Legal and Ethical Considerations of Counter-violence Education

One of the greatest gaps I’ve encountered in counter-violence education is that of the legal and ethical considerations involved. This is, to be blunt, negligent on the part of instructors/providers. This post will reflect some of the information we provide in class-day discussion as well as our printed materials.

What is “Self-Defence?”

The first point we cover in any program we offer is the definition of the term, “self-defence.” One of the best definitions provided by a participant

A Word About a Word

“Alleged” is used to cover the ass of the media and those who must consider the facts of a case. By using this word, we are allowing the accused to remain “innocent until proven guilty,” a protected right, so the person who has been accused is alleged to have committed the violation. This has no bearing on whether or not the violation took place, only on whether or not the accused is guilty. Since victimization is determined by the one who suffers a violation, we should not be saying “alleged rape victim,” or “alleged assault victim,” and media has no business doing so. When we use the word to describe a victim, we instil doubt in the mind of the listener/reader as to whether or not a violation has occurred. Let’s stop doing that. Let’s start believing the victim; it harms nobody if we use “alleged” to describe only the accused, and it extends the “innocent until proven guilty” right to everyone involved.

rant

I get asked from time to time why I’m so involved in the discussions on topics like sexual assault, street harassment, misogyny, and so on. I’m a counter-violence & self-defence instructor, after all, not a “women’s self-defence” instructor. True. But if someone says, “self-defence advice” what’s the first thing you think of?

Don’t wear makeup. Don’t wear your hair long. Don’t wear short skirts. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
Don’t exist.

“Don’t go out alone at night.”

“Stay out of Neighbourhood X.”

“Don’t dress too sexy.”

“Don’t leave your drink unattended.”

“This is what you do when some guy grabs your wrist.”

That’s where the conversation is. And it’s bullshit, victim-blaming advice. If we’re going to give advice to anyone on how to be safer, let’s at least give the right advice. “Self-defence” is an implicitly gendered term; guys don’t learn to defend themselves, they learn to own the space they’re in, to not accept treatment they don’t feel they want or deserve, to be comfortable, and some even learn to fight (also, they usually don’t but that’s a topic for another rant). Women are constantly pressured to learn to defend themselves, to take defensive measures, to “reduce risk” in ways that don’t actually reduce risk. I can only imagine how much of a headache that is, how difficult it makes just getting ready to go out or meeting someone new or getting to sleep at night.

Men have the power to stop violence against women. If we don’t abuse our partners, if we don’t rape, if we don’t engage in street harassment, if we don’t tell jokes that undermine the feminine experience, then we know someone who does. Let’s not be that guy and let’s not allow that guy’s existence to be all that comfortable; let’s shame him out of existence. Let’s make public and private spaces safer and more inviting for women. If we accomplish that, we’ve actually done something to not only protect women from violence, but we’ve improved our half of the species.

</rant>

~Gaz

The Lingering Aftermath of Steubenville

I read with interest a piece on Huffpost entitled “How We Can Prevent Another Steubenville.” In it, Kelli Goff discusses what she thinks is the real issue behind Steubenville: alcohol.

If a teen drives drunk and is killed in an accident, or worse, kills someone else and we find out their parents never discouraged them from drinking and driving, we blame the parents. Yet for some reason we don’t discuss the role of alcohol in sexual assault the same way.

A second look at the face of a rape apologist.

The rape apologist is an odd animal. Usually they pass off their apologia as advice to women on how to stay safe, but that advice is unreliable at best. This approach to victim-blaming has earned them another nickname: the concern troll. When someone doesn’t understand victim-blaming, I am willing to give that person the benefit of the doubt; I will often engage in civil discussion with a victim-blamer who just doesn’t get what it is they’re saying, to what extent victim-blaming contributes to re-victimisation, or even what accountable language is. However, there is a difference between this and the true rape apologist: The true apologist puts considerable time and effort into creating a scenario that absolves the rapist of (predominantly) his responsibility, casts doubt onto the victim’s authenticity (the false rape claim), assigns guilt to the victim by way of some magical set of actions the victim should have carried out in order to not be raped (unfortunately, there is not a pill that wards off rapists in either the literal or figurative sense, as it is the rapist who is in control of the actions of the rapist – nobody else), and frequently conflates rape and sex. These apologists also tend to erase the vast majority of victims and perpetrators by insisting rape happens “out there,” committed by strangers, and also erase many victims by simply not acknowledging male victims, trans victims, child victims, elderly victims, and so on. The “casual” victim-blamer is someone who has bought into the line of the rape apologist, mostly because that line has been sold with no competition to a public hungry for answers for millennia.

The face of the rape apologist

Wow. I just finished reading a real piece of work on someone else’s blog. He had the nerve to post it to the Slutwalk Toronto Facebook page because he was taking a very novel approach to victim blaming (read: “not very novel at all”) and wanted everyone to see he was totally incapable of absorbing new ideas.

Our esteemed writer is a believer in what he terms the “Oleg Volk school of rape prevention.” Mr. Volk, however, is not a preventer of rape but a proponent of “gun culture.” Volk uses propaganda tactics to argue his point on firearm legislation, equating those who favour gun control to racists who would prefer all potential victims of crime be unarmed and defenceless. A similar tactic was used in Canada recently when Vic Toews said those who were not in favour of strict internet controls were on the side of child pornographers; the tactic is the same regardless of who uses it, and betrays the lack of understanding of an opposing argument as well as a penchant for fear mongering. Guns and self-defence, or counter-violence in response to assault, is an option not everyone chooses to employ, or is capable of employing. Mandating counter-violence of any kind, which is what the either/or fallacy amounts to in the context of self-defence, is highly problematic and can serve to call into question the authenticity of a victim of crime.

End Street Harassment Week, 2012

This is International Anti-Street Harassment Week, going until Saturday the 24th. To show our support for making the streets safer for women and girls, we’re distributing the following pamphlet on street harassment:

Street Harassment: What it is, what it isn’t, how to deal with it.

Feel free to click, print and share or let us know you’d like copies of it and we’ll do our best while supplies last.

False. False.

There’s a controversy brewing over a self-proclaimed victims’ advocacy group and their take on false rape accusations. I was asked by another group if I could write a response to a statement released by RINJ calling for strict measures to protect men from false accusations of rape. Read my first ever guest post here.

A message for the well-meaning…

I’ve had a number of discussions with well-meaning men on the subject of “women’s self-defence.”

Sympathetically speaking…

A recent discussion on Facebook about self-defence and counter-violence evoked a response from one participant that I hadn’t heard in a while