Potential trigger warning: This post asks for reader input on practical self defense; as such the post and subsequent comments could be triggering for some readers.
I run a martial arts studio in a college town in the south. The instructor who previously headed up our quarterly women's self defense course (a wonderful and inspirational 70 year old woman) recently had to relocate out of state. This has left me and my wife in the position of restructuring and implementing a new program.
I have a great deal of experience in teaching self defense and in running women's self defense courses, however all of this experience dates back to a time before I became fully invested in feminist philosophy. The classes that I have taught in the past have focused extensively on addressing stranger rape and violent assault, and while I believe that that approach has both validity and importance (particularly in that going through such courses seems to be an empowering experience for most women), I feel that it is lacking in practicality since it essentially ignores the fact that most sexual assaults are more likely to be coercive rather than overtly violent. In short, knowing how to blow out an attacker's knee with a side kick is likely to be very valuable in the rare instance of being attacked on the street by a serial rapist, but is unlikely to be of much use in the more likely instance of a pushy boyfriend who continues to pressure his date to engage in unwanted activity.
So, I would like some advice and insight into what people think should go into a feminist self-defense course in order to make it as useful and empowering as possible for the participants. Any and all ideas, comments and suggestions are welcome. Before we go any further though, I should note that while I absolutely understand and agree with the fact that rape prevention should be targeted at the men who rape, and that the onus should not be on women, that isn't really what this post is about. Until we can accomplish the goal of dismantling the societal structures that teach men that is alright to rape, there will still, in my opinion, be a need for teaching self defense.
Just so everyone has an understanding of the structure of the course, here is some basic information:
- The course will run for five or six weeks, and will meet once a week for approximately one and a half to two hours. This means that we have a very limited amount of time (nine to twelve hours total).
- The course is non-profit. We charge a nominal fee that goes to cover equipment and handouts; all remaining money goes to a local women's shelter.
- While I will be involved with the course, it will be taught by my wife. We feel that it is important that the participants see a woman in charge of the class, successfully demonstrating the techniques being taught.
- While the class has always focused heavily on situational awareness and problem avoidance as a primary precept, we have always been careful to point out that we are not telling women to curtail their activities or movements, but rather to recognize potentially dangerous situations, and to be more vigilant at those times.
My real questions for the community are as follows:
- For those of you who have taken self defense and rape prevention courses, what were your experiences? What did you like and dislike, and what would you have changed about the course? Were there things that weren't discussed that you felt should have been?
- How much time should we spend addressing broader issues of acquaintance rape and coercive sexual assault versus stranger rape? In what way should a self defense course such broader issues? Are there other issues that you feel are equally important to address?
- Is there anything else that I'm missing while considering this subject? I know that as an experienced martial artist I am competent and qualified to develop self defense curriculum, but I also recognize my privilege as a man who has never suffered sexual assault, and I know it would be easy for me to overlook many nuances on the topic.
- Finally (and I understand that this is a potentially upsetting topic for some people), are there any specific self defense scenarios that you feel should be addressed in a self defense course? We cover a variety of different potential attacks (grabs, chokes, attacks from behind, attacker on top and so forth), but I want to be certain that we aren't overlooking any likely or common situations.
Thanks in advance for your help with this.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Women's Self Defense/Rape Prevention Course: Soliciting Feminist Input.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/12052
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
This is a bit of a hypothetical and sideways answer, coming from someone who hasn't ever been faced with an assault or violent situation--but I wanted to note that one of the most significant benefits I got out of my martial arts training (mostly Taekwondo with some self-defense seminars here and there) was a combination of self-confidence and self-awareness. Obviously this isn't a single lesson to teach, or really a direct response to or protection from violence--but I think it is important for women to have a sense of themselves as strong, capable, worthy beings. I would like to think that that sort of confidence might make us a little more resistant to being drawn into abusive relationships. (This of course is one tiny thing amidst the many factors involved in partner violence, and I don't in any way want to imply that victims are themselves responsible for violence done to them.)
I can say that, as a female, and especially as a pretty stereotypically 'feminine' (quiet, smiley, self-effacing, small, etc) chick, there was something really significant about learning how to use my body in aggressive physical ways. It's absolutely important to be realistic about what your training will prepare you for--TKD is -not- a self-defense art; despite Chuck Norris, roundhouse kicks will -not- be a reliable defense against guns; over-confidence can be really dangerous, etc. But simply knowing that I could throw a punch, break a few boards, or beat someone in a sparring match, was really powerful for me. And I know it has made me more assertive and confident in other areas of life. I guess the point being that, especially for women like me who were never involved in anything like this before, simply doing the training by itself can be really profound.
