Abstract
Scholarly studies, reports, and best-practices on the prevention of sexual violence often omit a key component of the scholarly literature: that verbal and/or physical resistance (i.e., self-defense strategies) enable most women to stop most assailants in most sexual assault situations, and that training in self-defense prevents assault in a way that is empowering rather than restrictive or victim-blaming. Despite the numerous empirical studies that support the efficacy of women’s verbal and physical resistance against sexual assault, much of the literature on sexual assault prevention fails to include the scholarship on self-defense. In this article, we posit that the empirical work on self-defense is sometimes ignored naively, because of a misunderstanding of what self-defense is, and sometimes ignored willfully, due to an ideological conflict with it. Excluding work on self-defense in the sexual assault prevention literature omits relevant scholarship in a way that prioritizes ideology over evidence, ironically fueling benevolent sexism, and limits the effectiveness of policies and practices around sexual assault prevention that are translated from the literature. We underscore the importance of integrating the evidence for self-defense more prominently in the sexual assault prevention literature so that organizations, policy makers, activists, clinicians, students, and the public consider and implement self-defense is a viable strategy for women in preventing or thwarting sexual violence.
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Cermele, J., McCaughey, M. Self-Defense as an Effective and Neglected Form of Sexual Assault Prevention: A Commentary and Overdue Correction to the Literature. Sex Roles 86, 493–503 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-022-01284-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-022-01284-3