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Monday Mini: The Marketing of Self-Defense · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told you production. I heart radio. And before
0:19
Speaker 1: we start this Monday many Happy Monday everyone, if you're
0:22
Speaker 1: listening to us on a Monday. We do want to
0:24
Speaker 1: go ahead and mentioned that we will be talking a
0:27
Speaker 1: little bit about violence against women, sexual violence, harassment, and
0:31
Speaker 1: all the above, because we are talking about self defense
0:34
Speaker 1: products and tools, so of course that comes with a
0:38
Speaker 1: lot of stories. Just at the top. Again, like I said,
0:43
Speaker 1: we're not gonna do too much other than to talk
0:44
Speaker 1: a little bit about statistics. Um, not necessarily talking about stories,
0:49
Speaker 1: just again about the products. So if you're like, I
0:51
Speaker 1: don't want to hear any about this, I want to
0:54
Speaker 1: move on. But if you're huh, I am interested about
0:57
Speaker 1: these products. We're not actually mentioning any prod that's necessarily
1:01
Speaker 1: definitely not sponsored, but just have we a discussion about it. Yeah,
1:06
Speaker 1: and I will say, um, I know for a fact
1:10
Speaker 1: this can be very triggering for people, and I'm going
1:13
Speaker 1: to talk about that and why that is in this episode.
1:17
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're not going into, as you said, like
1:21
Speaker 1: any real graphics specifics or anything. I just know that
1:25
Speaker 1: this idea can be triggering. Right. So Annie, before we begin,
1:30
Speaker 1: let me ask you because something we talked about it before,
1:32
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure if we talked about it on
1:35
Speaker 1: Mike or on an episode, But have you ever taken
1:38
Speaker 1: a self defense class? I have. I have taken many
1:41
Speaker 1: self defense classes. I took two years in seventh grade UM,
1:46
Speaker 1: and that was partly because my dad was a college
1:49
Speaker 1: professor and so he got free classes and I was
1:53
Speaker 1: just interested in that, and then I took a few
1:57
Speaker 1: by myself in Atlanta. I was telling you kind of
2:00
Speaker 1: was just like trying everything. When I first moved to
2:02
Speaker 1: the city. I was like, I'm gonna go do this,
2:04
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna go do this. So I was just
2:05
Speaker 1: taking kind of a real mishmash of classes UM, and
2:09
Speaker 1: self defense was one. There's a very funny story where
2:12
Speaker 1: I was showing somebody kind of get out of a chokehold,
2:15
Speaker 1: and so she was had been a like fake choking grip.
2:20
Speaker 1: And then we realized, like the entire class was watching
2:23
Speaker 1: us through this glass window, not self defense class, a
2:26
Speaker 1: music class, and they were their eyes were so wide
2:30
Speaker 1: that professor was just staring horrified. But the story I
2:35
Speaker 1: was alluding to earlier, and this was I believe a
2:38
Speaker 1: little before your time, Samantha. A couple of years ago
2:42
Speaker 1: at the office, we had an infamous training, yes, and
2:46
Speaker 1: it was an all day thing, and there was three
2:48
Speaker 1: stations and there was like a medical kind of training station,
2:54
Speaker 1: there was a kind of bomb squad gun station, uh,
3:02
Speaker 1: and there was a you're getting someone trying to kidnap
3:06
Speaker 1: you station and uh, it was very intense. One of
3:12
Speaker 1: the men literally said, I'd rather die than get into
3:14
Speaker 1: that van, um, So you have to make your choice
3:18
Speaker 1: of what you want. And he was, you know, talking
3:20
Speaker 1: about a scenario wherein someone's trying to kidnap you, and
3:23
Speaker 1: he said, I'd rather die than get the van, but
3:24
Speaker 1: you do you. But it was very triggering for a
3:28
Speaker 1: lot of the women in class because there were instances where, yeah,
3:32
Speaker 1: you were being attacked by attacked in this kind of
3:37
Speaker 1: false scenario by a man usually much bigger than you. Um.