"I guess the point being that, especially for women like me who were never involved in anything like this before, simply doing the training by itself can be really profound."
Yes, this is exactly why I think this sort of training is so important and beneficial, even knowing that the stereotypical "stranger lurking in the alley" self defense scenario is so unlikely.
Thank you very much for your comments and insight. While I have a basic understanding of the anatomical differences in hip structure between men and women, I had never fully considered the ramifications of this before (though I had noticed that many women had difficulty with the straight forward version of the inside to outside crescent kick). I will definitely look into this further.
Hmm. The second portion of this comment was intended for Aurora Celeste's note below. Apologies.
I'd recommend if you're going to be teaching large groups of women to fight (or any women, really, but that's probably ideal-world thinking) that you should invest some time and research into how women's bodies differ physiologically from men and how to utilize those differences to best power advantage and minimization of injury. For example, Tae Kwon Do's Crescent kick needs to be modified slightly for most women and the kick needs to be at a 30-45 degree angle from the straight of the body due to the different tilt of the pelvis. Even something simple like a punching fist needs to be examined, because many women punch using a more slanted fist than a man's. Most martial arts teachers look at this as bad and wrong, because in a man's fist it leaves air in the middle and will break the fingers. In many women's hands, however, the traditional flat-knuckled fist leaves enough space in the middle to shove a finger through and using this fist to hit something greatly increases the chance of dislocating the first two fingers or breaking the bones. Look these things up and learn them so you can teach them.
Also, keep in mind that it's going to be a very emotional thing for women, and they're going to get mad, storm out, scream, cry, and otherwise get frustrated due to the subject matter, and that's okay. If you treat it like a big deal then women will get embarrassed and leave. Instead, start the class with a discussion on a place to go when you need a break, and respect a woman's decision to sit out a technique, or to ignore the tears/outbreaks if they happen, because nothing sucks more than to start crying in class and then have the teacher stop everything and bring it to everyone's attention just to ask "are you sure you're ok?"
Yes, I've seen in the past the emotional response that hands on self-defense can incite in students - I think I've probably seen, at one time or another, all the responses you listed (and not just in running women's self defense classes, but also in regular martial arts). At first this was something that was very hard for me to deal with; as an instructor and as a compassionate human being, the instinctual response is to try to "fix" the situation and make the student feel better. It took me a while to realize how counter-productive that approach was, and how drawing further attention to the upset student was only embarrassing them and making things worse.
Now when these things happen I do a quick check in to make certain that there wasn't an injury, then let the student compose themselves until they are ready to return to class. Depending on the situation and the person, I usually try to open a dialogue with them after the lesson is over, and let them know that these sort of responses are perfectly normal.
In women's self defense classes in particular, I recognize that there are several techniques that are more likely to be triggering (specifically, attacker on top between the legs and anything that involves choking). When preparing to teach defense against these techniques I tell the class in advance that some people find practicing this very uncomfortable, and that no one has to do this if they don't want to.
Since starting that approach, I've had very few women opt out of the techniques, but I have seen a decline in the number of panicked outbursts. I think that at least some of the issue is that students tend to be caught by surprise by their body and psyche's automatic response to certain threats; being told in advance that these situations might be extremely uncomfortable or emotionally overwhelming takes away that element of surprise, which seems to help the problem substantially.
Was this course advertised as a self defense and martial arts course? I think personally I'd be a little annoyed if I signed up to learn how to fight and then they devoted a lot of time to telling me how to verbally repel a pushy boyfriend. Maybe you could teach them some martial arts techniques that aren't likely to cause long term harm, so that they wouldn't mind using them against someone they know, but I think that the purpose of this class is to learn how to physically defend oneself and that's what you should be teaching.
When I was in college I got talked into going to a one-time self defense workshop in the dorms. They said to wear sweats and told us it would be a self defense class, but when we got there all they did was read us statistics about rape, tell us not to wear ponytails when we walked around at night, etc. They also gave us a lecture us about how women have "strong hips" and can therefore throw a man off of them with their hips. They demonstrated this in a very very staged way and did not let us try it. Then they had us practice screaming. I was very annoyed because I had wanted to learn how to, like, gouge out an attackers eyes or whatever. I've always wanted to take a model mugging class.
