By: Claire Kapp and Sarah Helfgott

“You girls are whores!” The words echo in my ears, but I ignore them. A few of my friends yell “ass holes” and “douche bags” at the men who insulted us, but that is the extent of our fighting back. Sure enough, we fuel a name calling battle. “You’re a bitch!” one of the men exclaims. We walk away quickly, leaving the men to yell at other random girls leaving the bar. I quickly forget about the situation.

My friend Danielle, however, doesn’t forget as easily. “They called us whores!” she says in outrage. Clearly, she thinks the situation was more dangerous than we’d realized. “That was so disrespectful and none of us did anything about it! Why?” She demands. I can’t look her in the eyes, but I respond to her question. “There was nothing we could have done!” At this point, I’m getting irritated. Does she think that us little sorority girls could have beat those guys up or something? Doubtful.

Fast forward to a month later. It’s November 22 and my friend Claire (who was with me the night the men called us “whores”) and I attend a SASS Woman’s Self-Defense Workshop put on by Grrrlz Rock. We went into the event assuming we would learn basic physical self-defense maneuvers that would magically help us protect ourselves from rapists and murders.

Women tend to assume that defending themselves from sexual situations has to be done with force, but often force is unnecessary. We learned in the class that strong words are sometimes as powerful as physical defenses.

When using words, our teacher Elly Maloney taught us to formulate “I statements” as opposed to simply insulting our attacker. These “I statements” can start with “I feel…” or “I think…” or “I need…” They set boundaries and force your attacker to listen to you. No one responds well to being blatantly insulted.

Ok, we all know that words don’t always work. Sometimes you’re only option is to use your body as a weapon. In this situation, we learned it is important to aim for the three primary targets of the human body: throat, eyes and knees. These three spots cause more than just pain. They can actually disable the attacker. If you really want to be scary-movie status, you can even gauge out their eyes.

While using your body as a weapon, you’ll find that your palm, elbow and foot are the easiest body parts to use.

So ladies, when you find yourselves in a situation similar to what we found ourselves in with our friend Danielle (and you will), remember to use those “I statements” instead of insulting your attacker. Otherwise, you might find yourself in an insult war, or possibly something even more dangerous.

Although force probably wasn’t necessary the other night when we were leaving the bar and those men yelled at us, our friend Danielle was right, we could have been more constructive with our words

I speak for both Claire and myself when I say that we left the workshop feeling both empowered and strong. There is always SOMETHING you can do. As women, we don’t have to sit back and allow men to make us feel uncomfortable.

To learn more about SASS you can call their business line at 541-484-9791 and for self-defense programs specifically, their extension is 319. We recommend all women take at least one self-defense workshop at some point to gain a more complete understanding of how they can protect themselves in sexual assault situations.