3:40
Speaker 1: And especially if you've got like past experience with sexual
3:43
Speaker 1: abuse or sault or anything like that, you have violence
3:46
Speaker 1: in general. It was very triggering. And I was paired
3:49
Speaker 1: up with like the sweetest, one of our sweetest coworkers
3:52
Speaker 1: and friends, Dylan, and he was so apologized. He was like,
3:56
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry because it used to work on show,
4:00
Speaker 1: so he knew about the stuff we talked about, the
4:03
Speaker 1: stuff I've been through. But some of the women in
4:06
Speaker 1: this like went to the bathroom, started crying, did not
4:09
Speaker 1: come back out, uh, refused to participate. It caused this
4:14
Speaker 1: whole thing. Um, so many people complained and like, we've
4:18
Speaker 1: never done it again. And our office manager was horrified
4:21
Speaker 1: by it too, like she said that was not what
4:23
Speaker 1: they told her it was going to happen, but it
4:26
Speaker 1: was indeed very triggering. And later, like after work, we
4:30
Speaker 1: were having drinks and so many of the women were like,
4:33
Speaker 1: you think, I don't know what it's like to feel
4:35
Speaker 1: this fear and to be told that I could, because
4:36
Speaker 1: they also said you could be raped, especially if you're women,
4:39
Speaker 1: so watch out. And we were like, you think we
4:41
Speaker 1: don't know that, You think we don't live with that
4:43
Speaker 1: every day, And the dudes were kind of like, oh,
4:44
Speaker 1: I didn't realize, right. Um. I kind of had a
4:49
Speaker 1: similar situation too, not to this point, because of course
4:53
Speaker 1: I took as self of his class in college as well.
4:57
Speaker 1: I feel like that might be a rite of passage
4:59
Speaker 1: but also offered to women oftentimes, and yet It was
5:01
Speaker 1: made up of all women, and our two teachers were
5:04
Speaker 1: military trained defense people who came in saying similar things
5:09
Speaker 1: to that, like, hey, you know, if you go into
5:11
Speaker 1: that van, you see their face, you're dead. Like immediately
5:14
Speaker 1: told you that, um, as well as the fact about
5:16
Speaker 1: like nives and it's better to shred your hand off
5:19
Speaker 1: than go in with them. It's it's that of your life,
5:22
Speaker 1: what is valuable to you? We also had that conversation,
5:25
Speaker 1: but yeah, we uh, we didn't partner up with each other.
5:29
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm trying to remember that portion because
5:31
Speaker 1: the big part that stuck with me was literally having
5:35
Speaker 1: an older man straddle my neck with his legs so
5:39
Speaker 1: I had to get him off me and I did
5:42
Speaker 1: not volunteer. He just asked me to step up, and
5:45
Speaker 1: that triggering me. I'm like, why are you doing this?
5:47
Speaker 1: I don't know you, I don't know you, and you
5:51
Speaker 1: have your crotch in my face to tell me get
5:54
Speaker 1: me off of you do it? Do it, um. And
5:58
Speaker 1: it was one of the weirdest days that I just
6:00
Speaker 1: kind of sat there and he was. They were all
6:02
Speaker 1: in their military uniform too, except for like the shirt,
6:05
Speaker 1: the T shirt that had made it was that army
6:07
Speaker 1: green T shirt, the pants, all of that in the
6:10
Speaker 1: boots that they were ready, and I had that similar
6:13
Speaker 1: experience and the panic that I had afterwards. Like during it,
6:17
Speaker 1: I was fine, honestly, because I had to put on
6:19
Speaker 1: that front I don't know anyone in this class. I
6:23
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. I'm just gonna get through it.
6:25
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get through it. And then afterwards, like
6:28
Speaker 1: obviously sticking very clearly in my head. And we also
6:31
Speaker 1: had an open but this was at the gym, so
6:34
Speaker 1: U g A had a very wide open gym, but
6:37
Speaker 1: there it was all glass too, and so people would
6:40
Speaker 1: stop and watch us rolling around with these older men,
6:45
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the hell we were doing.
6:47
Speaker 1: I think it was fairly obvious because it was all
6:50
Speaker 1: girls with these two dudes in military pants, but still
6:55
Speaker 1: we were definitely watched. Um. But yeah, that those kinds
6:58
Speaker 1: of moments of like why am I doing this? Am
7:01
Speaker 1: I going to remember any of this? What is the point?
7:04
Speaker 1: I definitely had a lot of that, because that's kind
7:07
Speaker 1: of the conversation we're gonna have today, like what is
7:10
Speaker 1: this and who is it geared for? So the reason
7:13
Speaker 1: I started thinking about this whole situation was um And
7:17
Speaker 1: if you've listened to us for even a second, you
7:19
Speaker 1: probably already know that I'm really into TikTok right now,
7:22
Speaker 1: Like it takes up my time a little too much
7:25
Speaker 1: time I need to sleep. Why am I doing this
7:27
Speaker 1: type of time that it takes from me? But during
7:32
Speaker 1: this time, there's different videos that pop up my feet
7:34
Speaker 1: and I follow a lot of like women who fight
7:38
Speaker 1: against some soogyny, love it. I love fighting in the patriarchy.
