IMPACT Boston blog

IMPACT at Middlesex District Attorney Domestic Violence Consortium Event

by Meg Stone, IMPACT Director

Today I had the opportunity to do outreach for IMPACT at an event sponsored by the Middlesex District Attorney's office. The DA's office brought together a group of wonderful and dedicated people from state agencies, law enforcement, and community groups, and invited us to brainstorm together to identify gaps in the response to abuse and survivors.

It took my group little time to identify gaps in services and even less time to come up with practical ideas for meeting survivors' needs. Everything from volunteer child care providers in court houses to asking hotels to donate empty rooms to women fleeing abusers.

Eventually the conversation turned to survivor safety. One advocate identified the need for resources so that survivors can be safe in their own communities. Someone from another domestic violence organization expressed disagreement, stating that her organization would not shelter a woman who lived in her local community because her abuser could find her and she would be unsafe. I respect everyone's concerns about safety and at the same time I struggle with how easy it is for us as advocates to ask survivors to give up home and community. Does staying safe from abuse really have to mean taking kids out of their school and moving away from familiar surroundings? For immigrants, people of color, LGBT people and others who are not safe in certain parts of the state do we really increase anyone's safety when we ask them to move away from their entire support system?

What can we do to support survivors in being safe in their own communities? For some survivors, IMPACT training gives them the skills and confidence to know they could protect their own physical safety meant they didn't have to hide. They could continue to live in their communities and deal with seeing their abusers. (A police officer made funny faces when he heard me explain that to the group, though I can't tell for sure what he was  thinking!) My highest hope for the work we do at IMPACT is that the skills we teach will mean that people have to give up less of themselves and their lives in order to be safe from abusers.

Even so, safety training doesn't go far enough. In most situations our system deprives survivors of freedom. Many leave their jobs and communities while perpetrators lose little. With the exception of abusers who are incarcerated, survivors have few alternatives other than trying to stay safe when their abusers know where they are or giving up everything for safety.

We were asked to think of creative ideas, and the one I'd like to propose is residential programs for abusers. Programs that would enable them to get batterer intervention treatment, work to support their families, but in which security mechanisms were in place to ensure they stayed away from people they'd abused and interacted safely with their children. I hope the next brainstorm session will focus more on how to support survivors in achieving peace and safety without giving up their entire lives. 

Is Rape Serious?

by Nina Roma Agvanian, IMPACT Assistant Director

In a world where less than 20% of women come forward to report a rape, and where only 1 in 13 of these reports end in conviction, the seemingly obvious answer to the question “Is rape serious?”  is called into question. You may have seen this New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof that ran on April 29. Its title—Is Rape Serious?—sets up Kristof’s ultimate argument that that police departments across the country do not pay due attention to rape cases.

Statistics that Kristof cite demonstrate deliberate negligence on the part of public safety officials.  Rape kits sit in storage facilities, in some instances for more than a decade, without being tested. Kristof surmises that the reasons for this are due to both cost—sexual assault evidence collection kits can cost as much as $1,500—and bias—victim blaming happens more commonly with rapes than other crimes.  He notes that New York City is one place where kits have been tested more diligently, resulting in increases in both perpetrator identifications and arrest rates.

Kristof argues convincingly that police departments’ near universal inaction demonstrates their view of rape cases as unserious.  If it is near impossible for rape victims to have the law justify what happened to them as wrong, and sexual offenders are rarely held accountable, then how do we as a society claim to take rape seriously? We can say we take it seriously but actions speak louder than words.
** For more reading on rape case bias within the justice system, check out this op-ed piece called Justice is still weighted against women over rape (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/justice-is-still-weighted-against-women-over-rape-647172.html) by Natasha Walter.

Guest Blog from Heidi Hornbacher of IMPACT Personal Safety Los Angeles

I recently visited my father. He happens to be one of the kindest, most chivalrous people I’ve ever met. He’s that old school guy we don’t have enough of these days who holds the door for you and helps strangers and believes the handshake should be as binding as a legal contract. Yet like so many men he too is entrenched in gender behavior to such an extent that he is unaware of its influence. And coming from him, I know it’s not malicious or meant to harm. But it is just as insidious.

On a recent hike we met two women on their descent. We chatted briefly about the nice day before my dad joked that he would join them since they had the easier job of going downhill. I felt them recoil. Not from my dad as a bad guy but in the internal alert all women have that tells us an uninvited male is asserting claim on our space. Joking or not, it makes us instantly assess our safety and wonder if we will need to defend ourselves.

