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Conceptualiser les processus de sortie de la violence

Unsettling Gender

Empowerment Self-Defense Training and Interactional Expectations
Troubler le genre. « Empowerment self-defense » et attentes interactionnelles
Jocelyn A. Hollander
p. 56-65

Résumés

L’Empowerment self-defense (ESD) ou empowerment par l’auto-défense, en plus d’aider les femmes et les filles à résister à la violence, peut produire des transformations profondes dans la vie quotidienne des étudiantes. M’appuyant sur des données d’enquêtes, issues d’entretiens approfondis et d’observations participantes, je montre que la formation à l’ESD modifie trois types d’attentes liées au genre : celles concernant ce que les femmes et les hommes devraient être (caractère genré) ; celles concernant la manière dont elles et ils devraient ressentir les choses (émotions genrées) ; ainsi que celles portant sur la manière dont elles et ils devraient se comporter (comportement genré). Ensemble, ces nouvelles attentes modifient les processus de responsabilisation et génèrent de nouveaux processus d’interaction. Ces derniers sont perceptibles dans les descriptions par les participantes de leurs expériences après avoir suivi un cours d’ESD, ainsi que dans leurs réévaluations a posteriori de leurs expériences précédant le cours. L’analyse permet de rendre compte de la façon dont les changements chez les individus peuvent se répercuter vers l’extérieur, déstabilisant ainsi le contexte interactionnel plus vaste.

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  • 1 Quotations have been edited for readability but are otherwise reproduced verbatim.

“I take tango and I go social dancing a lot. And in tango you’re really up close to people and they’re touching you, and they can get away with things that a stranger on the street couldn’t get away with. And I’m definitely more aware of where they’re touching me on my body. And if it’s in a place that’s uncomfortable, if they spin me around and have their arms around me and they’re touching me all over, then you know, I stop it. I’m able to stop it now, whereas before [I took the class] I’d just be like, “Oh they’re just dancing, just let it happen.” […], So in general I stand up for myself more and I’ve been able to do that using the techniques that we learned in class. [Q: What do you do when they’re touching you inappropriately?] Well, I just use “I statements,” which I’ve learned about in class. I name the behavior and I say, “Look, you’re touching me in places that make me feel uncomfortable. I would appreciate it if you kept your hands like up by my shoulders.” [Q: And has that been effective?] Oh, definitely. When guys hear that, they’re like [gasp]. […] And they say, “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” or they just don’t say anything and they’re like, Okay, she isn’t into it, I’ll just put my hands up here.” (Sarah, interview)1

1The class Sarah refers to here is an empowerment self-defense (ESD) course for women. Sarah, like many who completed the course, reported that learning self-defense had brought about profound changes in her life. In addition to making her feel safer from sexual assault—the main reason why many women take a self-defense class—Sarah found that the class changed both the way she interacted with others and the way they responded to her in everyday situations. Here, Sarah reports that her responses to men’s inappropriate touch during social dancing changed as a result of ESD training. In the past, she would have kept quiet despite her discomfort. Now, however, she uses strategies learned in the class to communicate her expectations to her dance partners. In response, her partners’ behaviors change. As in many similar stories shared by my research participants, Sarah’s new responses change the course of interaction.

2Multiple studies have concluded that ESD training helps women and girls prevent and resist violence and abuse (Hollander 2014; Hollander, Cunningham 2020; Sarnquist et al. 2014; Senn et al. 2015; Sinclair et al. 2013), in addition to other positive psychological and cognitive outcomes (see Brecklin 2008, Hollander 2018a for reviews). My research finds that, in addition to these individual outcomes, ESD training changes students’ interactions with others, and these changes result in profound transformations in their everyday lives. These two quotes are representative of many participants’ perspectives:

“Taking this self defense course was an over-all life-changing event. It completely turned my life around for the better… I don’t [know] what I would have done without this class. (Rose, end of class survey)
 
Self-defense is transformational and I can’t even write down all the places in my life that it has changed for the better.” (Tiffany, one-year follow-up survey)

3How does ESD training facilitate these transformations? In this paper, I argue that ESD training shifts three types of gender expectations: expectations for what women and men are and should be like, how they should feel, and how they should behave. Together, these new expectations foster new patterns of interaction.

4My analysis is based on three types of data: surveys of women enrolled in a university-based ESD class, in-depth interviews with a subset of these students, and participant observation in the class itself. I approach this analysis from the ethnomethodological perspective of doing gender (Fenstermaker, West 2002; West, Zimmerman 1987), which sees gender not as a quality of an individual but as an interactional accomplishment. Specifically, I focus on the concept of accountability, which examines how interactional expectations condition both one’s own behavior and one’s evaluation of others.