7:42
Speaker 1: Cool cool cool um. And one specific video popped up
7:45
Speaker 1: about a woman having a very uncomfortable situation at a bar.
7:50
Speaker 1: I think any of us who identify as female know
7:55
Speaker 1: the situation and her trying to leave this conversation that
7:58
Speaker 1: she didn't want to be a part of UH with
8:00
Speaker 1: a man who wasn't taking the hint, and it was
8:03
Speaker 1: one of those like how do I do this? Everyone
8:04
Speaker 1: around her could see, Okay, what do we do? What
8:08
Speaker 1: does she do? Type of situation? But it was stitched
8:11
Speaker 1: um so in just in case you don't know what
8:13
Speaker 1: that means, and I don't know if you know what
8:14
Speaker 1: that means. It's when someone takes someone else's video and
8:18
Speaker 1: then makes a video of that kind of a reactionary video.
8:21
Speaker 1: She watches it, they and then talk about it and
8:23
Speaker 1: then maybe pull it back up on screen and be like,
8:25
Speaker 1: this is what this happens. That's a stitch um and
8:29
Speaker 1: she this person who stitched it was a part of
8:32
Speaker 1: a new startup company that apparently was marketing an app
8:36
Speaker 1: that would help the woman in this situation. And according
8:40
Speaker 1: to her video and the company's video, apparently it kind
8:45
Speaker 1: of does the thing that we kind of all do
8:48
Speaker 1: with each other on a first date or any date
8:50
Speaker 1: or outing I think is have a have that situation
8:53
Speaker 1: of if this date is going bad, call me, tell
8:57
Speaker 1: me there's an emergency, and I'll leave. And So what
9:01
Speaker 1: this app does when you implement it, it gives you
9:04
Speaker 1: a false call or or a fake text telling you
9:07
Speaker 1: to come back or telling you there's an emergency. And
9:10
Speaker 1: then if it is bad enough, you can send an
9:12
Speaker 1: emergency notification to a contact person that you have chosen
9:17
Speaker 1: that will tell you their location. So which saying I'm like,
9:20
Speaker 1: abou it's a cool idea. That's a cool idea because
9:22
Speaker 1: we all know now that giving a fake number doesn't work. Essentially,
9:28
Speaker 1: a lot of the people will either say okay, let
9:30
Speaker 1: me call you so you can have my number, or
9:32
Speaker 1: call you just because or text in front of you
9:35
Speaker 1: so that does not work. And then we have the
9:38
Speaker 1: fake numbers where you're like, you can give them this
9:40
Speaker 1: number and they get this call and you're like, yeah,
9:43
Speaker 1: but you know, there's a lot of dangerous situations. So
9:46
Speaker 1: all of this is fine and well, but then then
9:48
Speaker 1: they started making me think. As I'm researching their product,
9:51
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, cool, I wonder maybe I should
9:52
Speaker 1: go ahead and downloaded that I'm going on dates or anything,
9:54
Speaker 1: but just you know, this seems like a cool product.
9:56
Speaker 1: I would love to hear about it or a cool app.
9:58
Speaker 1: And it costs, and I kind of wish kind of
10:01
Speaker 1: blown away, like if you want it. Don't get me wrong.
10:04
Speaker 1: Paying for what you make is not a big deal.
10:06
Speaker 1: I get it. Um paying for subscriptions, I get it.