In the past, I would have brought this to my dad’s attention later with a “don’t say things like that to women,” or “do you know how uncomfortable you made them?” But I don’t bother anymore because the answer is he truly doesn’t know. He thinks I’m just being reactionary and ridiculous when I bring it up. But I saw the ice that flashed across their faces. I don’t think men can see it. They are, and I’m generalizing, not attuned to read subtle energy changes the way we are -- the way we’ve had to be to keep our wits about us and our bodies safe.

Later that day my dad and I went to dinner. A man at the bar wouldn’t stop staring at me. After a good half hour of this I mentioned to my dad how uncomfortable it made me. He shrugged and said “Take it as a compliment. He just doesn’t know how to communicate it in a tactful way.”

Hmmm. A compliment. I saw his point and I tried to let it go as I squirmed in my seat. I thought about my options. I could get up and say something to the man about how rude he was being but then I’d be the asshole. Why is that? Why am I the bad guy if I set a boundary for myself? Big secret answer: because society doesn’t want women to have boundaries. They are to be objects. Property.

My stomach knotted. I was sitting there with the chief protector of my well-being and yet feeling like a rabbit dangling before a wolf. My kind and upstanding dad could never understand the upset and injustice of the moment. He could never get the experience of being a woman under a male gaze.

A compliment? I couldn’t get it out of my head for weeks: should my friend who was raped take that as a compliment too? Poor guy just didn’t know how to properly express his admiration or desire for her? I know this is an extreme leap but, f**k NO! Unwelcome male attention is never complimentary. It is disrespectful and invasive and damaging. But what can we do? Not much until society shifts to value women and their right to feel safe and comfortable in their own skins. Given two thousand years of patriarchy, that’s not likely to happen in the next week or so.

So what do we do in the meantime? Mothers, train your sons to respect all women as yourselves. Train your daughters to take pride in themselves and stand up for themselves. Girls, get your butts into a boundary setting self defense class.

Now that I’ve had my amazing self defense training which included a huge amount of verbal boundary setting things would go differently. Now I’d walk up to the staring man and say “Sorry to disturb you but when you stare at me it makes me feel uncomfortable. Would you please stop.” If he squirmed in discomfort, so be it. Why should I work to make him comfortable when he’s making me uncomfortable? So ingrained in us girls is that useless response! Most likely, he’d be so surprised he’d acquiesce. I’d thank him and be able to enjoy my dinner with my dad.

And if he kicked up a fuss, so be it. When men start to realize that women aren’t afraid to cause a scene to stand up for ourselves maybe even strangers will treat us with the same respect they’d accord their mothers or sisters. Now that would be a compliment.

Reposted from Heidi's blog, A Tinseltown Chronicle for the Naive and Hopeful, heidiwood.blogspot.com.

Guest Blog from Beauty Bites Beast author Ellen Snortland

As I write this, my hubby and I are beginning our second week in Sao Paulo, financial and media capital of Brazil. It’s not sexy like Rio de Janeiro; it’s very much like any gigantic big city with the same bustle, bus fumes, skyscrapers, no nonsense and yes, TRAFFIC JAMS.

I’m here to launch my book “Beauty Bites Beast” or “A Bela Morde a Fera” in Portuguese, the language of Brazil. Spoken Portuguese — in case you haven’t heard it — is beautiful and romantic. It’s kind of like a bouquet of Spanish and Italian, but it also has a distinct sound. It’s odd to see my book in a language that I can’t read AT ALL. My publisher, Milton Maciel of Joinville, Santa Catarina (a southern state of Brazil) fell in love with my ideas and vowed to bring “A Bela Morde a Fera” to his country… and then — since it’s already available in Spanish — to the rest of South America.

Mr. Maciel has been an ardent feminist since the early 80s when he experienced an awakening: the empowerment of women and girls is essential to the health of not only his country, but to the world. The very cool thing about “A Bela Morde a Fera” is that Maciel has added a chapter which addresses the pathological damage a cult of machismo creates in the cultures that nurture it. Brazil is nothing if not a machismo society, which means that Maciel is very, very courageous indeed. He’s literally grabbing the bulls by their horns by publishing my book and standing shoulder to shoulder in my mission to teach women, kids, and any other bullied group, how to protect themselves from violence.
In my original edition, I talk about pathological masculinity and its “sister,” pathological femininity as manifested by nurturing female helplessness. Thumbnail version: when GENDER roles are more important than the individual, family or community, you’ve got a big fat problem on your hands. As an example, pathological masculinity can result in impunious murder, sexual assault, incest and pedophilia because the macho ethic is fundamentally narcissistic. In that mode, women, kids, gays, and animals are thought of as “things” and anything you do for pleasure or cruelty to a “thing” does not “count.” Thus crimes against the “other” are winked at, or the blame is shifted to the victim, unless and until enough of the others start to fight back, whether their fighting is physical, verbal or legal, in the justice system.

