Get the Facts: Encouraging Women to Protect Themselves Is Not Blaming the Victim

Women's eNews published a story this week about men becoming angry enough to take action on domestic violence.

Hooray for all men who understand the problem. Given the complexities of domestic violence -- and indeed, all violence -- against women, we need all the help we can get from men who get it. After all, most men are not violent abusers, and when they take action to show their disapproval, they have a strong affect on other men.

But the article goes on to say:

The focus is usually on women not doing enough to protect themselves or their children, while far less attention is paid to the perpetrators. Why aren't more men outraged at their fellow males' actions and motivated to end it, once and for all? Why are women left to pick up the pieces? Isn't this a man's problem?

Men cause the problem, but it's women who suffer from it. Rather than waiting around for outraged guys to "take care of" the bad ones -- which could take a long time -- women will be safer if they take steps to keep themselves safe.

In the case of domestic abuse, the two most important things women can do are to learn to recognize men who are likely to become abusive and to immediately get out of a relationship when the first signs of abuse appear. The programs aimed at high school students I discussed last week are a step in the right direction.

Giving women the facts and skills to avoid becoming victims is not the same as blaming the victim.

Several years ago, I was on a panel at a science fiction convention discussing women in the military, and someone in the audience asked whether we thought that teaching women to protect themselves would reduce violence against women. Both I and a fellow panelist -- a retired military officer -- answered with an enthusiastic "yes." That doesn't mean that either of us thought women were at fault for being attacked; rather, it means we think that if women are not perceived as easy targets, violence will drop.

Of course, if men think they will be censured by other men for violent acts against women, their actions will change, too. There is no one solution to violence in our society. And children, of course, are rarely able to protect themselves from adults. Both men and women need to make sure they take steps to protect children.

I should add that one thing in the article disturbed me: the author quoted from the reaction of a prison inmate to a horrible video of the rape of a three-year-old: "The man who did that should receive the death penalty. No, send him to jail and let the inmates kill him. Because after that, they will."

I hope the author doesn't really agree with that point of view, though she presents it without discussion. More violence is not the solution to violence.

Learn to Fight: Self Defense Training Helps Prevent Domestic Violence

Writing on Salon's Broadsheet, Catherine Price reports that the governor of Kentucky recently pardoned 21 women who either killed or tried to kill men who abused them. The piece indicates that the abuse the women endured was horrible, but in some cases, so was their response to it.

Price observes:

But I think the real question to deal with is what we can do to prevent such situations from occurring in the first place. It's hard to assert that someone who has been raped, stabbed and beaten doesn't have a legitimate reason to want to escape from her or his abuser. But what does it say about the recourses available to victims of domestic abuse that these women felt that they had no choice but to kill their abusers?

There are many more resources for abuse victims these days than there were back in the 1970s, when setting up shelters and rape crisis centers were significant feminist actions. But, as with many needed social services, we can still use more programs.

Links in the Broadsheet article provided lists of various resources, but I noticed one thing missing: There were no links to self defense courses or programs. My answer to what Price calls the real question -- what we can do to prevent domestic violence -- is to help women discover their ability to take care of themselves.

As regular readers of this blog can probably guess, I'm not just looking to give women the skills to fight back against abusive spouses or boyfriends. I want to see women develop the skills, awareness and self confidence that will help them either avoid bad relationships or get out of them quickly once they understand the situation.

That is, I want women to learn to take care of themselves so they can avoid becoming victims. That will also help them avoid becoming killers.

Get the Facts: Police Officers Using New Tool to Evaluate Homicide Risk from Domestic Violence

One of the most important elements in self defense is accurate information about the dangers people face. Since this is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I want to point people to a report in today's Washington Post on a tool some Maryland police departments are using to assess the risk of homicide in domestic violence calls.

The tool is based on research conducted by Jacquelyn C. Campbell PhD, RN, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing along with others. Their research was published by the American Journal of Public Health and is online here.

According to The Post, police officers using the tool get more involved with victims at a domestic violence scene and ask a series of 11 questions based on Campbell's research. The article reports that the program has been successful in getting people to counseling who would not otherwise have gone.

Domestic violence is one significant cause of homicide in the U.S. The Post cites federal statistics showing that 1,181 women and 329 men were killed by intimate partners in 2005.