Female students may be vulnerable on the weekends walking dimly lit cervices on or off Eastern students, but the university has established measures to prepare them for the worst.

Chief Adam Due, of the University Police Department, currently runs Rape Aggression Defensive, a 12-hour self-defense course for only for women that was started by the UPD in 2006.

The course does not currently have a class for the next few weeks, but he does think female students should take advantage of the program.

“It deals with how to stay safe on campus, at work, at school, at home, traveling and then there’s a section of the course (where) we do physical tactics where they learn how to do strikes, where to strike,” Due said.

Erin Walters, the executive director of the Sexual Assault Counseling & Information Service, agreed.

Walters said she thinks women being empowered to defend themselves in a time of crisis.

“When you look at passive resistance versus active resistance (with) active resistance the chance of a completed sexual assault is reduced by 80 percent,” Walters said.

Walter defined passivity as “crying” or “pleading” for the perpetrator to stop while an active response is screaming, hiding or making a loud display to attract attention.

“Nobody can guarantee how they would act in a situation like that, but some studies have

shown that an active resistance decreases the act of assault,” Walters said.

Walters said alcohol is a factor in many acts of sexual violence or assault.

“When we talk about consent, alcohol impairs ones ability to provide knowledgeable consent—it increases vulnerability ten-fold,” Walters said.

“It’s important to realize that sexual violence occurs in somewhat of a continuum,”

Walters said. “It might be abusive language, inappropriate touching, grabbing at a party in an unwanted sexual way, feeding drinks to someone.”

As long as the person is not in their right state of mind to make their own decision it is not consensual, Walters said.

Another possible step is intervention and when it is done correctly it can result in the safety of the intended victim and the person who intervened, Walters said.

“You might want to say ‘hey, I noticed that you are not doing so well,’” she said.

Walters said the wording of the talk should be chosen carefully and calling the police should also be considered.

“It’s very important to assess for your own safety if you are considering intervening on somebody else’s behalf,” she said. “If you feel like your intervention might be received in a negative way you might want to bring a friend.”

In correlation, a reported April 1 assault on a woman in Mattoon was stopped by a “Good Samaritan,” who heard the woman screaming at 3:10 a.m.

The woman was later taken and treated at Sarah Bush Hospital, according to an article from the Journal Gazette-Times Courier.

“Any method of self defense should be used,” Walters said. “Draw attention to yourself, make a scene. The embarrassment of making a scene will last a day or two the impact of sexual violence will last a lifetime.”

Methods like using a rape whistle or pepper spray are good in theory, but Walters said she would not rely on those items to protect her.

“In the moment you have to be prepared to use pepper spray and on a personal level I don’t if I would be that quick with my reflexes,” she said.

When it comes to whistles, Walters said she does not think they are as effective as people think.

“Some whistles don’t work correctly—I don’t think the whistle is a great idea,” she said. “In the right moment are you going to be able to blow a whistle?”

Walters and Due both said they think education is the best protection.

Due said RAD helps instill confidence in those that take the sessions seriously.

“A lot of women don’t think they can defend themselves and when they find that they are capable of doing more than they thought, I think it builds their confidence,” Due said.

What the class does is take the attendee out of their comfort zone and allows them to actually physically defend themselves in a controlled, yet still serious environment.

“Most women, they don’t grow up fighting if they have some brothers maybe they have

some experience with defending themselves, but it’s not the same as being attacked by a stranger,” Due said. “The (female) mindset is different. It’s to be polite, to be agreeable.”

Politeness and agreeability are good qualities to have in certain situations, but when someone is intending to inflict bodily harm manners should fall to the wayside in favor of self-preservation, Due said.

“A lot (the participants) look at it like ‘I couldn’t hurt somebody,’ but you aren’t doing it to hurt somebody you are doing it to defend yourself,” Due said.

Nike Ogunbodede can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].