Sure enough, while I’m in Brazil, what do we encounter? Breaking stories of pedophilia and star bashing, similar to our own Rihanna and Chris Brown drama. First, the pedophilia case which is also an incest case: a wicked stepfather (ironic that stepmothers get the wicked “raps” in fairy tales) in a northeast state of Brazil had been raping his step-daughter for years. In step with a now global trend of earlier and earlier menstruation, he finally impregnated his now 9 year old step-daughter. Abortion is still criminal in Brazil except in the case of danger to the mother or incest. The judge easily ruled in favor of abortion. The girl had the abortion. The result? Sit down for this. The mother, the judge, the physician, anesthesiologist and GIRL were all excommunicated by a Roman Catholic Bishop! But guess who gets to stay in the communicant bosom of the “father ship” of “macho,” a.k.a. the Roman Catholic church? If you guessed the rapist
stepfather, you are correct, since child rape is not an ex-communicable act.

Even within a macho society like Brazil, the excommunication move was way too much for decent people to put up with. So the public outcry has not been just about uncovering child rape in families but the role that Catholicism plays in keeping men in power and women and kids as chattel.

Meanwhile, a very popular and sexy Brazilian actress was beaten up by her famous actor boyfriend. He also beat up her maid, who brought charges; he was finally jailed last week. I will be following this case closely because Mr. Maciel and I want to approach the actress with our particular expertise: teaching her what to do in case anyone tries to hurt her again.

My frustration during all of my years of promoting self-defense is what I see as a HUGE blindness. There are people of goodwill all over who decry violence against defenseless people. However, they often focus on BEFORE or AFTER an assault but leave out knowledge about what to do DURING an attack. I’m the DURING go-to gal. And now, I have another partner in that: a courageous anti-macho publisher — now friend and mission partner — in Brazil.

Click here to purchase Beauty Bites Beast from Porter Square books. A portion of your purchase will be donated to IMPACT.

IMPACT In the Boston Sunday Globe

Kari Bodnarchuk's wonderful article about women traveling alone in this Sunday's Globe included an excellent reference to her successful use of IMPACT self-defense techniques in Indonesia. As is true for so many of our students, when push came to shove the skills she learned from IMPACT came back to her. Here's to having the courage for exciting adventures and the common sense to be prepared!

What I love so much about this entry is that it focuses on how self-defense can help us be more daring and have bigger, more adventurous lives!

 Click here to read the full article.

Project SAFE Graduates Address the Massachusetts Governor's Council on Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence

On Feburary 23rd IMPACT had the opportunity to present at the Massachusetts Governor's Council to Address Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. Since 2006 we have been part of a homeless shelter program collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance Domestic Violence Unit, HarborCOV and Homes for Families. Project SAFE helps homeless parents develop the skills to advocate for themselves and their families in stressful situations ranging from achieving financial stability to talking to elected officials to immediate danger.  Graduates of Project SAFE have the opportunity for paid internships and support for finding permanent employment. Four of them have found permanent jobs in our organizations and are intimately involved in teaching Project SAFE to other homeless shelter residents.

Graduates Amanda Hoeg and Stella Lopes shared their stories before a room of leaders in the Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence community and across the board people were moved and inspired.

 

Amanda & Stella Presenting with Domestic Violence Unit Director Janet Fender

 

Amanda and Stella with Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray

Photos by Ana Reyes

New Violence Against Women Network (VAWNet) Publication on Rape Prevention

A new publication put out by VAWNet, the online resource center for research on violence against women, discusses some common strategies for preventing sexual violence as well as the state of evaluation research to determine what is working. The main strategies used by activists and educators are educational presentations, self-defense training, bystander education, prevention groups for boys and men, and media campaigns.

Women's self-defense is among the most well-researched strategies for giving women the tools to reduce their risk of being raped, and numerous studies over the past 10 years clearly demonstrate that it is effective at stopping rape in progress. Self-defense training has benefits other than stopping assaults including increased assertiveness and self-confidence and decreased axiety and fear of sexual assault.