10:09
Speaker 1: I don't quite understand when it comes to apps about sponsorships,
10:13
Speaker 1: uh on all of that, because I know you can
10:14
Speaker 1: get free apps as long as you watch ads. Probably
10:18
Speaker 1: not great with an app is trying to you trying
10:22
Speaker 1: to use for an emergency? I don't know, but essentially
10:26
Speaker 1: was like, you can use this product for seven days free,
10:29
Speaker 1: child and then after that it's either to nine nine
10:32
Speaker 1: a day. I think it said, like I want to
10:35
Speaker 1: say it's seven ninety nine a week or twenty seven
10:40
Speaker 1: a month, and it's a subscription. And my head, I
10:44
Speaker 1: was like, who can afford that, like as a luxury product,
10:49
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, when it comes to women's safety, this type
10:52
Speaker 1: would not be something that most women can't afford. Um,
10:57
Speaker 1: and maybe their situations where like the parents would pay
11:00
Speaker 1: for it, and that's all been well, um, But then
11:02
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, wow, wow, Okay, this is a
11:05
Speaker 1: good idea, but that seems like a lot for women's
11:09
Speaker 1: self defense. And let's be very honest, this is geared
11:12
Speaker 1: towards women. This is absolutely for women. And the woman
11:15
Speaker 1: says in the video that she that's why she created
11:19
Speaker 1: this app. This is exactly why for women like her
11:22
Speaker 1: or in these situations. And so I started me thinking of, like,
11:26
Speaker 1: who is making all of this money off of self
11:29
Speaker 1: defense products specifically for women, because there's definitely things we
11:33
Speaker 1: know that are geared for women. And so I started
11:37
Speaker 1: going down this rabbit hole any and there's not much
11:41
Speaker 1: out there. There's not a lot of statistics, there's not
11:43
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations about it. There's a lot of
11:45
Speaker 1: articles about the best defense self defense weapons that women
11:48
Speaker 1: should carry today, like Glamour has an article for the
11:51
Speaker 1: top ten um Amazon has a list of course, and
11:54
Speaker 1: then you see all these other articles like don't the
11:57
Speaker 1: good and bad of having firearms? You know? Unfortunately statistic
12:02
Speaker 1: is that women are most of times more harmed even
12:05
Speaker 1: with the weapons they own because it is used against
12:08
Speaker 1: them then not. And then so I was like, what,
12:10
Speaker 1: so what is there? What is out there? Because we've
12:13
Speaker 1: talked about the pink text, We've talked about things like
12:17
Speaker 1: makeup and all of that that are geared towards women
12:19
Speaker 1: and making a lot of profit and who is making
12:23
Speaker 1: this profit and then the cost of safety for women
12:28
Speaker 1: and using fear to sell a product, which is a
12:32
Speaker 1: constant thing. Of course, we see things like security systems
12:36
Speaker 1: and homes and it's not necessarily just about women, but
12:39
Speaker 1: there's oftentimes a woman alone, yeah, that are in the
12:43
Speaker 1: home that typically are seen as being unsafe. We also
12:47
Speaker 1: have seen for online stuff and we even in an
12:50
Speaker 1: episode of stalking and New cyber Crimes against women and
12:54
Speaker 1: now like there was a specific article specific to women
12:57
Speaker 1: on how to protect your identity, how to not be
13:00
Speaker 1: I were stalked, which is all well and fine, but
13:03
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, it happens. Yeah. I think a part
13:23
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about is the conversation we've seen
13:27
Speaker 1: play out in so many things, but especially when it
13:31
Speaker 1: comes to women and violence against women and sexual assault
13:34
Speaker 1: is sort of this not dealing with the problem but
13:39
Speaker 1: putting it again on women to take care of yourselves.
13:44
Speaker 1: And you know, there's the financial cost, but there's also
13:46
Speaker 1: the kind of mind space costs and the time cost.
13:50
Speaker 1: But you know, you've got so many things like the
13:53
Speaker 1: condoms that we're supposed to like stick inside that women
13:56
Speaker 1: would wear inside them, and you've got like I once
14:01
Speaker 1: my ex's mother for Christmas gave me this like box
14:05
Speaker 1: of essentially you know, pepper spray and like this light
14:08
Speaker 1: emergency thing because she was like, you're running around as
14:11
Speaker 1: a woman in Atlanta, you need to have this stuff.
14:13
Speaker 1: And it was a Christmas gift. Like, um, so it's
14:15
Speaker 1: just accepted that this is a risk that I am taking.
14:18
Speaker 1: And I know I've told this story before, but back
14:21
Speaker 1: when I was really into running, I found an article
14:24
Speaker 1: and it was like top ten tips for runners, and
14:27
Speaker 1: there was one sort of gear towards men, and one
14:29
Speaker 1: sort of gears towards women. And for men it was
14:32
Speaker 1: like wake up at this time and do this, like
14:35
Speaker 1: cross training and eat this. And for women it was
14:38
Speaker 1: like always carry your I D in case they kill you,
14:40
Speaker 1: they can identify the body. Don't put your headphones in
14:43
Speaker 1: with music. It was all the safety stuff. And I
14:45
Speaker 1: was like, this is so different, right, this is more focusing,
14:51
Speaker 1: Like you're telling me I should focus on surviving instead
14:53
Speaker 1: of being a better runners, which is what you're telling
14:56
Speaker 1: the men of the of this article, right, And that's
15:00
Speaker 1: absolutely right. It is again, who is it geared towards?
