I can't tell you where I work. Well, I could, but then I'd have to kill you. Lets just say that I'm a superhero with a daytime alter ego. Yes, let's go with that.
Anyhow, even superheroes have day jobs and have mandatory training to do.
This week it was personal safety training.
Apart from the fact that I am likely to ignore all of it should an incident arise, I had some issues with the content.
For instance, if you break down on the motorway you should wait on the embankment. Yup, I remember this from my driving theory test.
But, wait! What is this? Unless you are a woman alone and it starts to rain? Then, apparently, you should sit in the passenger seat so it looks like you are waiting for a man to come back.
I shit you not.
Oh, and make sure you have change for the phone as you might be lulled into a false sense of security by your mobile which might not have a signal.
Yeah, really.
And this doozy. Make sure you turn your handbag round so that it is facing inwards. That way it will be harder to steal from.
I really wish I was making this up.
If you are in a dangerous situation a mobile phone should not lead to a false sense of security because you should be phoning the police, not the office in this situation. The signal or lack of it would not be an issue as the emergency services are on a military satellite. Which is why you would see 'emergency calls only' when you have no signal.
I am very concerned that there is advice on women alone in the first place as statistically they are in no more danger than men. I am doubly concerned that the advice to sit in the passenger seat if it is raining rather than the embankment is there. This is an incredibly dangerous thing to do, especially in the rain where visibility would be poorer. They may get wet sitting on an embankment but they won't get ploughed into by a lorry or car. The better advice may be to make sure you carry a raincoat.
The advice on handbags smacks of victim blaming. This would identify someone as a potential victim and increase the likelihood of an attack.
However, none of this comes close to the victim blaming language that meant I took nearly as long doing the feedback as I did the training.
Deep breath. Here we go.
'We can inadvertently provoke aggression by the way in which we communicate with others.'
'Where you are faced with violence it is possible that you have not recognised the signs early enough or taken appropriate measures soon enough.'
'Don't retaliate either by word or deed, someone with a short fuse can easily be pushed too far.'
'Try to stay calm if provoked. Panic can show and be seen as a sign of weakness.'
'Defend yourself as a last resort.'
Totally unacceptable.
Bad enough that I have to work twice as hard for half the recognition, (just ask Wonder Woman, we often moan about this while out shopping for tights) but to be painted as something delicate that needs protection from rain but if I'm attacked then it was something I did?
No. Just no.
Looking forward to the response to my feedback.
> "Lets just say that I'm a superhero with a daytime alter ego."
ReplyDeleteMe too!
I wonder what difference it makes if its raining?
As for the 'stay calm, don't panic' advice, no doubt everyone was warned that, if they are sexually assaulted, that fact that they stayed calm and didn't panic will be brought up as a reasons why the assault can't have been 'real', 'forcible' or 'legitimate'.
Really good point! That seemed to be missing from this particular module.
ReplyDeleteSo many women use "normative" language when dealing with this kind of advice: i.e. we shouldn't have to do this, it's the men who are causing the problem, tell THEM to change their behaviour etc. etc. - and it is all true but very simplistic.
ReplyDeleteGiven that none of us is living in a perfect world, and their are weird blokes out there, telling people how to defuse dangerous situations makes perfect sense. Of course it is good advice for men whose cars break down, too.
'We can inadvertently provoke aggression by the way in which we communicate with others.'
ReplyDelete'Where you are faced with violence it is possible that you have not recognised the signs early enough or taken appropriate measures soon enough.'
'Don't retaliate either by word or deed, someone with a short fuse can easily be pushed too far.'
'Try to stay calm if provoked. Panic can show and be seen as a sign of weakness.'
'Defend yourself as a last resort.'
This is standard de-escalation technique. When someone is angry and aroused, their requirements for personal space are increased, their reaction to eye contact is heightened and their ability to process the things you are saying to them is reduced. This is a result of the adrenaline pumping through their system. Certain ways of communicating with a person in that situation DO make it more likely that they will lash out because they are keyed up for fight or flight. It's a simple fact of biology, regardless of gender. Trying to remain calm, trying to maintain an even tone, an open posture and reducing eye contact while personalising yourself (using your name, for instance) reduce the possibility that the other person will become physically aggressive.
Great post! But you can't call emergency services with no signal.
ReplyDeleteI work as a personal security trainer (usually in an international context) - and I have to say some of the advice you were given was clearly lousy, and I can also assume that the tone in which it was given was all wrong. However, it would be, I think, ill-advised to disregard any personal safety advice because of the disagreeable nature of some of its providers.
ReplyDeleteProper, effective personal safety is all about risk management - and a large part of that is understanding your specific context. Conversely, unsolicited, generalised advice strays into the relm of social control and victim blaming - particularly when it is given solely to women and not to men.
However, if you can analyse specific threats, you can employ specific mitigations measures. So, as the above poster wrote, de-escalation techniques are useful in the face of an aggressor - which is not the same thing as saying women should be meek all the time.
This also isn't to say that any failiure to implement such measures constitutes culpability on the part of the victim. Whoever committed the crime committed the crime. But what it can do is reduce the risk of it happening to you, specificall. That doesn't cure society's problems, but it's worthwhile. You shouldn't have to implement mitigation measures. But you do, and we all do.
I don't think that personal safety training is an institutionalised way of controling women and shifting blame from perpatrators to potential victims. Or normalising rape culture, or suggesting it doesn't need to be destroyed. At least, I hope that my trainings are not. Instead, it's intended to provide a set of tools that can be used to understand your environment and make decisions based on that. You may want or need to take risk, which is fine, but you should be aware of what that means.
A gendered approach to personal saftey should also, as you say, take into account specific risks to both men and women - in some contexts in which we work, men may be at risk of being shot while women may be at risk of being raped. Their mitigation measures may be the same (i.e. no one should travel to a particular region of conflict), or maybe different (i.e. women should avoid travelling alone, while men should avoid contact with particular militia groups).
Finally I just want to reiterate the above point - unless you have specialist equipment there is not a satellite transmitter in your mobile phone, so if there is no GSM signal you cannot call anyone - so if there are pay phones, why not keep some change with you? This advice, obviously, is applicable to everyone regardless of gender.
This is a really interesting topic and welcome any feedback (on a 4 year old post!)