Thursday, February 13, 2014

1% of rapes are committed by strangers

I tried to insert an image but for what ever reason I could not. The image was of advertisements for women's self defence (WSD) courses that advertised:

Scenario Based Training Approach: The Situation Determines The Solution.

There was a picture accompanying the advertisement of an attacker with a knife attacking a woman in a car. Another one was titled:

Reality Based Training: Sexual Assault; Rape; Street Robbery; Armed, Multiple Assailants; We Have The Solutions.

'Scenario based training.' 'The situation determines the solution.' 'Reality based training.' 'We have the solutions.'

The NSW Rape Crisis Centre executive officer, Karen Willis, is quoted as saying that 1% of rapes are committed by strangers.

So the scenario, the reality, the solution for WSD courses should be predicated on an attack from a familiar - partner, date, friend, colleague, family member, etc - rather than a stranger. Are WSD courses predicated on this fact? No.

Sun Tzu in The Art of War said that if you know yourself and know your enemy then you will not be imperilled in 100 battles. The odds decrease as your knowledge of yourself and your enemy decrease. Who is the enemy in the case of WSD courses?

WSD courses; WSD strategies should include assaults by familiars and well as strangers. The responses to deal with the situation should be different. The relationships, the fall-out, the relative power is different, so, the solutions should be different.

I'm developing a WSD course that is based on fact not myth. It is a tried and tested marketing strategy to scare the bejesus out of potential WSD participants by quoting the horrifying statistics of sexual assault against women. Unfortunately, that is with no study of those statistics. The approach I'm developing is based on fact not fiction. It's an evidenced based approach. It's not good marketing because I explain how nature has provided each and every one of us with an effective defence mechanism. The evidence to that fact is that the human race exists today. The first lesson is designed to inform the participant that they are already capable of surviving an attack. Not necessarily defending it off but surviving it. After all, nature does not judge and is only interested in our survival. People judge, and consequently people suffer. My WSD course will then try and improve on nature.









1 comment:

  1. I commend you on this approach. Too many course focus on the relatively rare scenario of stranger attacks. Knowing the offender creates a vastly different set of dynamics, which must be explored. The power imbalance, disbelief, self questioning etc, need to be explored to create a skill set for dealing with this type of crime.

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Your comments make my work all the more relevant as I use them to direct my research and theorising. Thank you.