15:03
Speaker 1: What are they saying and who is making money off
15:06
Speaker 1: of this? And I will tell you so, I did
15:08
Speaker 1: find one article that does talk about the market of
15:12
Speaker 1: self defensive products and it stated that by five that
15:17
Speaker 1: in the US it will be a profit of three
15:19
Speaker 1: point six billion dollars. So someone is out there is
15:23
Speaker 1: making three point six billion dollars worth of revenue. So
15:28
Speaker 1: using something that you know, unfortunately can be necessary but
15:32
Speaker 1: at the same time shouldn't be necessary, and oftentimes make
15:35
Speaker 1: geared towards women. And I will tell you some of
15:37
Speaker 1: the top selling items would include folding knives and pepper spray,
15:41
Speaker 1: and we kind of already know who has what. Women
15:45
Speaker 1: are more likely to go for the pepper spray than
15:48
Speaker 1: anything else that I've seen, like according to the statistics.
15:52
Speaker 1: And with that, actually I got this random and I
15:54
Speaker 1: was telling you this before because again I was trying
15:56
Speaker 1: to get as much information I feel could. It's really
15:59
Speaker 1: not much out there. Someone wants to point me to
16:01
Speaker 1: something that's wonderful, please do that. There was a specific
16:04
Speaker 1: statistics for realtors UM and what type of self defense
16:08
Speaker 1: weapons they have, and they get based on gender, and
16:12
Speaker 1: it's not really too surprising that twenty six percent of
16:16
Speaker 1: the women that was surveyed, which is the highest number,
16:19
Speaker 1: use pepper spray, while men that was four percent. For men,
16:22
Speaker 1: it's only four percent owned a pepper spray. Of course,
16:25
Speaker 1: not surprisingly the highest four men was firearms, which was
16:29
Speaker 1: at for them women do have firearms is only twelve percent,
16:33
Speaker 1: still a pretty high number, but again that pepper spray
16:36
Speaker 1: is most likely what they will have UM followed by
16:38
Speaker 1: the pocket knife, which men more are more likely to have.
16:41
Speaker 1: But it's still interesting because we haven't talked too much
16:44
Speaker 1: about it, but realtors are at risk a lot of
16:46
Speaker 1: the times for assault, and it is a really risky
16:50
Speaker 1: job because you do meet up with strangers at open properties.
16:54
Speaker 1: So that's a whole different conversation in itself, which I
16:57
Speaker 1: would love to hear about how y'all handle yourselves relators.
17:01
Speaker 1: But that statistic aloonment think it does kind of transcends
17:05
Speaker 1: to what is happening as a whole population. Like the
17:08
Speaker 1: pepper spray. Is that very popular thing, and we know
17:13
Speaker 1: we have I think most people have now learned that's
17:15
Speaker 1: not really effective. Unfortunately, have you ever been pepper sprayed
17:19
Speaker 1: any I haven't, um, But going back to the this
17:25
Speaker 1: is an unfortunate truth that a lot of times when
17:27
Speaker 1: women have like a a weapon, it gets turned against them.
17:30
Speaker 1: I had a friend who was mugged and she tried
17:32
Speaker 1: to use the pepper spray and accidentally sprayed it in
17:35
Speaker 1: her face. She's fine, she was fine, But I'm just
17:39
Speaker 1: thinking like, yeah, I would do something like that too, right, right,
17:43
Speaker 1: So actually I have actually been pepper sprayed because in
17:46
Speaker 1: my job at d j J, they were starting to
17:49
Speaker 1: lean towards case rekers having weapons and it started out
17:52
Speaker 1: with the pepper spray, which I was like, what and
17:54
Speaker 1: in order for us to be trained. They had to
17:56
Speaker 1: spray us directly in the face so that we knew
17:58
Speaker 1: what it felt like. It was good. It lasts a
18:01
Speaker 1: three days and it goes everywhere some of the women.
18:04
Speaker 1: One of the hacks that's on TikTok is using a
18:07
Speaker 1: wasp spray instead of pepper spray because it has a
18:10
Speaker 1: more direct hit. Yeah, there's so much advice on TikTok
18:14
Speaker 1: that makes me really sad that they know all these things.
