The cost of fear Why most safety advice is sexist and how we can stop gender-based violence

Safety advice for women is almost always cast as the same horror story. To avoid trouble, you must live in fear. Watch your drink. Avoid the dark. Never walk alone. Abuse-prevention leader Stone presents a retelling of this narrative from the perspective of someone who has abandoned the script and survived. At face value, Stone's central argument for self-defense as rape intervention may rouse calls of victim blaming, but as she writes, "Options don't have to be burdens." "Resisting victim blame" in the self-defense organization she leads "is as crucial as resisting violence." Stone draws from nearly a hundred cross-cultural interviews, a long list of studies, decades of work with survivors, and her own experience of abuse. Her conception of self-defense is rooted in feminist and Black liberation movements. It's not just about the right tactic, it's about regaining trust in your body and your intuition and harnessing that power in the most personal encounters of systemic injustice. Stone provides a practical, deeply needed resource that expands rather than diminishes the world for women.

In this intriguing debut treatise, Stone, the director of Impact Boston, an organization that trains women and girls in self-defense, argues that common advice on how to react when threatened with rape and sexual violence is rooted in sexism. Contrary to the notion that a woman ought not to fight back against an attacker for the sake of her own physical safety, Stone cites research showing that "women who physically or verbally fight back are less likely to experience rape" and "fighting back does not increase a person's chances of serious injury." Stone attributes such a widespread misperception to the dominance of "compliance culture," which convinces women and girls that if they follow enough rules they will be safe. In Stone's dire assessment, such advice begins with things like avoiding walking alone at night and ends with going along with one's own rape. Stone pulls together a lot of ancillary cultural analysis to make her theory cohere--she describes how getting middle school girls to make any sound of protest during a self-defense training is nearly impossible because they feel such shame over shouting, and also notes how the worst cases of sexual abuse happen in institutional settings (churches, sports teams) where there is high value placed on compliance. This is sure to stir debate. (Feb.)