Instincts and Awareness: Essential Safety Strategies for Women

How do you navigate your daily routine while ensuring your safety as a woman? This episode underscores the essential strategies women must adopt to protect themselves in various situations. I discuss practical measures like using code words with friends, carrying self-defense tools, and staying vigilant in social settings. I delve into how potential attackers may target individuals based on seemingly trivial details like hairstyle and clothing. With the help of personal stories and practical advice, we shed light on the importance of trusting one's instincts and maintaining constant awareness.

The conversation then broadens to address the collective anxieties we share as parents and community members. Emphasizing the significance of setting a positive example for future generations, I highlight the need to educate children about situational awareness and safety. I urge listeners to cultivate a community-driven approach to vigilance and protection, stressing the importance of looking out for one another. As we navigate these challenges together, I express my gratitude for your engagement and support, reinforcing the message to stay safe and mindful every day.

Chapters

• 0:01 Women's Safety and Awareness Discussion
• 13:34 Survival and Awareness for Future Generations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to another episode of Still Bros' podcast. This podcast is created for women, by women, to elevate women's voices. I hope you all are having a phenomenal week. I'm feeling slightly better Not all the way better, slightly, which I'll take it at this point.

Speaker 1: 0:21

So I wanted to highlight something in particular that I don't think a lot of us think about on a regular basis, and unfortunately, some of us don't really think about it until too late and that is our safety, and safety is women. Now, I had read, I saw a post and I don't have it up in front of me, but I wanted to say share is that they posed questions to men or it was, like you know, a metaphor for posing questions to men about, like you know, men will um, the blame for, you know, when women are assaulted is always like on the woman. You know, what was she wearing, what was she doing, how was she acting? Had she been drinking, you know? And it kind and it takes away from the situation, right, but the reality of the situation is that women are consistently in danger all the time. Now, I'm not saying we need to be walking around fearing for our lives, but I think a sense of awareness is going to be incredibly important, because if you say to a man well, what do you do before you leave the house to ensure your safety while you're out running errands? They're not going to really have anything to say. What do they do to ensure their safety? What are they doing? Probably nothing. They probably don't even think about it. But if you go to a group of females and say, what do you do before you go out to ensure your safety, it's like oh well, my friends and I have code words in case we need help. I'm consistently watching my drink, or I put a napkin over my drink or whatever it is like to make sure that it doesn't get spiked. I put mace into my purse. You know like there's stuff that we as women will do just because we know the danger is real and the threat is out there. Know the danger is real, the threat is out there. So I wanted to bring this up because there have been times where I've been out with my kids and I have a sense of oh my gosh, what would I do in this scenario?

Speaker 1: 2:18

Now you've seen things online and on social media where I saw a video the one time where this family was out to eat. They were at a restaurant. They were sitting outside dining alfresco and the husband got up and went to the bathroom and somebody walked past the table, reached over, grabbed the child out of the seat, like the high chair, and tried to run away with the kid the kid was strapped in, so there was difficulty in getting him out and to run away with the kid. The kid was strapped in, so you know, there was difficulty in getting them out. And the mother obviously grabbed the kid and then the father came running through, so the kid was you know, the kid was fine, but it's that level of fear that, like, unfortunately, we do have to have this, we have to have this. And fear is not a bad thing, people, let me not say it in a bad way is not a bad thing, people, let me not say it in a bad way, it's a good thing. This is our barometer for keeping ourselves safe.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So I wanted to highlight this post that I saw in particular, around assault on women and what, unfortunately, what rapists are looking for in a woman, how they identify a target. Now, this is not 100% like, like, oh, do all these things and you'll be good to go. It is. Unfortunately, again, the threat is always out there, um, so the first thing that they have noted here, um, the first thing that these men were looking for in a potential victim was hairstyle. They were looking for a hairstyle, um that they can grab onto and pull. So so, ponytails, buns, braids, anything that can be easily grabbed. I wear my hair up almost all the time, but then again, I'm not a small woman, so I take that into consideration. The second thing men are looking for is clothing, clothing that can be easily removed. How can we get this woman out of her clothing as quickly as possible to proceed with what we want to do to her? You know what? I'm not telling anyone how to dress, but let's all be mindful of each other and our surroundings. Again, just putting it out there, people we need to be aware, be awake, pay attention.

