-defense groups in that 65% of its program is psychological, and only 35% physical. Women aware of their surroundings and self-worth can avoid being victims, Verrette says.
“Some programs tell women to be sheep, throw up or act like you’re having an epileptic fit--in effect you don’t have the power, you might as well acquiesce because you don’t have a choice,” Verrette says. “I tell a woman to do what is necessary to take care of yourself, then allow yourself choices.”
Verrette says his group was invited on campus after a recent incident in which a 19-year-old woman was dragged onto campus by her boyfriend and beaten. She declined to press charges and was back with him the next day, Verrette adds.
It’s an example of how the first and most important battles for young women are about self-esteem. So that’s where VEI begins.
Seminars begin by talking about domestic violence, then about setting boundaries, asking women how much they will put up with before they decide to leave a bad relationship. They talk about battered woman’s syndrome--when a woman has been abused for so long that she doesn’t think she deserves any better--and they talk about how a woman can make herself feel secure. Then they talk about where the young women can turn for help.
At residence halls and other university settings, VEI’s audience undoubtedly includes men. They have much to learn as well, Verrette says, starting with what constitutes demeaning attitudes toward women and what constitutes rape. His job with young men is to sensitize them, he says.
For young women learning how to safely walk to night classes and return to dorms, buses or cars after late evening study sessions, VEI teaches street skills.
Verrette talks about the “freeze response,” comparing women who become paralyzed with fear in frightening situations to deer terrified into immobility by oncoming headlights.
So VEI has them practice. They act out anxiety-filled situations with “pretend strangers” in hopes of conditioning the women to react quickly in what might otherwise be overwhelming situations. Assertiveness is an important tool, Verrette says.
They also teach the women things their older counterparts probably learned a long time ago: checking the back seats of cars before they get in, being aware of the people and sounds around them, trusting their instincts.
Verrette tells them not to go to ATM machines at night, and to check the bushes around them before they go during the day. He warns them to move away from an ATM quickly after using it, counting their money after they get to their car or home.
And they teach women viable self-defense methods, using their best weapons--knees, fingernails and feet against attackers’ most vulnerable areas.
A quickly thrust knee can shatter the ribs of someone who tries to attack from the front, Verrette teaches. A woman is powerful enough to rip off an attacker’s ear or claw at his eyes. If an attacker approaches from behind, “Reach back and grab whatever you can,” he tells them. Threatened women can do great damage to sensitive areas of a man’s body with their hands, he said.
If Verrette doesn’t mince words, it’s because a straight message is one that might get heard, he says. Young women, he knows, need to hear those lessons as early as they can.