5Accountability consists of three interrelated, ongoing processes: people’s orientation to social expectations, their assessment of the match between these expectations and their own and others’ behavior, and their enforcement of these expectations via interactional consequences (Hollander 2013). These processes are anticipatory as well as retrospective: people not only assess past behavior against expectations, but shape their own behavior in anticipation of how it will be judged by others. Accountability is how social norms and social control are invoked in interaction, and is therefore a key link between social structures and everyday behavior (Fenstermaker, West 2002; Hollander 2018b; Schwalbe 2000, 2005, 2016). It is the change in participants’ gender expectations, and how that change transforms accountability processes, which drives the interactional transformations that result from ESD training.

Methods

6The data below come from a study of students enrolled in an ESD course offered through the Women’s and Gender Studies program at a state university in the western U.S. Of the approximately 180 women enrolled in the course over six terms, 119 volunteered to participate in the research. Participants completed three written surveys: at the beginning of the term, the end of the term, and one year after completing the course. The surveys included both open- and closed-ended questions focusing on participants’ thoughts about violence, gender, and themselves, their past experiences of violence, and their experiences in the self-defense class. Of the 119 students who completed the first survey, 96 (81%) completed the second survey. Seventy-five students (78% of those who completed the second survey) completed the third survey. In addition, I conducted 20 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with ESD students, asking them how they came to take the self-defense class, what they learned in the class, whether they’d used what they learned, and how the class affected their lives as a whole. Finally, I conducted one term of participant observation in the class. Because of my own prior self-defense training, I was able to serve as an assistant to the instructor. In this role, I held large pads for the students to strike during drills, demonstrated physical and verbal techniques, and helped with classroom organization.

7Empowerment self-defense is a holistic, evidence-based approach to self-defense training that locates the sources of violence in social inequalities and aims to empower women to make informed decisions about their own safety (Hollander 2018, Thompson 2014). ESD training differs from many other forms of self-defense training because of its focus on a broad range of assaults and incursions perpetrated by acquaintances and intimates as well as strangers, its attention to verbal and psychological as well as physical skills, and its empowerment-based, rather than fear-based, approach. Unlike traditional martial arts, which may involve years of training, ESD is typically taught through brief workshops or short multi-week courses.

  • 1 In addition, students also participated in a weekly, 1.5 hour discussion group led by a peer facili (...)

8The ESD course I studied fit the criteria established by the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NCASA, n.d.) and the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation (see <nwmaf.org>), including not blaming women for victimization, offering options rather than prescriptions for behavior, and respecting and empowering students. Classes met weekly for three hours across the 10-week university term, for a total of 30 hours.1 Approximately half of each class session entailed instruction and practice in physical resistance skills, including yelling, striking with hands, elbows, feet, and knees, escaping from holds, and defense from the ground. The other half of the class sessions included instruction and practice in verbal self-defense skills, boundary setting, awareness and prevention strategies, de-escalation strategies, and information about violence against women, including the social roots of violence and psychological barriers to resistance (see Senn, Hollander, Gidycz 2018, for more detailed descriptions of the class). Students practiced the physical techniques in slow motion against a partner and full speed in the air or against a heavy pad held by an instructor. Verbal strategies were practiced in scenario-based role plays and other small group activities.

9Research participants who completed the first survey had a mean age of 21.7, with a range of 18 to 37 years. Most were white, although 6.0% identified themselves as Asian and Pacific Islander, 3.4% as Latina, 1.7% as Native American, and 8.5% as multiracial. 29% reported a past experience that met the legal definition of rape; another 17% reported an attempted rape. Most of these reported assaults involved male acquaintances who gave the women alcohol or drugs to induce their compliance; only one assault was perpetrated by a stranger, and only three cases involved physical force.

10This paper draws primarily on the qualitative data collected via surveys and interviews with the ESD students. To analyze these data, I read through a subset of the interviews and developed a coding scheme that focused on the changes that participants reported after completing the ESD class, comments about gender, and evidence of expectations for themselves or others. I then coded all interview and qualitative survey data based on this scheme. I read and reread excerpts identified with particular codes to detect both patterns and exceptions, and then returned to the full transcripts and field notes to place these excerpts in context.