Other more recent strategies such as engaging bystanders-- people who are not perpetrating or being victimized-- to intervene and talk to friends about their abusive behaviors and/or set a more positive tone for dating and relationships . These programs have shown some early success in improving people's attitudes and intentions to step in. IMPACT is joining an increasing number of organizations in developing and implementing programs to help student and community leaders develop the skills to engage in the hard conversations that are necessary to create change. Our programs are especially promising in this area since we are already so well-versed in giving people the opportunity to communicate effectively when they are scared. Also, IMPACT's training can help ensure that bystanders have all the skills they need to maintain physical safety. 

As we consider the broad range of responses that are needed to create social change that ends sexual violence, IMPACT remains strongly commited to these two important strategies.

Professional Portraits By Kevin Jacobus-- Proceeds Benefit IMPACT

Have you been thinking about having portraits taken of your kids? Getting a professional new headshot? If so now's the time!

 

Schedule a portrait session with Kevin Jacobus Photography and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Impact Boston

 

Book a portrait session by March 31st with Kevin Jacobus Photography and we’ll donate 20% of the session fee to Impact Boston.  Help give the gift of safety while preserving your family history in photographs with location and lifestyle portraiture by Kevin Jacobus, an accomplished wedding and portrait photographer.  Professional headshots, family, baby, and maternity sessions are available and Kevin will travel to the location of your choosing. 

Call Kevin at 603-759-3864 to schedule a session and for details. 

 

Kevin Jacobus is an experienced wedding and portrait photographer with a background in photojournalism. He is a 2009 recipient of the Wedding Wire Bride's Choice Award. Kevin is also an IMPACT instructor.

 

Some examples of Kevin's Portraits:

 

 

 

An Interview with Yes Means Yes Contributor Anastasia Higginbotham

Anastasia Higginbotham has been an instructor for Prepare, IMPACT's New York chapter, since 2003. In that time she has taught classes for women and kids. Her essay "Sex Worth Fighting For" is featured in the new antology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, edited by Jessica Valenti and former IMPACT Boston instructor Jaclyn Friedman.

We interviewed Anastasia as part of the Yes Means Yes virtual tour. Click here to purchase Yes Means Yes from Porter Square books. A portion of the proceeds benefits IMPACT.

IMPACT Boston:  In your essay you talk about being reluctant as you walked into your first IMPACT class. Can you tell us a bit more about what got you excited about the program and why you eventually became an instructor?

ANASTASIA: The second week they started showing us the reversals, the rape scenarios. As I watched the initial demonstration of those techniques, I suddenly felt deeply understood. It was all so validating, the answer to my prayers—or, in this case, my nightmares. They acted out the fears that had preoccupied my mind and interfered with my body since before adolescence. As soon as I got a chance to do the techniques myself, hold nothing back, I tapped into the pleasure of using my body that way. There was nothing twisted about it either—why shouldn’t I be happy to be released from the fears that had dogged me since childhood? That’s how I knew I could teach it. It wasn’t fear or hatred or even a fantasy of revenge that coursed through my veins as I fought. It was absolute joy.

IB: You say that teaching self-defense is "the only activism you've ever enjoyed"? What do you enjoy about it? What about it feels most like activism?

AH: All that I read and hear in the news and throughout history about women’s experience of rape – war time rape, rape in the Congo, everyday rape on the way home from school, etc. –  provokes feelings in me that I cannot bear. I can’t meditate on those feelings and find peace. Writing about it doesn’t help; reading about it doesn’t help; the one time I volunteered to work with survivors, I felt much worse. Teaching self-defense is something constructive I can offer. We all have options for dealing with an attempted assault, in addition to compliance (a fine choice and one I would still use if need be). I want to stop rapists and other poorly behaved people from doing bad things to women. I can’t count on policy change or public education campaigns to do that for us. None of that does me or any woman a damn bit of good if we’re on our backs with our arms pinned above our heads. What I trust is a fine mental game, a heel-palm, eye strike, rear elbow, knee to the head. In the absence of a world without rape, that’s what I want for women. That’s the kind of impact I want to have as a feminist. That’s where I find solace for the unbearable situations women around the world find themselves facing.   

IB: As with many IMPACT classes, your instructor asked you to think about the important question, "What is worth fighting for?" and in your essay you compellingly articulate why sex is high on that list for you. Is this something you knew going into the class or did you discover it over the course of the program?  What are some things that feminist self-defense instructors can do to help people realize what for them is worth fighting for?