If you want to focus on acquaintance rape, you could have them practice saying something like "you need to stop now or this is rape" before they punch the guy.
The course will be advertised as "women's self defense and rape prevention" or something similar.
We will absolutely focus on the physical end of self defense, and we will teach the students actual technique to fend off attackers; again, I feel that even though violent assault by a stranger is unlikely, knowing how to defend yourself is both useful in those rare situations where one is violently assaulted, and empowering overall.
I understand your irritation with the one-time seminar you attended. In my opinion, far too many seminars fall into the trap of teaching or demonstrating techniques that are either unlikely to work or are far too technically complex to be utilized under pressure without a tremendous amount of practice (i.e. the hip throw you discussed). The fact that they didn't allow you to practice these techniques at all exacerbates the problem.
Our previous self defense teacher flat-out refused to run one-time self defense courses, believing that there was no way to teach anything valuable in that short of a time. Personally, I will run one-time courses, but I will spend the majority of the time focusing on situational awareness, and then devote a portion of the time to simple, hands-on training drills that are designed primarily to demonstrate that everyone has the power and capability to defend themselves. I use these one-time classes as a way to solicit interest in the six week course. Six weeks still isn't enough time to make someone into a competent fighter, but its hugely better than sixty minutes.
I agree that one time classes don't have time to teach much-- that's why I had to be talked into going. And they weren't talking about a hip throw-- they claimed that if you were lying on your back and a guy was straddling your hips, your hips were so strong that if you just rolled over to the side it would throw him off. Complete BS, or if it does have sound grounding in fact they didn't explain it near well enough to get that across.
Another thing I remember very clearly-- they read out statistics and had us guess which were real. For example, they told us to go to one side of the room if we thought the average rape lasted more than 4 hours, and the other side if we thought it lasted less than 4 hours. Everyone went to the less than 4 hours side, and then they told us we were wrong becuase they don't define it was the time the rape actually takes, but as "the amount of time during which the woman is afraid."
Can you recommend any general way to tell which self defense classes are actually going to be worthwhile?
I've taken a little bit of kickboxing and karate, but I've never had time to really get any good at it. I'm too busy this year but next year I'm hoping to start some sort of martial arts again. What I liked about karate was we learned more varied techniques, but the focus on wearing your belt the right way and bowing and meditating was annoying to me. In kickboxing we just wore sweats and got a good workout but we did the same things over and over again. (This might have more to do with the specific classes I was taking than the general disciplines). So next year I want to get into some sort of martial art, for exercise as much as learning self defense, but I haven't decided what to try.
As far as determining which self defense seminars are going to be good, I think it's really hit and miss. I would tend, I think, to look for seminars that are sponsored by police departments or that have instructors with police or military credentials, simply because I think they will be more likely to focus on practical applications, but that is by no means an assurance that the seminar will be good (or that seminars put on by non-law enforcement, non-military will be bad).
Regarding actual martial arts training, that is largely a matter of personal preference - some people thrive on the formality and the mental or spiritual elements of the arts, others find that boring and are more interested in a good workout and a practical art. It sounds like you fall into the latter group. With that in mind, I can issue some general recommendations, with the caveat that the best thing you can do is go and actually try out the classes at some local studios to see what works best for you.
Kickboxing, boxing, Judo, Jujitsu and MMA tend to be less formal and more concerned with applied martial arts (with Judo especially it should be noted that there is a heavy sport emphasis rather than a self defense emphasis). Cardio-kickboxing, Cardio-Karate and Tae Bo can be great workouts, but don't necessarily teach you any applicable skills.
Karate and Tae Kwon Do are such broad categories that it is hard to determine what a given school will be like. In general these arts tend to be highly formalized. TKD in particular is frequently being taught as a sport rather than as a martial art - there is nothing wrong with that, but as a previous poster pointed out, don't make the assumption that TKD technique is going to be immediately applicable to self defense on the street.
Hapkido will provide a vigorous work out and a great basis for practical defense, as will many other Korean arts that involve a synthesis of striking and controlling techniques (Hapkido, Tang Soo Do, Hwarangdo, Kyuki-Do, Yu Sul). The level of formality may vary.