Speaker 1: 4:19

My cousin told me one time that when she was in college and she used to have she'd be in the library later, in classes later whatever, when she would be walking through the parking lot to her car, she obviously never put headphones in. Because you need to have situational awareness, you need to be able to listen and hear the noises around you, but then you also have to be able to see. So if you're walking straight ahead and you can't see behind you, then someone could sneak up on you. So she told me she was like I look like an idiot, but I spin. She would take a couple steps forward toward her car and as she's walking she would literally turn and look around and keep walking and turn and look around and keep walking. This is what she did. She used to do it to maintain her safety. She's a very petite person. She's like somebody could really yoke me up and run away with me.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Men who are looking to commit assault they're going to be looking for someone who's on their cell phone, who's distracted, searching for their purse, doing something else, because then they can surprise, attack them. Basically, again, that situational awareness Listen to your gut. I cannot say this enough. When you're out and about, if you have a feeling, go with that feeling. Get yourself back home, get yourself to a more populated place, do something in alignment with what you're feeling. That's your barometer, that is your safety.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Let's see number one, places where women are abducted grocery store parking lots. That's unfortunate for me because I go grocery shopping quite a bit. But again, situational awareness. Pay attention to your surroundings. Is somebody hanging around the parking lot? Is there a van pulled up alongside you? This is actually a big one for me. If I'm leaving and I happen to notice that there's a van parked right next to my car, I'm less likely to go over to my car in that moment and I'm more likely to get on the phone and call my husband and say hey, I just want to keep you on the phone for a second. I've actually done that. There have been scenarios where I used to work in New York and if I felt unsafe, I would get on the phone and start talking to someone and say, hey, I saw this person and I would make it a point, so that way, people around me could hear me saying hey, I happened to notice this. I think it doesn't look right and I would make sure it was known that I see you and I'm not going to be taken down, kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Outside of parking lots and garages, public restrooms another big one. This is something that I think about with my kids. I have two girls and a boy and when we are out in public, we all go into the same bathroom. I don't care, I really don't care and I make each of us face the wall while somebody else uses the bathroom. I am not sending my child into a bathroom unattended. That is not happening. And if my son wants to go and use the men's bathroom because he feels uncomfortable now going into the woman's, I make sure I look and make sure no one is in there and then I stand by the door and I let him finish his business, because I'm not letting anyone in there with my kid. It's not happening, not on my watch.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Biggest thing here is that majority of men who are looking to commit assault, they are looking to basically take the woman and go to a second location. This is where you need to fight. You need to kick, you need to scream, you need to spit, you need to pee on yourself, um, you need to do every single thing you can do to make that situation as difficult as possible. Even if there is a gun to your throat, knife to your throat, you know what. You can survive that. If you can survive, you can survive it. If you get cut in your throat, if you apply pressure, you can survive it. There are survival stories out there of women who have survived brutal attacks brutal attacks. Most of the time these guys are not going to do it anyway. They're just trying to scare you into submission. You have to fight for your Because if you go to that second location, that's where you're in trouble and that's where they're going to have you and that is not what you want to be doing. You don't want to be able to get moved to that second location.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Most of the people that were interviewed and by that I mean men who have been arrested and are serving time for assault they said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas or other objects that are long, that can be used from a distance, keys in your hand. That's not a deterrent, because you have to get super close to somebody to use keys, so that's not as big of a deterrent. But again you have to fight, like being loud, being obnoxious, fighting, screaming, kicking, spitting. I tell my kids all the time when we're out, if anybody ever grabs you and tries to take you away somewhere, you need to scream at the top of your lungs stranger danger. You need to do it because you need to call attention to that situation. Most of the time they're trying to quietly get you out of there and get away and again, you have to make it as difficult as possible. So points to remember if you do think someone is following you, or if you're in an elevator or a stairwell and you happen to sense like someone is watching you, or close by to you or a stairwell, and you happen to sense like someone is watching you or close by to you, if you look them directly in the face and make small talk. That's what this is recommending. It gives you the opportunity to look at their face and in a moment of not panic, and that means you can identify them. That's a deterrent. If someone is coming towards you, they're saying to hold out your hands in front of you and yell stop or stay back.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Most of the rapists that that were interviewed, they said they'd leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed any kind of aggression or being prepared to fight back. They're looking for an easy target. That's the pathetic thing about this. These men are so. These people are so disgusting that they're looking for somebody that is just going to submit and lay down any kind of oh, I'm going to fight back. They will retract, they will curl up into a ball. They will not go for someone who's going to be trying to overpower them or going to fight back. You have to fight for your life. I cannot express this enough. I happen to carry pepper spray everywhere I go. I keep it in my purse right next to all my credit cards and everything like that. So should anybody actually ever approach me or my kids, I'm prepared to pull that out pretty quickly. I make sure I know where it is before I go out Because, again, we have to be prepared.

