One evening last fall, I was presenting a Girls Fight Back seminar at a university in Indiana. I was explaining the impact of verbal assault and I asked my students, "How would you feel if someone walked up to you and called you a bitch?" Scanning the crowd of 300 college women, I called upon a thin girl who was confidently raising her hand. She said, "I don't care if someone calls me a bitch. All that means is that I'm a Babe In Total Control of Herself."

That night, I learned the importance of power, and the attitude shift that occurs when women choose to reclaim it. By taking the five-letter word "bitch" and making it our own mantra of strength, it can no longer hurt us. Very rarely are women told, "You are smart. You are strong. You are dangerous and capable of taking a man down if he attempts to victimize you." Instead, many of us were raised with the ideology that our daddy will protect us or our boyfriend will defend our honor. We learned to never be impolite, sometimes at the expense of being taken advantage of. As a society, our perceptions of violence against women are so skewed that there are still some people who hold the belief that rape is a woman's fault.

Just the other night, there was a story on the local news about a young woman sexually assaulted while walking home from the campus library. Several community residents interviewed on-camera exclaimed, "Why was she walking home all alone at night? What was she thinking!?" It never occurred to these individuals to be outraged at the perpetrator and wonder, "Why was this man stalking and raping an innocent woman? What was he thinking?"

On top of existing stigmas in cities across the nation, we are also constantly fed personal safety advice from 'experts' in the media. They tell us to yell "fire!" if someone is trying to rape us. (But who would really do that?) They tell us to never, ever walk alone at night, but what independent woman can actually follow that advice all the time? How many women want to go through life never being able to do things on their own? I am not proposing we throw the possibility of risk to the wind and stroll down whatever dark alley suits us. We simply need to start using better strategies for keeping ourselves safe instead of never being alone and hoping nothing bad happens to us.

#1: Take care of YOU first

Before an airplane takes off, the flight attendants always go through the safety procedures in case of an emergency. In the event that the cabin loses pressure, they instruct you to first affix your own oxygen mask, then aid small children or others who need your assistance. The reason is simple; we cannot be safe or helpful to others if we fail to meet our own needs first. As women, we are professional multi-taskers. We are so busy taking care of everyone and everything else besides our own personal health and well-being, that before long, we may start feeling exhausted and depressed. From a personal safety perspective, the stronger you look and feel, the less likely you will become the victim of a crime.

#2: Learn to say NO

This might sound simple, but for many women it is the hardest thing to do. By saying "No" to someone or something, you are immediately setting a boundary. "No" is a sentence, yet many women feel there is an explanation that needs to follow it. Anyone who will not accept the answer "No" is trying to control you in some way. By learning to say no and set boundaries, it will be very difficult for people to manipulate you.

#3: Be a bad victim

Crime can be broken down into a simple formula: Bad guys are looking for easy targets, also called "good victims." A good victim is someone who is weak, not paying attention and is visibly unable to set a boundary or fight back. Examples of good victims would be a woman running in the park with her walkman blaring in her ears (she is totally unaware), a woman attempting to schlep 10 bags of groceries into her apartment (her hands are full) or a woman lost in conversation on her cell phone (she is oblivious to her surroundings.)

A "bad victim" on the other hand, is someone not willing to compromise her personal safety and awareness. Examples of a bad victim are a woman walking down the street with confident posture (she believes she's worth fighting for and it shows) and a woman unafraid to make eye contact (a sign of not avoiding confrontation). Be a bad victim by using good judgment, keeping your awareness radar up and conveying an attitude of being a babe in total control of herself.

#4: Trust your intuition

Learning to trust your intuition is one of the best skills a woman can develop to avoid danger. The female gender is equipped with an incredible gut feeling that tells us when things just aren't right. Believe it or not, this intuitive signal is actually a survival skill that has been scientifically proven to keep us from harm. So here is the good news: a woman's intuition tends to be much stronger than a man's because we have more developed emotional responses than men do. But there is a catch; even though we have this instinct providing valuable foresight, we are also habitual self-doubters. Unless danger is literally staring us in the face, we have a hard time believing that our gut could actually be telling the truth. Learning to trust our gut feeling and acting upon it is a sure-fire way to keep out of harm's way. If your gut is talking to you, listen to it! To learn more about the value of intuition, I highly recommend a book called "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker.

#5: Take a self-defense class

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the following phrase: "I've been meaning to take a self-defense class, but just never seem to get around to it." In many cases, it takes something tragic to happen for women to find the motivation to actually sign up for a class. For me, it took the murder of my sorority sister, Shannon McNamara, to make me realize how important it is for women to defend themselves.

Several women have admitted to me that they would rather stick their head in the sand than acknowledge the realities of violence. Some might say ignorance is bliss, but in a country where one out of six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (National Institute of Justice, 2003), ignorance is incredibly dangerous.

The reality of violence exists, but so does your power to fight back against it! By taking a self-defense class, not only will you learn great strategies to get away from a physical attack, you will walk away with a sense of confidence you never knew possible. You will be amazed at the power your mind and body reveal to you, and it is the best gift you could ever give yourself (or a loved one). Find a class in your geographic area by visiting the resources page on my web site at http://www.girlsfightback.com/html/resources2.html. Stay safe and remember my motto: "There is nothing more dangerous than a pissed off woman!"

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