Content Warning: This post deals with topics related to violence and personal safety.
Dr. Conklin is back with a third tip regarding situational awareness.
Video Transcript:
Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Annalijin Conklin. I am here today because I have been doing martial arts since the age of eight and have 25 years of active practice experience. So I’d really like to use this opportunity to share some safety tips that will hopefully be beneficial to you.
So for the next tip, safety number 3, I wanted to talk to you a bit about how you might further reduce your level of vulnerability to an outsider who might think that they could attack you. The first thing to think about though is what are the places where women may be at highest risk of being attacked, and we often have the impression, in part because of media and outside messages that we get, that women are more vulnerable when they’re jogging alone in the morning early or late at night.
Those are really low likelihood possibilities or times women would actually get attacked. The highest risk location is in a woman’s home, and the most likely perpetrator is someone that she knows. Often it’s an ex-partner, it may be a family member, but outside of the home, in a public space, one of the higher risk locations is in a parking lot in a grocery store. Usually, it’s ‘cause you’re coming back, you got your hands full of groceries, you just, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you wanna go home, you just wanna get the bags in the car and go. So one, your hands are occupied, so that’s really, if you can use the cart and not have your hands carrying the bags that means your hands are free. At least one might be if you can carry all your groceries in one hand.
But when you get to that car, we often just go to the car, we’re looking at our key, we’re just focused on that moment, and often we’re not really looking around us. And that creates a situation where someone might see that as an opportunity for an attack because you’re quite vulnerable.
The simplest thing you can do to mitigate that is to turn your body side on to where you want to put your key, and this will apply to if you’re going to the bank and taking money out of the ATM machine. Just turning your body little bit side on to where the door is gives you more range for where you can look. Obviously you can’t see behind you, but by looking behind you, and kind of just scanning, put the key in, if it doesn’t work maybe scan again, or if you really can just feel it and you’ll constantly be scanning as you’re kind of doing it blind in a way, would be the best.
Because when you’re scanning it gives a message to anyone else who might be watching you that you’re paying attention. And if you’re paying attention, you’re gonna be a hard target. And it’s something that you got to practice, but try it out. You know, when you know you’re going home and you’re on the bus, get your keys ready, always have your keys ready, always have your ATM card ready before you get to where you need to be, so that again you’re not fumbling and paying attention and focused to finding your keys in your purse, finding your keys in your pocket, or your ATM card.
You’ve already got it, you’re ready, you’re primed, it takes less than five seconds assuming you’re well-practiced. But you’re scanning, right? And being ready before you get there. So those are two pieces that sort of go together that enhance that sort of situational awareness and limiting your likelihood of getting attacked.
Comments