Recognizing Expectations

11How can we detect the presence of gender expectations, especially when they are so deeply rooted that they operate mostly without our conscious attention? Expectations are most visible when they are violated, either accidentally or deliberately. In the normal course of everyday life, however, gender expectations are ubiquitous but mostly unspoken, and we react to them without even realizing they are there. We do not pause and think, “What is appropriate for someone perceived to belong to my sex category to do at this particular juncture, given societal gender ideals, my other group positions, and how they manifest in this situation?” We just act, because it is what we’ve always done or because it is clear what we’re expected to do and we know that if we don’t, the social situation will become awkward, unpleasant, or even dangerous. Similarly, in research interviews, participants rarely say, “Because of my gender, people expect me to…” or “I expect that person to do X because he is a man.”

12How, then, can the researcher recognize the workings of gender expectations, especially when one has access only to a participant’s description of past experience? Here, the language the participant uses can offer important clues. In the data I share below, I found that there were several frequently-used discursive patterns that pointed toward the workings of expectations in participants’ accounts of their past experiences. For expectations about gendered character, participants often used one of two patterns:
 language of identity: women/men are or are not, what it is to be a woman
 language of possibility: women/men can or cannot, who I can be as a woman
When discussing expectations for gendered emotion or behavior, two additional patterns were common:
 language of obligation or need: I should or should not, I have to, I need to, I deserve to, it’s important to, it’s my duty to, I feel guilty, I have the right to, I expect
 language of judgment or normality: it is (or is not) okay, appropriate, right/wrong, acceptable, weird, the way it should be, the way I was raised
These linguistic patterns function to set or reinforce a boundary between behavior that is expected (because it is normal or obligatory) and behavior that is not expected (because it is abnormal or derelict). It should be noted that these messages can also be conveyed non-verbally, through facial expression and body language. For example, one participant said that she conveyed that someone had violated her expectations by giving them “a dirty look”; another talked about “glaring” at someone who had violated her boundaries. Whether verbal or non-verbal, these patterns alert us to the presence of expectations, even in the absence of explicit statements.

Unsettling Gender

Expectations about Gendered Character

13Expectations about gendered character are answers to the questions, “What are women or men like?” and “What should they be like?” ESD classes change participants’ expectations for gendered character by helping them to envision alternatives to what they may have taken for granted.

14The instructor started this conversation at the very beginning of the class by discussing societal expectations for women. How are women and girls “supposed to be?” she asked. The students responded immediately: nice, pretty, quiet, small, delicate, selfless, sexy, and so on. Then she asked, “what are other ways women can be?” The students were slower to respond, but then the ideas began to flow: strong, loud, smart, proud, demanding, angry. (from fieldnotes) This brief exercise seemed to set the stage for rethinking the possibilities for gendered character.

15Students’ responses to survey and interview questions demonstrated that their ideas about gendered character had shifted as a result of the class, especially (but not only) around the issues of strength, power, and vulnerability. For example, survey participants responded to a survey question about how the class had affected their beliefs about women, with comments like:

“I never realized my strength before. I allowed the social belief that women are weak to cause me to underestimate the strength of women and the physical power we have.” (Heather, end-of-class survey)
“I’ve learned that women are capable of amazing things and are far more courageous than usually given credit for.” (Megan, one-year follow-up survey)

16These participants clearly view themselves and all women differently after completing the ESD class. Even when their comments, like Heather’s, focus on their own strength, it is clear that the changes in how they view themselves stem from changes in how they understand women as a group.

17The instructor of the ESD class encouraged and supported this change. For example, in a class near the end of the term, she told a story about an attempted abduction of a woman in a nearby city. The target of the abduction used her wits and her strength to escape. The instructor concluded the story by telling the students, “All of you can do that now. You have the skills. Your legs are strong, your voice is strong. We often are convinced that we’re powerless and that’s just not true at all.” (from fieldnotes)

18Although perceptions of men were not a focus of this research, some participants volunteered that their expectations for men had also changed. For example, Heather noted,

“I feel powerful and aware of my surroundings more than I ever have in my life. I can walk alone at night without as much fear. I also realize my own strength and that men are not so tough even though they like to think they are.” (Heather, end-of-class survey)

Other participants said:

“Every man can be extremely vulnerable.” (Lisa, one-year follow-up survey)
“Not all men are dangerous.” (Mary, end-of-class survey)

19ESD classes challenge taken-for-granted understandings of gendered character, which position women as weak and vulnerable, and men as tough and dangerous (De Welde 2003, Hollander 2001, McCaughey 1997). The realization that effective resistance is possible for women undercuts these assumptions, shifting participants’ understandings of what women and men are and can be like.