AH: The fights bring it out of you—what’s worth fighting for. I didn’t know sex would be high on my list. I only noticed after taking the course that I finally felt free in bed with a man (someone who had more upper body strength than me and more cultural support for using it to get what he wants). I am prepared to make a man leave my house, or his, if the sex has turned ugly and violent—which it no longer does, because that’s the whole point of a self-defense education. Better instincts lead to better choices, better lovers, better love affairs. To get to those things worth fighting for – the real deep, down things – your instructors have to be good. They have to listen to you from the moment you walk in the room. They have to notice when you get scared, when you check out, what makes you laugh, what makes you mad, what makes you proud. And they have to create challenges for you that are specific and that speak to your heart and call you out and are worth the effort you put into them as a student.

IB: Something we found especially interesting in your essay was the way that IMPACT's full-force fighting makes it possible for you to feel good about sex. Can you talk more about the changes that happened for you and how the physical, visceral, self-protective act of fighting was so effective for you?

IMPACT made me feel good about everything essential in my life, because ultimately the fight comes down to: How much do you love your life? How good do you want it to be? There’s a moment in the movie Thelma & Louise when Thelma says, “I feel awake. I don’t remember ever feeling this awake.” And there is a cue we use at the start of a reversal when the fighter, who begins the fight pinned and with her eyes closed, opens them at the cue from the coach and says out loud, “I’m awake.” It’s the same thing Thelma is getting at. The veil has been lifted. Like Thelma, she now knows where she stands, what she stands to lose and gain. Thelma goes on to say, “Somethin’s crossed over in me and…I can’t go back.” That’s common for women who complete this training too, including me. Once I exhausted myself in the act of meeting my worst nightmare, I was free to roll around with the love of my life in a much different way too. It affects everything worthwhile—not just sex. For example, I didn’t trust that I would be a good parent until after I learned to fight. Once I knew I could model responsible power and authority, once I knew I could exemplify calm, confident boundaries, I knew I would be worthy of a child’s trust—which, you know, they have no choice but to trust you.

IB: A lot of activist work to prevent rape has focused on the importance of shifting the responsibility for rape onto the perpetrator and focusing our social change efforts on perpetration instead of victims and potential victims. As important as that is, can you talk about how self-defense training can be part of that strategy or complement it? 

AH: A solid self-defense education offers us power to prevent violence. The best fight is no fight at all. So if you’re really good, you maneuver to create situations where you are not likely to face an assault. On the rare occasion that you do, you’ve got some training in how to deal in the moment, to thwart the attempt. The result is not only fewer victims, but fewer perpetrators. Self-defense is an excellent way to insist and ensure that more perpetrators fail in their attempts to commit crimes against women. It’s not revenge, though it can feel like justice. At its core, it’s violence prevention.

A reminder of how unsafe we can be when we work for change

by Meg Stone, IMPACT Director

This weekend I read Susan Wicklund's incredibly moving memoir, This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor,which recently came out in paperback. In the book she and co-author Alan Kesselheim describe Wicklund's more than 20 years providing safe legal abortions to women in the Midwest and Montana. The raw and personal accounts of the circumstances that led women to this painful choice take a politically charged  and too often abstract debate out of the realm of the theoretical with countless intimate portraits of women she helped to truly exercise their reproductive choice, whatever that choice was. Click here for a good interview with the author from last January. 

What struck me most about This Common Secret was the intensity of the violence and harrassment that she experienced from members of Operation Rescue and similar anti-choice groups. Members of these groups followed her around airports calling her a "murderer," harrassed her teenage daughter at school, destroyed parts of her home, attempted to physically hurt her as she entered and left the clinic, and even dragged cement blocks across her driveway to keep her from leaving her home (of course she got out and got to the clinic anyway). Other abortion providers were targets of physical violence and even murder.

The IMPACT community holds and supports differing views on abortion, pro-choice, pro-life and everything in between. Yet on this issue and many others we are all united in our commitment to pursuing our political goals with respect and to activism that doesn't resort to abusive tactics. 

In reading Wicklund's story I was surprised by how unsafe she was, and sad that I had somehow assumed that these dangers went away in the mid-1990s when they stopped getting media attention. Every day, health care providers doing their jobs, performing abortions or even routine care in clinics that offer abortions are made unsafe by those who insist on expressing their political views with abuse and violence.

IMPACT has renewed our commitment to give practical, useable, and customized self-defense skills to those who are in harm's way because of their extraordinary commitment to giving women the health care they deserve. Please contact us if you or anyone you know has been harrassed, assaulted, or in fear while working for for reproductive choice. We will do everything we can to get you the safety training you need.

Click here to purchase This Common Secret from Porter Square Books. A portion of the sale is donated to IMPACT.