Aikido is a very soft style that focuses on redirection of your opponent's momentum. In my opinion, the style takes a very long time to master to the level where it is practical, but the people who do master it are phenomenal martial artists.
There are also numerous other styles and sub-styles out there - the quality and utility of these arts may vary, and, to be honest, will have more to do with the individual teacher than anything else.
I'm afraid I don't know enough about any of the Chinese arts to comment.
Hope that's helpful, and I hope you do end up picking up an art and training. If you have any questions about specific arts, I'll be happy to respond.
As a sexual assault prevention educator I have several things that i would like you to take into consideration. But first and foremost, I am very happy that you are taking a critical look at self defense as a rape prevention tactic. Too many RAD educators see self defense as the be all end all of rape prevention, and this is simply not the case. Self defense courses teach you how to physically defend yourself, but as you point out, that is a very small minority of actual rape cases. In fact, the most recent study done by the FBI states that 90% of sexual assault cases are perpetrated by a non stranger. In all reality, this makes self defense irrelevent for most women - as I tell women all the time, they are very unlikely to punch that cute guy they met in Algebra in the balls, or gouge out their boyfriends eyes. It is refreshing to meet an educator who identifies this.
Here are a couple of suggestions that I have:
1. Contact your local rape crisis center and see if they are willing to send their prevention educator to lecture your class (this could be done in one of your nights, and the service should be free). The educator can talk with the students about what they might expect to see in a real live sexual assault scenario, talk about what sexual assault is, and what resources are available for people in the area who have been assaulted. I know that this will take precious time away from your class, but in all reality this type of information is far more likely to prevent an assault than a class on physical protection.
2. I have worked with many women over the years who had taken a sexual assault defense class, and were then sexually assaulted. The fact that they had taken the class made them feel an even greater sense of self blame, as they were made to feel that they should have been able to protect themselves. These women were also more likely to be blamed by friends and family who felt they should have been able to defend themselves because they had taken the class. So, please make it very clear to your students that this class is by no means a 100% guarantee of their safety. If they are assaulted, it will always be the attackers fault. (I can see this is the framework you are coming from, but make sure your students know this too!)
3. Please, talk with your students about ways in which they can say no to a non stranger who may be trying to pressure or coerce them into having sex. Many men who rape women assume that they are doing nothing wrong, because she did not explicitly say no. (I am not trying to put liability on women who didn't say no, this is just a very common theme that I have seen in my work) Helping women practice saying NO is very useful for when they are in a situation. Many men will back down if a woman is very vocal about saying no. Not all, but many.
4. I think that talking about self assurance would be interesting in a self defense class. If you have ever done any research on the ways in which many attackers choose their victims, you will know that they tend to target women they presume to have less self confidence. In my opinion, self defense classes should really be about confidence. Not just confidence to walk alone across town at night, but confidence to be assertive in class, at work, and even on a date.
I really hope you will consider collaborating with your local rape crisis counselors. I have done this in the past, and believe that education should be a critical part of any self defense program.
Good luck! It is really awesome to see that you are soliciting information and trying to take a feminist approach to the class. Needless to say, this is not the experience I have had working with my local self defense courses. Here, they are completely focused on stranger assaults, and in my opinion completely misinform women about the dangers of rape while at the same time giving them a false sense of security. In these cases, I think they actually make women more vulnerable, so it is great to see that you are doing the opposite!
1. That is a great idea, and one that we hadn't considered before. We do set aside time for guest speakers and we generally have a member of the local police force come in and lecture on assault stats, situational awareness, characteristics of violent offenders and identifying concealed weapons. I'll see what our available options are as far as having an assault counselor attend and lecture.
2. Yes, I can see that being a problem. We always, always make it a point to tell students that no matter what happens, the attacker is the bad guy, he is the one at fault, and they are not to blame. At the same time, we really want to stress the need for everyone to take responsibility for ensuring their own personal safety. Navigating this successfully can be very tricky.
I hadn't previously heard anything about women who have been through self defense courses being more likely to blame themselves and be blamed by others. This is a really troubling thought, and an issue that I will give consideration to. Thanks for the heads up.
3) This is the sort of restructuring that I'm thinking is necessary in order to make a self defense class more effective. It is good to hear that confirmed.
4) We absolutely cover issues of confidence and self assurance as an extremely important element of self defense. Criminals are opportunists who want an easy mark - an air of confidence is off-putting. And I agree wholeheartedly that instilling that confidence into students is likely to not only keep them from being assaulted on the street, but also to give them the tools to resist more coercive forms of assault.
Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it!
I took a course and I think that one of the useful things they taught us was how to get rid of someone who was already on top of you. The only problem is that the instructor hired a man to act as a "dummy" and he would pretend to attack women "sleeping". It was scarily realistic. I didn't participate. But it's useful to know close contact defense.
I second the on-top-of-you scenario. Very helpful.
Will do. We always work the attacker on top scenario since it seems such a likely component of any sort of sexual assault.
This is actually, in my opinion, a good scenario to focus on both because of its applicability and because it is actually relatively easy to defend yourself in this position - as anyone with grappling experience will tell you, being on your back with your legs around your attacker provides you with a huge advantage in terms of leverage and available defensive options.
Unequivocal - I'm glad to hear you are trying to go about this self-defense course in a realistic way. The last thing we need is more "stranger danger" myths out there. I appreciated redstatefeminist's statement above about including the local rape crisis center; it can also be helpful to have them there in case a participant needs to talk to a counselor or someone who has already been assaulted experiences posttraumatic stress symptoms. I have two additional comments for you:
1. Keep in mind that choking is self-inflicted (i.e. I am choking on a piece of fruit); strangling is other-inflicted (i.e. when someone is holding someone else in a way that cuts of their breathing), is much more dangerous, and can cause serious (sometimes internal and hard to see) injuries.
2. Keep in mind that this is more of a risk reduction activity. As you mentioned before, the only person who can truly prevent a rape is the perpetrator. So I suggest changing the name to just "Women's Self-Defense" or "Women's Self-Defense and Risk Reduction."
Feministing - thanks for putting this out for discussion, I've appreciated reading the blog.
1. Good point about the safety issues regarding choking/strangling. I probably should have made note of the fact that in our self defense classes when we focus on choking, it is position based only (hands on throat or arm around neck, but not cutting off air or blood flow).
Not to be overly pedantic (and I know this wasn't the main point of your post), but I think you're mistaken about the distinction between choking and strangling. In both colloquial and formal usage both words are used to denote other-inflicted compression of the trachea; strangling tends to carry the additional connotation of killing by means of this compression.
2. That is a good point. At the same time though, I do want to highlight the fact that the course focuses to some extent on sexual assault. Do you think this fact is sufficiently implied by just titling the course "Women's Self-Defense?"
Unequivocal - I'm glad to hear you are trying to go about this self-defense course in a realistic way. The last thing we need is more "stranger danger" myths out there. I appreciated redstatefeminist's statement above about including the local rape crisis center; it can also be helpful to have them there in case a participant needs to talk to a counselor or someone who has already been assaulted experiences posttraumatic stress symptoms. I have two additional comments for you:
1. Keep in mind that choking is self-inflicted (i.e. I am choking on a piece of fruit); strangling is other-inflicted (i.e. when someone is holding someone else in a way that cuts off their breathing), is much more dangerous, and can cause serious (internal and hard to see) injuries.
2. Keep in mind that this is more of a risk reduction activity. As you mentioned before, the only person who can truly prevent a rape is the perpetrator. So I suggest changing the name to just "Women's Self-Defense" or "Women's Self-Defense and Risk Reduction."
Feministing - thanks for putting this out for discussion, I've appreciated reading the blog.
I think it's fantastic ya'll are doing this :) I've taught a few introductory classes, but those are only hour-long. I'd suggest calling up a rape crisis center, actually-I know the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center has a very intensive day-long program, and they would probably be happy to talk to you, or even a student group on a college campus near you or the rape prevention education program there
I agree with ispysexism, I suggest changing the name to Women's Self-Defense or something along those lines, and actually making it a women-only class, for a variety of reasons-it's very empowering, showing that women don't need men to protect us, and also it provides a safer space (I haven't read the rest of the comments, so I apologize if this has already been said), and I also agree that you need to stress that this is simply risk reduction, and that the goal is to survive, and in the best case scenario get away safely. However, I strongly believe that you need to repeatedly stress that self-defense is a CHOICE, it is not mandatory, and that whatever decision a person makes is the right one for them.