Emotional Expectations

20ESD training changes students’ expectations not only for their character, but also for how they and others should feel in interaction. When women do gender in accord with conventional notions of femininity, they are expected to feel fearful, inadequate, and ashamed of their vulnerability (Stanko 1985, 1997). At the same time, they are expected to prioritize others’ feelings and desires, even at the cost of their own comfort and safety (Phillips 2000). ESD training challenges all these emotional expectations.

21First, most students reported that learning new physical and verbal self-defense skills, together with more accurate information about violence and the effectiveness of resistance, had changed their expectations for the degree of fear that is appropriate for women to feel. All participants were asked on the second and third surveys whether the information and techniques they learned in the class had reduced their fear of violence. On both surveys, about three quarters of the students answered “yes” to this question. In their qualitative survey responses and in the interviews, many commented that the class had changed their sense of how much fear was appropriate for them to feel:

“With men, it’s made me realize that they’re not usually as aggressive as you’d assume they would be. In a lot of the material we’ve been reading, it seems… that most attacks aren’t really too aggressive, most attacks are from people you know and who aren’t going to be aggressive. And so it really takes out the worry of physical harm.” (Nora, interview)
“I’m not as fearful of “random violence” or the nighttime as I was before. I think I have a far better, more realistic understanding of violence and that I’m not as helpless in the face of it as I thought I was before.” (Megan, 1-year follow-up survey)
“[I feel] more confident that I can handle a variety of situations, [and] more determination not to be ruled by fear.” (Patricia, end-of-class survey)

22Nora’s new realization about what men are usually like (expectations about gendered character) changes her ideas about violence, and makes fear seem less necessary. Megan’s knowledge of violence against women is now “more realistic,” and because her ESD training has shown her that she is not helpless, she can be less fearful. Finally, Patricia’s new expectation for her own emotions is clearly visible in her “determination not to be ruled by fear.”

23ESD training decreases fear by increasing women’s confidence that they could defend themselves (Hollander 2014, McCaughey 1997, Weitlauf et al. 2000). All participants were asked on the post-class surveys whether the class had increased their confidence in their ability to defend themselves from violence. Virtually all participants said that it had, as these participants articulated in their written comments:

“I definitely feel more confident in my abilities to defend myself. I’m not as afraid because of that confidence.” (Lindsey, one-year follow-up survey)
“I am more confident to interact with people the way I want because I’m more sure that I can get out of any situation that I begin to not feel okay about.” (Megan, one-year follow-up survey)
“The self confidence this class instills affects the way you interact with everyone. It affects your work environment, home environment, everything.” (Zoe, one-year follow-up survey)

24As Zoe notes, these feelings of increased confidence also extend to everyday situations, such as interactions with family members, partners, co-workers, or friends.

25For some women, fear is also replaced by anger. Anger is an emotion laden with gendered significance: It is one of the few emotions permitted to men in mainstream U.S. culture, but is an “outlaw emotion” for women (Jaggar 1992: 166), one which transgresses expectations for gendered emotion except in very limited situations (Shields 2002). Coming to feel that one has the right to be angry, therefore, signals a change in gendered emotional expectations for women (see also Hollander 2015).

26Anger requires two foundational beliefs: the sense that one’s rights have been violated and the belief that things could be different (Shields 2002). ESD training facilitates change in both beliefs, first by suggesting that women have the right to be safe and respected by others, and second by teaching them the skills that allow them to demand that respect. Participants were not asked directly about anger. However, some participants volunteered that their participation in the self-defense class made anger a more acceptable emotion for them. For example, Melissa said that,

“[I learned] that I have the right to be angry and be fierce about taking care of myself, and that I can hurt someone else if I need to and there is no reason to worry about how someone else perceives me if they are not caring about my feelings.” (Melissa, end-of-term survey)

27The language of “rights” moves the focus of this statement from individual emotion to shared expectations. Melissa claims that the self-defense class taught her that she has the right to be angry—i.e., that this is an expectation she can legitimately have for herself as a woman, not simply a feeling she has as an individual. In addition, she now knows that she could hurt someone else if necessary; in other words, she knows that things could be different.

28Another key shift in emotional expectations involved the requirement that women worry about others’ feelings. Past research has found that normative gender expectations require women to prioritize others’ (especially men’s) desires, even at the expense of their own comfort (Phillips 2000). This expectation produces a pervasive sense of social anxiety, a hyper-awareness of others’ feelings, and a reluctance to expect that others meet one’s own needs—or even an inability to recognize those needs. As I have argued elsewhere (Hollander 2001), this anxiety stems in part from the cultural belief that women are inherently weak and therefore vulnerable to violence in virtually any situation. Learning that they are capable of self-defense removes this omnipresent specter of violence, relieving women of the imperative to constantly monitor and manage others’ feelings in order to keep themselves safe.

