Best piece of self-defense advice I received
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Best piece of self-defense advice I received
… for the woman who comes home late at night
Writer’s note: This post was first published on Medium’s “Tickled” on August 24, 2021 and will now be permanently housed on Substack’s new “Tickled” column.
When a woman (or growing girl) comes home alone or in the late-night hours, she already knows she’s at a disadvantage. In the middle of the day, there are the catcallers and random men asking her to smile for their personal insecurities. At night, she walks past lurkers, whisperers and men who may be a bit too aggressive in their pursuit. And even if she can hold her own in a fight, there’s the frustration of having to always be on alert at all. Wearing headphones and enjoying the night breeze just don’t always go hand-in-hand with women at night.
I had an after-school job in high school during my junior year and senior year, and everyone had a piece of advice for me: Stay on well-lit streets. (That worked out OK until I had to walk under viaducts.) Carry your pocket knife from Girl Scouts. (That one was from my mother and made sense until I was suspended my senior year for having a weapon in my bookbag.) Jog or cross the street when you feel unsafe. (As much as I love dance fitness, jogging has never been my thing, and I’ve seen a group of men cross the street the millisecond me and a friend did so.) Adjust your keys so they’re between your fingers. (My grandfather, a veteran, showed me how to do it, but I had a habit of losing keys — something you’d think I’d be better at considering I was a latchkey kid in elementary school.) Every solution had a new problem.
But the one piece of advice that turned out to be the most useful came from the cousin of my childhood friend. She’d come strolling in at all hours of the night, hanging with a friend here and there, without a care in the world. We asked her one time was she worried about coming in at such late hours, and she shook her head no.
I pondered why and found out something I’d never thought to do.
“Just scratch your snatch,” she said, with a big grin on her face. “You can drop a weapon. Someone can take your keys. But my vagina is right there. Anytime I walk past a man who looks like he might be scary, I just start scratching my vagina. No matter who the guy is, no one wants to be around the girl with the scratchy cooch!”
Words to live by.
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