18:17
Speaker 1: But I did know, like, okay, okay, okay, so we
18:20
Speaker 1: know that this is the bigger things. These are the
18:22
Speaker 1: things that I've seen again the website. Immediately when you
18:26
Speaker 1: start googling self defense products that you're gonna see top
18:29
Speaker 1: ten best weapons for women, non weight weapons oftentimes, because
18:35
Speaker 1: again the statistics for firearms are not pretty. And I
18:38
Speaker 1: found that fascinating once again, and I was trying to
18:40
Speaker 1: see how many companies are owned by women. There's not
18:43
Speaker 1: as much as I would hope. Unfortunately, they do pop
18:46
Speaker 1: up at the top when you research it, so that's
18:48
Speaker 1: nice to see. Like, Okay, at the very least we
18:50
Speaker 1: get to see that as an option. But again, this
18:53
Speaker 1: feels like a luxury product, so we're being told we
18:57
Speaker 1: need them. We're being told to take care of ourselves,
18:59
Speaker 1: but only if you can afford it. Yeah, And it's
19:15
Speaker 1: frustrating because it's one of those things where it is
19:18
Speaker 1: the onus is on us. It's very victim blaming, especially,
19:21
Speaker 1: Like that's what kind of gets me is I have
19:23
Speaker 1: friends who love they love self defense. It makes them
19:25
Speaker 1: feel empowered, which is great, but I the conversation was
19:29
Speaker 1: what really bothers me around It is like, two, in
19:32
Speaker 1: order to protect yourself, you have to do this. And
19:35
Speaker 1: if you didn't take this self defense class that maybe
19:37
Speaker 1: you don't have time to take or maybe you can't afford,
19:39
Speaker 1: then you're really not protecting yourself, right, And it's sort
19:42
Speaker 1: of another way of saying that's on you instead of
19:45
Speaker 1: addressing the wider problem here of rape culture and and
19:52
Speaker 1: a society that just doesn't really value the safety of women.
19:55
Speaker 1: And so we've been approached before about having these products
19:58
Speaker 1: as sponsors, but it's just such a weird space of
20:03
Speaker 1: like saying, yeah, like telling women you're not safe and
20:07
Speaker 1: you need this now paying me for it. It feels
20:10
Speaker 1: kind of gross. Right when we did, like I said,
20:12
Speaker 1: a couple of very popular products asked us you know,
20:15
Speaker 1: because of like you know, hand in hand your women.
20:17
Speaker 1: You're talking about feminism and being independent and this is
20:19
Speaker 1: kind of the cost of being independent. But do we
20:23
Speaker 1: want to make money off of selling that? That is
20:26
Speaker 1: absolutely like it. It doesn't phil right. None of this
20:30
Speaker 1: feels right, Don't get me wrong. This could be a
20:32
Speaker 1: whole other level of like capitalism in itself and what
20:34
Speaker 1: you're selling. But like, yeah, we we feel the same
20:38
Speaker 1: way about makeup, Like what are we saying? What are
20:41
Speaker 1: we exactly is this product? And it doesn't feel necessarily
20:47
Speaker 1: like it feels like we're perpetuating an idea that shouldn't
20:49
Speaker 1: be perpetuating, Like this is not the real solution. This
20:52
Speaker 1: is just a temporary, fixed hope, right, and it shouldn't be.
20:55
Speaker 1: And then this is also in the midst of all
20:57
Speaker 1: the Violence Against Women Act being kind of pushed aside
21:01
Speaker 1: and ignored and downgraded as it has been. Um And
21:04
Speaker 1: I will say actually in two seventeen, apparently there was
21:08
Speaker 1: a huge bump up for the amount of self defense
21:11
Speaker 1: classes that women were taking, and it had to do
21:13
Speaker 1: with the administration at the time completely dismissing women in general.
21:18
Speaker 1: Um the whole I think it was during the level
21:20
Speaker 1: of grabbing by a comment, and all of a sudden,
21:23
Speaker 1: women were like, we're not going to get any help
21:26
Speaker 1: from the government, so let's go ahead and do this.