29ESD training challenges the expectation that women should focus on others’ feelings, instead suggesting that they should prioritize their own comfort and safety. This way of reframing safety was evident in the class. In one class session, for example, the discussion focused on boundaries: “how to know them, draw them, and defend them.” The flipchart read, “Start with yourself.” The instructor amplified this message: “Starting with yourself means asking yourself what you feel, want, and need. Don’t think about their motives, or what they want; don’t think about what you’ll tolerate. Focus on yourself. We have the right to our own needs.” (from fieldnotes) This discussion encouraged women to attend to their own feelings and reject the guilt and anxiety they are expected to feel for not serving others.

30Participants were not asked directly about this expectation, but many volunteered that the class had reduced their anxiety about pleasing others. For example:

[I learned in the self-defense class] that I am worth standing up for, and that I can decide what is okay with me and what’s not. I get to choose, it no longer has to do with the guilt I feel if I don’t please everyone around me. (Lauren, end-of-class survey)
[I learned] that’s it’s okay to, if you feel uncomfortable, listen to that… they may compute it as being rude, but you have to take care of yourself. (Meredith, interview)
It’s OK to say no when you don’t want, and we don’t have to feel bad. (April, one-year follow-up survey)

31Instead of labeling care for oneself as “rude” and worthy of guilt, focusing on one’s own needs becomes a valued goal and something that can be reasonably expected of oneself. Women have the right to decide “what is okay with me and what’s not.” Their own comfort and safety are reprioritized as more important than politeness or pleasing others.

Behavioral Expectations

32In addition to changes in expectations for character and emotion, self-defense students develop new expectations for how they and others should behave. These changes were typically grounded in a clearer distinction between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Amber and Kimberly were typical of the many students who reported being better able to recognize danger signs when interacting with others:

I [now] feel like I can better recognize the signs of an attack. (Amber, end-of-class survey)
When a man was asking me obvious questions about something stupid, just to get me to talk to him, I recognized his ploy. Then he followed me out to my car in a dark parking lot. I used my intuition and made sure he didn’t do anything else. (Kimberly, end-of-class survey)

33These changes extend beyond encounters with strangers to relationships with acquaintances and intimates, where the majority of assaults occur:

There’s a fuzzy line between romance and assault that’s not so blurred to me anymore. (Amy, one-year follow-up survey)
[This class has] also strengthened my ability to have relationships with somebody, because I realize what a good, healthy relationship consists of, and what a bad one consists of. (Nora, interview)

34The class also encouraged behavioral changes by helping students visualize and practice different responses to uncomfortable situations. One especially effective example began with the instructor and an assistant modeling three different ways of responding to an incident of harassment that might happen while waiting for public transportation. The first, passive, response showed the target reluctantly answering the harasser’s persistent questions, which allowed the harasser to become increasingly intrusive until a physical assault occurred. The second version showed the target responding aggressively and rudely to the harasser’s questions, which only escalated the situation. The third, assertive, response showed the target calmly and firmly setting a clear boundary. She stood up straight, turned to face the harasser, maintained eye contact, and said, “I want to be left alone.” The harasser stopped the intrusive behavior, and it was palpably clear to everyone watching that the target’s assertive behavior had made it difficult for the harassment to continue, while the earlier passive and aggressive responses only encouraged further abuse. This demonstration made clear how simple changes could result in a very different outcome to a challenging situation. (from fieldnotes)

35Together with their new understanding of appropriate behavior, these new defensive skills led ESD students to expect different behaviors, both from others and from themselves. These changes were most evident in women’s comments about their ability to respond to a future assault:

“I now feel confident that I could fight off an attacker. Before, I felt that if someone decided to attack me, I was trapped.” (Angela, end-of-class survey)
“I feel that the techniques and information I learned in the self-defense class have helped me become more assertive and confident in my ability to defend myself. I am more aware of my surroundings, and I have promised myself to always be prepared to fend off an attacker, should the situation arise.” (Jennifer, one-year follow-up survey)

36Before learning self-defense, the only possible outcome of an assault that Angela could foresee was being “trapped”; now she can imagine escaping. This change entails a shift in both her own imagined behavior and her projection of how an assailant would respond: she imagines herself resisting and also imagines the assailant being deterred or stopped by her resistance. These shifts allow her to expect new behavior from herself in an assault situation; as Jennifer reports, she has “promised” herself to take action.