Also, the majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the survivor actually knows, be it someone they met 5 minutes ago, their partner, friend, etc (I believe the national number for acquaintance assaults is around 90%), so that is what my program focuses on for the most part
Best of luck to you, and thank you for doing this-it's very heartening to know that there are others out there fighting sexual violence
The class is only open to women, and is taught by women, but we do use male black belts as attackers during the class, both because of school demographics (if we limited our pool of helpers to female only, we would have far fewer attackers per group of students) and because I think it is important to see the techniques executed on men, both from an ideological standpoint (it is empowering to see these techniques function against a man) and from a practical standpoint (an actual attacker is likely to be male and to be larger than the defender). Thoughts on this?
Several times I have been involved in a ‘Women’s Escape Class’ designed and implemented by a friend of mine who is a retired Marine, Viet Nam vet, and a former firearms instructor for the police dept. The first part of the course involves general crime education based on forensic info obtained from research in working with perpetrators. It gives the students some insight into how the perps think. There is a lot of emphasis on the power of confidence and assertive speech. He also covers the use of self defense weapons and demonstrates a variety of items such as batons, knives, pepper spray and guns (a gun safety/shooting course is separate). He is an expert on firearms and advocates for them but is very clear that this is a personal choice and that no one should carry a weapon they are not comfortable with or one that they do not think they could actually use or are not trained to use (as in guns). The physical part focuses on grabbing/choking escape techniques and shows students how to gain leverage while standing and on the ground. We do the ‘perp straddling you on the ground while choking you’ scenario but he also encourages anyone not comfortable with this to opt out if they choose. He also has 1 or 2 female helpers who can do these moves with female students if they are more comfortable with that. I think that is a good idea. He allows over an hour at the end of class for students to practice with each other over and over while he and his helpers supervise. He makes sure that women know they are learning potential tool to use in a bad situation but that it has to be their own decision to use the tools or not and that nothing is a 100% guarantee of success in every situation. Studies show, though, that people who fight have a better chance of escape. Overall, I think his program is very good and usually takes about 4 or 5 good hours for a class of 6. As far as the poster who said she didn’t think TKD(kicks/blocks/punches) was a self-defense art, I’m not sure where that is coming from. All marital arts are forms of combat and of course that includes self defense. In my classes we are very literal about how moves could be used on the street during an attack. Anything can be self defense really. It’s how well you know what you know and having the courage to use it when you need to and that even includes throwing a hot pot of boiling grits on someone who is beating you up in the kitchen if need be.
I took a self-defense class in college. The most important thing I remember wasn't related to physically preventing or counter-attacking a rapist or mugger. It wasn't even the "get out of the situation, get up on your feet, get away" advice, which was really good.
It was that the instructor (a (male) police officer) told the women in my class that we should get rid of "nice girls don't".
"Nice girls don't" is the sort of statement that might prevent a woman from gouging out an attacker's eyeballs or kneeing a mugger in the balls even if it's the quickest way to get out of that situation. "Nice girls" don't fight dirty. "Nice girls don't" might make a woman less likely to speak up if she thinks her acquaintence is getting too pushy, because "nice girls" don't assume the worst about people's motives.
"Nice girls" don't, but smart girls do. The attitude part of self-defense was for me very much about giving myself permission to go against social conditioning when something feels "off" about a situation.
I took a good self-defense class too, and probably the most important message for me was kind of similar. The instructor told us to listen to our instincts and trust ourselves when something seems wrong. She said she had heard stories from students who talked about getting a bad feeling from a situation and then telling themselves to get over it and be polite.
If you're uncomfortable, cross the street. Don't get in the taxi. Get off the elevator. Who cares if it's unnecessary. Who cares if you might insult somebody. Trust yourself.
I thought that was interesting because it made me think about the fact that I do moderate my behavior, and I do try to ignore warning signals like that sometimes.
In my class, that advice was framed in a stranger-rape kind of way, but it also applies to date-rape situations. If something is making you uncomfortable, even with somebody who you feel like you should trust, don't try and ignore the discomfort because you think it would be rude. Change the situation to one where you do feel comfortable, and if that means leaving, then call it a night.
Yes, this is something that was always covered very heavily (and very effectively, in my opinion) in our retired instructor's self defense class. She started out the course with a discussion of societal attitudes, mindsets and mental blocks that served to dissuade women from defending themselves. Identifying and debunking those factors is, I think, critical to empowering people to defend themselves.
Everyone, thank you very much for your positive and insightful comments. We will be taking all of this information into account, and we very much appreciate the help that you have provided.