setting boundaries
Boundary-setting is an important piece of feminist self-defense because it can help women avoid situations in which assault could occur. At the University of Oregon, Hollander conducted a study that compared 117 students enrolled in an empowerment-based self-defense course with 169 students who didn’t take the course. A year after the class, Hollander surveyed both groups again. Among the 108 women who took the follow-up survey but hadn’t taken the class, three reported being raped in the intervening year. None of those who’d had training reported a rape.
Perhaps the more telling result from Hollander’s study was the number of attempted rapes. Of those who hadn’t taken the course, more than 8 percent said they’d experienced an attempted rape. Among the women who’d taken the class, 2.7 percent said they’d encountered an attempted rape. Hollander interprets these numbers to mean that the boundary-setting and verbal skills they learned helped the women not only stop attacks in process but also keep would-be attacks at bay: “It’s not just that they’re being assaulted and fighting back effectively—it’s that they’re not being assaulted in the first place. That’s what we want.”
Charlene Senn, who has researched male violence against women at the department of psychology at the University of Windsor in Ontario, saw similar findings from her larger study, published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2015. Senn surveyed first-year students at three Canadian colleges who had participated in a 12-hour Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act Sexual Assault Resistance program. The goal of the program was “being able to assess risk from acquaintances, overcome emotional barriers in acknowledging danger, and engage in effective verbal and physical self-defense.”
A year after the class, when the participants were surveyed again, their reports of completed rape registered 5.2 percent to the control group’s 9.8 percent. As with Hollander’s study, the incidence of attempted rape among participants, 3.4 percent, was lower than in the control group, which reported 9.3 percent.
Because rape and attempted rape will never disappear, empowerment self-defense classes still teach physical skills. Unlike martial arts, feminist self-defense focuses on moves designed for women’s bodies, emphasizing kicking and kneeing assailants because women’s legs are usually stronger than their arms.