37Changes in ESD students’ behavioral expectations extended to everyday situations in which there was no obvious threat of violence. For example, Tanya commented that:

“[Learning self-defense has] affected me in that I demand more of people. Because my expectations are raised on treatment and what is acceptable, and [not] what some guy might tell you is acceptable, but what really is acceptable because that’s what I feel is acceptable… Sometimes I think girls get set up to just get used to it, or that’s just how men are. And yeah, definitely taking the class makes me expect a little more from people.” (Tanya, mid-class interview)

38Tanya now understands interaction differently than she did prior to learning self-defense. She now expects that others will treat her with respect; her own standards are now more important than “some guy’s”.

39These changed standards may cause students to expect different behavior from themselves, as well as others. As Veronica said,

“I think probably something that [the class] really changed is my… awareness of my own lack of assertiveness… I was raised that assertiveness for a woman is mean. You know, you’re a bitch if you’re assertive. You’re selfish, you don’t give a shit about anyone else. And so it’s really a constant struggle to say, you know, I can be assertive. And I have to constantly remind myself, or try to tell myself even if I don’t believe it, that this doesn’t make me a bad person… But in the long run, even if it’s painful or if I’d rather just like do whatever, it’s really important.” (Veronica, interview)

40The change in Veronica’s expectations for herself is clear here. She now rejects the received idea that assertive behavior is “mean” for women, and has come to expect assertive behavior from herself. This is not a simple shift. She acknowledges that it is a “constant struggle” and “really hard,” yet she still reminds herself that she wants to be assertive. As a result of learning self-defense, she has new expectations for interaction—both others’ responsibilities to her, and her responsibility to communicate her own thoughts and feelings to others—even if her behavior does not always live up to her expectations. As Heather wrote in response to a question about how the class had changed her beliefs about women, “Women ARE STRONG, we don’t have to be nice, we don’t have to fulfill any societal expectations, only our expectations of ourselves.” (Heather, end-of-class survey). These new expectations have the power to reshape interaction.

Isis Fuentealba Quiñones, El violador eres tú, 8 mars 2020, Concepción (Chili)

« Un violeur sur ton chemin » («un violador en tu camino») est une performance créée par un collectif féministe du Chili dans le but de manifester contre les violences faites aux femmes. La performance a été reprise dans différents pays, les paroles originales ont été adaptées. On voit sur l’image une petite fille qui a rejoint le mouvement et qui porte le drapeau mapuche.

<https://commons.wikimedia.org/​wiki/​File:%22el_violador_eres_tú%22.jpg>.

Putting It All Together: Interactional Gender Practice

41The preceding sections have shown how students develop new expectations for their own and others’ characters, emotions, and behavior. When participants put these new expectations into practice, they can reshape the course of interaction. Participants’ responses to the survey and interview questions provided two windows on these changes: their reevaluations of their past experiences before taking the ESD class, and their descriptions of how their behavior had changed as a result of the class.

42Many participants commented that the class had caused them to rethink their past experiences and imagine how those interactions might have unfolded differently had they been equipped with ESD skills. For example, when I asked Tara whether she would have reacted differently to her husband’s abuse if she had had ESD skills, she replied:

“Well, I think it wouldn’t have happened. I think I would have just been more aggressive to the situation. And not been so afraid of it… I think if I would have known before that I could stand up for myself and I’m strong enough to do things, and just kind of been able to realize, wait a second, he’s playing me. Because, you know… there’s that obligation that’s like, “Wait a second, this is my husband.” I shouldn’t have stood for any of it. I shouldn’t have let him get away with as much as he did…But I notice now that I stand up for myself with things that happen. I’m more apt to say something.” (Tara, interview)

43In Tara’s account, we can glimpse the operation of all three types of expectations and how they changed as a result of the ESD training. In terms of character, she says that she learned that she is “strong enough to do things,” including standing up for herself. She also imagines that her emotions would have been different if she had had ESD training: she would not have felt so much fear. And finally, she projects that her behavior would have been different. Rather than conform to the expectation that it is a wife’s obligation to tolerate abusive behavior from her husband, she now measures her behavior against a new standard, saying she “shouldn’t have stood for any of it.” Indeed, she thinks that “it wouldn’t have happened” at all, because she would have responded differently. It is impossible to be sure what would have happened, of course, but her speculation provides compelling evidence that the interaction could have been very different.