21:29
Speaker 1: And I will say, I feel like there are good
21:31
Speaker 1: people out there who have good intentions and can teach
21:34
Speaker 1: self defense correctly. I think there's a whole other mindset
21:38
Speaker 1: of understanding the depth of empathy when it comes to
21:42
Speaker 1: most likely these women who are coming to you are
21:44
Speaker 1: fearful for some reason, and that needs to be in
21:47
Speaker 1: the back of your head at all times and finding
21:49
Speaker 1: comforted And yeah, you're talking about having partners with that,
21:52
Speaker 1: you know, how weird? Is that so weird? I don't
21:56
Speaker 1: know if that would make me feel better or worse.
21:57
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure that out. Yeah, it was not
22:01
Speaker 1: fun for anyone involved, Like everyone was uncomfortable with it
22:06
Speaker 1: because it's also like coworkers, so you're kind of office
22:11
Speaker 1: has been turned into a place where you're envisioning your
22:14
Speaker 1: co workers is potential enemies who might attack you and
22:18
Speaker 1: also not a safe space, which you know, I'm not
22:21
Speaker 1: saying those threats that we know they do. That's what
22:25
Speaker 1: kind of annoyed all the women in the class. But
22:28
Speaker 1: we didn't have a choice in it. It It wasn't a choice.
22:30
Speaker 1: We were told for doing this right, and then now
22:33
Speaker 1: everything feels less safe than it did before we took
22:37
Speaker 1: this class that was supposed to make us feel safer.
22:39
Speaker 1: And just think about if because there's so many incidents
22:42
Speaker 1: that happened in workplaces which are not addressed, and then
22:45
Speaker 1: having to do that face face, I cannot imagine, and
22:48
Speaker 1: I know our office manager would have never done that,
22:52
Speaker 1: but but oh my god, they owe you. I mean,
22:57
Speaker 1: it's it is if famous bring that up and most
23:02
Speaker 1: of the guys will be like, oh yeah, I remember
23:04
Speaker 1: how upset you were, not the mean way, but like
23:07
Speaker 1: that's kind of their take where all the women are like,
23:09
Speaker 1: don't talk to me about right, right, it's just me.
23:14
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a whole other thing. But yeah, And
23:16
Speaker 1: on top of that, when we talked about some of
23:19
Speaker 1: these products, not that we don't like fancy and not
23:21
Speaker 1: that we don't want it, to mention it, but that
23:23
Speaker 1: is a part of the marketing is to make it pretty,
23:25
Speaker 1: make it smartly, make it attractive for women, um. But
23:29
Speaker 1: also they also think of it as make it um
23:31
Speaker 1: indiscernible to as just being the keychain, uh kind of trickeries,
23:35
Speaker 1: whether it's the cat keychain which has the double poke
23:39
Speaker 1: that you can poke someone in the face with. Found
23:42
Speaker 1: out about the little sticks that essentially has a grip
23:44
Speaker 1: and a pointy edge is called the kubatin and I
23:47
Speaker 1: didn't know what they were. Have seen them. I've seen them,
23:49
Speaker 1: but essentially they have a whole class dedicated to what
23:53
Speaker 1: these can do and how to use it. It It looks
23:55
Speaker 1: pretty lethal if you use it right. And of course
23:58
Speaker 1: that's the conversation. It's like, how do you will react
24:00
Speaker 1: under panic? Again? I shut down, So I don't know
24:04
Speaker 1: what I would do. Uh that's what I know is
24:06
Speaker 1: just to ignore and uh dis associate. So that's a
24:10
Speaker 1: whole different conversation. But yeah, all of these, lot of
24:13
Speaker 1: these products are geared in a pretty fancy manner. As
24:16
Speaker 1: In fact, there was a big article in about one
24:19
Speaker 1: company that had made a halo like pendant type of
24:22
Speaker 1: thing that similar to the phone nop I was talking about.
24:25
Speaker 1: You press it, it notifies things, all these things, but
24:28
Speaker 1: it's specific to like this hundred and twenty dollars, hundred
24:31
Speaker 1: fifty dollars, and then it was geared to make it
24:34
Speaker 1: feminine and dainty UM for a reason to appeal to women,
24:39
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that the same company had
24:41
Speaker 1: a chastity underwear. They were one of the ones that
24:43
Speaker 1: had a chastity underwear UM so that women couldn't get
24:46
Speaker 1: raped quote unquote. But that's obviously very geared at playing safe.
24:51
Speaker 1: And the way the commercials came out was very like,
24:54
Speaker 1: look at me, this is a part of my everyday dress.
