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Violence Prevention for Women
Prevent, avoid, deescalate potentially violent situations
by taking charge, getting help
Violence prevention skills include knowing how to ask for
help. This is easy to say, but the fact is, asking for help can
be hard. As I was driving home one night a few years ago, a man in
another car pulled up in the lane next to me, making explicit sexual
motions with his tongue and hands and threatening slicing gestures
across his throat. I slowed down so that the man went through the
stoplight ahead of me, but he waited and started bothering me again. I
was tired. I just wanted to go home. I really did not want to deal
with him.
Ironically, earlier that evening, I had been teaching a self
defense and violence prevention workshop, and one of my students had
complained that he hated asking for help because it made him feel
helpless. I told him that, as a society, we needed to learn to see
getting help from others as a form of taking charge of a situation
rather than a sign of weakness. I had all of our students practice
interrupting a busy person to get help.
Remembering this, I sighed in annoyance. I signaled to my friend
and fellow instructor who was driving in the car behind me to please
pull over with me to the side of the road. I had so much resistance
that I waited until just before we got onto the freeway where my
friend and I would have headed in different directions. Of course, as
soon as the man bothering me saw that I was with someone else, he
disappeared.
When we need help, we must sound and look like we really mean it.
Whether the problem is an accident or an assault, people often freeze
when the unexpected happens. Shouting for help aimlessly is not nearly
as effective as giving clear information and direct orders in a
strong, loud voice, "I AM BEING ATTACKED! CALL THE POLICE!"
If someone is watching, point to that person and give directions,
"YOU IN THE BLUE SHIRT, GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME....NOW!"
In order to support the development of violence prevention skills
among the young people in our lives, we can teach our children to make
safety plans for how to get help when they need to. One teenaged girl
was followed by a man who saw her in a parking lot on her way home
from school. Terrified, she went from store to store in a crowded
shopping center, looking for someone who didn't seem too busy.
Finally, she managed to lose the man and ran home. A safer plan would
have been for this girl to have practiced skills so that she would
have known how to interrupt a busy adult, to be both persistent and
respectful in insisting on getting help, and to wait for help to
arrive before leaving the store.
Violence prevention is not the only area in our lives where getting
help makes a difference. Whether we are dealing with a personal safety
issue or facing any other challenge, knowing how to ask for help from
others is a fundamental life skill. Even though it may feel that way
sometimes, it is important to remember that we are not alone. We do
not need to reinvent the wheel. We do not need to face problems by
ourselves. By turning to each other for help, we can bring more
protection, comfort, information, resources, and understanding into
all of our lives.
©
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
A publication of KIDPOWER TEENPOWER FULLPOWER International
www.kidpower.org
831-426-4407
Permission to reproduce granted with copyright notice and contact
information
at beginning and end of each article used.
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