Speaker 1: 11:12

People, there's too much going on in the world today and for us not to be prepared, especially like me. Personally, I think about it in the sense that I'm out with all my kids. If someone grabs one of them, what am I supposed to do? I'm going to be running and tackling that person, but then my other two are left unattended. That leaves them open. But my kids also know and we've trained them fairly well to say like you need to look out for each other, take care of each other. So there's a lot of training there involved and the fact that I even have to talk about this is sad and it's heartbreaking, but the reality is there and we have to be prepared for it. Again, the groin is like the best place to go, like one stop shop. That's going to really knock the wind out of them.

Speaker 1: 11:56

And then again, always be aware of your surroundings. If you see odd behavior, if you get that vibe, go with your gut. Don't let that go. Don't dismiss yourself, don't gaslight yourself. You have an innate way that you're able to gauge a situation. It's in there, it's instinct, the female instinct is in there and it is strong. But over time we have gotten to the point where we have subdued our own voices and in doing that, it's opening us up to all of these people to be able to come after us, to all of these people to be able to come after us.

Speaker 1: 12:39

And we can't have this anymore. We have to stop it to the best of our ability. If you see a woman out and you happen to notice that somebody's creeping, step over to the woman and befriend her in the moment and say hey and give her a heads up. We need to look out for each other and then, at the end of the day, these people shouldn't be allowed on the streets. This should not be happening. This should not be a fear that we have to live with.

Speaker 1: 13:05

But with all that in mind, we need to defend ourselves. We no longer are going to be letting this happen. We need to make sure that we are aware and that we're teaching our children. To make sure that we are aware and that we're teaching our children, teaching our daughters, teaching our sons what this looks like and what it is to be scared out there in the world, with the hope that maybe we can have a generation of youth coming up in the world that can help stop this kind of thing from happening.

Speaker 1: 13:34

Because at the end of the day I mean, we're all humans trying to just survive on this planet the fact that these kinds of things are going on is just devastating. It's devastating, and I think of it in terms of my children and them being out there in the world, and one day I'm going to have to let them go. I'm going to have to let them go. It's terrifying. So we have to show by example.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Let's set the tone now for this future generation. Let them know about situational awareness, let them know what they need to be aware of when they go out. Make sure that they're prepared to deal with all this, because this is the scary truth, that this is all out there with all of this, because this is the scary truth that this is all out there. I know this is a little bit less of a you know it's a little bit more of a serious tone for this episode, but this came across my feed and I felt very compelled to share it with all of you. Please be mindful out there. Please be careful, protect yourself, protect each other and let's look out for each other. Thank you all for listening. I greatly appreciate all of you and I will see you on the next one. Take care.