24:57
Speaker 1: This is my norm is to gear myself up to
25:00
Speaker 1: an assault, And that in itself was like, hey, do
25:03
Speaker 1: you really is this the message that you want? And
25:05
Speaker 1: the things they had to go back and like redo
25:07
Speaker 1: all of the branding, as they should, because it was
25:10
Speaker 1: very obvious what they were doing. Again, very expensive in
25:14
Speaker 1: comparison to to so many other things. And I know,
25:17
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of the listeners are I know,
25:19
Speaker 1: y'all all have things and I hate that, and a
25:21
Speaker 1: lot of them are like under ten dollars, which is
25:23
Speaker 1: nice to see, and a lot of them are geared
25:26
Speaker 1: towards women. I know specific companies which are headed by
25:29
Speaker 1: women who thought of these things and try to make
25:31
Speaker 1: it affordable, but you still have costs. And again that
25:34
Speaker 1: conversation is like what is someone's safetyes. You know, that's
25:37
Speaker 1: surpriceless in the the same time, but it's not, it's not. Yeah,
25:42
Speaker 1: I think it's a good point to me because we're
25:45
Speaker 1: not saying everyone who is behind these companies or takes
25:49
Speaker 1: part in those things is bad. That's not it at all.
25:51
Speaker 1: It's just that this is so it's so unfortunate that
25:56
Speaker 1: that's where we are. And like you said, you know,
25:59
Speaker 1: you're kind of preparing yourself first all. That's what we
26:01
Speaker 1: talked about in the Not Pretty Enough episode, Like every
26:04
Speaker 1: day that's in the back of your head and how
26:06
Speaker 1: much brain space that takes up, and how exhausting that is.
26:09
Speaker 1: And it's just a fact of life that we seem
26:11
Speaker 1: to have accepted. And you know, people are fighting and
26:15
Speaker 1: trying to change things, but it is so much our
26:20
Speaker 1: responsibility to keep ourselves safe for it. They've been trying
26:23
Speaker 1: to change anything else. Right, And again, like the Violence
26:26
Speaker 1: Against Women Act, why why I harp on it so
26:28
Speaker 1: much is because not only do we need those kind
26:33
Speaker 1: of safeguards that are able to be placed in court,
26:36
Speaker 1: that are able to be placed as a legal recourse
26:40
Speaker 1: for protection, but the fact that it also makes a
26:43
Speaker 1: statement once again of who should be held responsible and
26:47
Speaker 1: who's the one that needs justice in general and hopefully protection.
26:52
Speaker 1: And it's not because we're we don't protect ourselves, uh
26:55
Speaker 1: is because yeah, it is always a threat, and for
26:59
Speaker 1: some reason, that's the number one threat when you're talking
27:02
Speaker 1: to a woman or or someone who identifies as female
27:05
Speaker 1: or non binary oftentimes to go after them in a
27:07
Speaker 1: manner to say your vulnerability is what I'm going to
27:11
Speaker 1: take from you, Like that's everything from you, and that's
27:13
Speaker 1: what I'm going to use against you rather and it's
27:16
Speaker 1: a whole conversation again, Like I said that we want
27:20
Speaker 1: to readdress and like I wanted this to be a
27:22
Speaker 1: full episode at first because I was like, I'm going
27:23
Speaker 1: to find all of the and there was no information.
27:26
Speaker 1: And whether it's because no one's looking at it or
27:28
Speaker 1: because it is so wide stretched or because it's newer,
27:32
Speaker 1: I don't know. So if you'll have some information, I
27:36
Speaker 1: would love to see it, because we love some numbers
27:38
Speaker 1: over here obviously. And then yeah, tell us about your
27:42
Speaker 1: experiences and what you've gone through and and you know,
27:45
Speaker 1: just your thoughts on this because I know it is
27:47
Speaker 1: a wide reaching topic. Yeah, And I feel like most
27:51
Speaker 1: most women can identify with what we're talking about, and
27:55
Speaker 1: certainly like even though we couldn't find a lot of data,
27:57
Speaker 1: we talked for like thirty minutes. So we all have
27:59
Speaker 1: these experiences around it um, but we would love to revisit.
28:03
Speaker 1: So yes, if you have any information or thoughts, please
28:05
Speaker 1: let us know. You can email us at stuff Video,
28:07
Speaker 1: mom Stuff at I heart me here dot com. You
28:09
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or
28:11
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Stuff One Never Told You. Thanks as
28:13
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christina, Thank you, and thanks
28:15
Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You his
28:17
Speaker 1: prediction of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts on my
28:19
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, beac heart Radio, app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
28:22
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.