44These same kinds of changes were evident in my conversation with Pamela, who described a high school relationship:

“I was in this relationship in the end of high school, very beginning of college. And then it just kind of ended abruptly and badly. And like looking back, I realize how much I let him push me around. I mean, it just helps to look back because I’m not really sad about it anymore. I’m glad I’m not in that relationship. He was a jerk. Like why was I with him ever? …I was harboring like all this like sadness. Like why didn’t he want to be with me anymore? And now I’m kind of like, his loss. I learned in this class that the way he treated me was totally wrong. And I mean even though… I already kind of knew that there were things in our relationship that weren’t as good as they should have been, I kind of always chalked it to up to, yeah, but I am just judging him. But this class really gave me the power to look back and be like, no, that wasn’t okay.” (Pamela, interview)

45Here we see Pamela reevaluating her former boyfriend’s behavior. She used to account for his behavior by blaming herself for “judging him.” But through the self-defense class, she learned that “the way he treated me was totally wrong,” and “not okay,” and reevaluates him as a “jerk.” Applying her new expectations for behavior changed her emotional response to the ending of their relationship. Rather than sadness, she now feels glad that she is no longer in that relationship.

46A similar rethinking of expectations is visible in Christie’s reconsideration of past college hookups:

“But with sex, [there] needs to be some—at least ask, “are you OK with this?” “Is this OK with you if we do this?” Not just the whole, let’s just rip the clothes off and go… And I think that’s mostly what happens, is that consent isn’t given. And especially if a person is intoxicated, because they’re not making good judgment decisions as it is. And for a guy to take advantage of that, of a girl that’s drunk, is not OK, without asking them if it’s OK. And that’s happened to me more than once. And… I just never thought of it as assault, I was just, “I was drunk, whatever.” But [now] I’m like, no it really wasn’t OK, because I wasn’t at the peak of my intellectual faculty at the time. And for them to just do that to me when I’m like that isn’t right… I think it’s their duty to ask the person that they are going to do something to if it’s OK with them. Not just to do it and just assume it’s OK because they don’t say no.” (Christie, interview)

47Rather than accounting for these experiences by attributing them to her intoxication (“I was drunk, whatever”), Christie now believes that this behavior “isn’t right” and “is not okay.” Further, she articulates her new expectation that a potential sexual partner should explicitly ask if the sexual interaction is wanted.

48Christie’s new expectations led her to realize that some of her past sexual experiences were closer to assault than she had thought at the time. I asked her how that realization affected her, and she replied,

“I think actually it helps me. Because it takes the guilt off of me. Because like, a lot of them I just felt like it’s my fault. You know, I was the one, I got too drunk, I didn’t say anything, I didn’t make it stop. And [now] I’m like, it’s not just a one-person thing. It’s not like I just did it to myself. There was somebody else there, obviously. And so, I think it helps me, to take the blame off myself a little bit. I mean, I should have had the willpower to say no. But at the same time, they should have been asking me if it was okay. Shouldn’t have just assumed it, because I didn’t say it.” (Christie, interview)

49Christie’s new expectations relieve her guilt and self-blame. It is not that she “got too drunk” or “didn’t make it stop,” though she still wishes that she had “had the willpower to say no.” It is that the other person took advantage of her intoxication rather than ensuring that she wanted to participate. This shift produces a change in emotional expectations: she need not feel guilty and ashamed about these experiences.

50These three accounts are retrospective, reevaluating experiences prior to the ESD class through the lens of the participant’s new expectations. Participants also described how interactions after taking the ESD class proceeded differently than they might have before the class. The quote with which this paper began is an apt example. Sarah recounts that after taking the ESD class, she developed new expectations for how her tango partners should interact with her. They should not “touch her all over”; rather, they should keep their hands “up here” and touch her appropriately. She also develops new expectations for her own behavior. Whereas before the class, she would have just “let it happen,” accounting for her partners’ behavior by telling herself “they’re just dancing,” she now uses the strategies she learned in class to convey her new expectation to them. And, crucially, her new approach changes how the interaction unfolds. In her recounting, the men change their behavior to match her new expectation, and sometimes even apologize.

51Another example is a story recounted by Danielle about a series of interactions she had with a co-worker in a college dorm:

“[My boyfriend is] an RA over at the dorms and I work over there as well. And there’s another RA over there who all of a sudden decided, “Oh, I’m going to become your friend.” And then one day I walked in [to the office] …and they were all in there sitting and talking, and he’s like, “With [her boyfriend’s] permission, will you call me ‘Daddy’?” And I was like, “Excuse me?” You know, that’s just weird. And he was like, “Come on. It’ll be OK. Just call me ‘Daddy’.” And I was like, “No.” And I left. And I was walking home and I was like, first of all, that’s not OK. Second of all, I don’t need anybody’s permission to do whatever. He doesn’t own me. I can do whatever I want. And then I was like, that’s just wrong. That’s sexual harassment. And so… the next day I saw him passing by, and I was like, “I need to talk to you because I don’t appreciate what we had going on yesterday. First of all, that was a very inappropriate thing for you to say. I didn’t appreciate that. I didn’t ask for it. That was sexual harassment. Second of all, I don’t need my partner’s permission to do anything. I am my own person and I very much resent the fact that you implied that I need somebody’s permission to do, you know, whatever it is.” …I just so went off, and I was so pumped up and so proud of myself. [And] he was really receptive to it at that time, and he was like, “OK, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize,” [Q: Do you feel like you reacted differently in these situations than you would have before you took the self-defense class?] Yes. Yes. I don’t think, unless I knew the person really well, I don’t think I would have approached him and said this is not OK… I don’t think that I would have been as straightforward had I not taken that class. Because I definitely gained a totally new perspective by taking the self-defense class.” (Danielle, interview)

52Through her experience in the class, Danielle developed new expectations for others’ behavior. Further, she learned the skills to communicate these new expectations to others. And when she did so, her interactions with these others changed. In this case, the co-worker apologized, saying, “I didn’t realize.” If we can take him at his word, he too now has a new understanding of what is appropriate in interaction, and this understanding may change how he behaves in the future, with Danielle and perhaps with others as well.

Conclusions

53ESD students frequently report that learning to defend themselves was “life-changing,” transforming not only their experiences of danger and abuse, but many other aspects of their lives. I have argued that the root of this transformation is the way that ESD training changes women’s gendered expectations—for who they (and others) can be, how they can feel, and how they should behave. These new expectations, visible in the way participants talk about their experiences, change accountability processes and allow them to imagine new possibilities for interaction, both one-shot encounters with strangers and ongoing relationships with acquaintances and intimates. Interviewees reported that they behaved differently in interaction as a consequence of their training, and that their new behavior, in turn, changed how others responded to them. The result, their comments suggest, is a significant shift in the tenor and outcomes of their interactions.

54These data, of course, have limitations. The research focused on only a single 10-week ESD course offered on a U.S. college campus. ESD courses are diverse and the findings described here may not apply to courses offered in other formats or to other populations. The data are self-reported and retrospective, and as with all such research, it is possible that participants may have responded to questions in ways they thought the researcher hoped to hear. All respondents volunteered to participate, and although a majority of those enrolled in the class completed the surveys, only a small group participated in the interviews, and those who volunteered to talk with an interviewer may have had different perspectives than those who did not. Nonetheless, the consistency of participants’ responses across individuals and across research method suggests that the patterns described here are likely to reflect the experiences of most students in this ESD class.

55It is crucial to emphasize that the changes described above are not solely individual. They stem from social interactions in the ESD class, and they affect students’ expectations not only for themselves and specific others but for women and men as social categories. And perhaps most importantly, they ripple out to affect those with whom the students interact, even if those people have no direct contact with the ESD class. For example, if a woman begins behaving more assertively with her employer, her employer’s behavior may change in response—perhaps to resist the change, but perhaps to welcome and accommodate it. Similarly, if a woman responds to a potential sexual assault with powerful resistance rather than the passive, fearful acquiescence the assailant expects, he may decide not to carry through with the planned assault. And because people are connected through social networks and what Schwalbe has termed “nets of accountability” (Schwalbe 2000, 2016), these kinds of interactional changes may reverberate more broadly. For example, the changed interaction between a woman and her employer may shift the larger interactional context of that workplace. Or, if a woman successfully resists a sexual assault, the would-be perpetrator’s understanding of women’s strength and capabilities—as well as his own—may change, and he may even reconsider assaulting women. Moreover, the retelling of such a story may change the gendered understandings of anyone who hears it—the woman’s friends and family, police and other social service providers, and the general public if the attack is reported in the news. While my comments here are necessarily speculative, these small shifts in interactional expectations and practice have the potential to create much larger changes in the gender system. Learning self-defense, then, may be transformational not only for individuals and the interactions in which they engage, but for the communities in which they live.

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Notes

1 Quotations have been edited for readability but are otherwise reproduced verbatim.

1 In addition, students also participated in a weekly, 1.5 hour discussion group led by a peer facilitator.

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Jocelyn A. Hollander, « Unsettling Gender »Revue des sciences sociales, 65 | 2021, 56-65.

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Jocelyn A. Hollander, « Unsettling Gender »Revue des sciences sociales [En ligne], 65 | 2021, mis en ligne le 15 juin 2021, consulté le 12 mai 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/revss/6650 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/revss.6650

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Auteur

Jocelyn A. Hollander

Department of Sociology
University of Oregon
jocelynh[at]uoregon.edu

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