The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence

  I encourage women to explicitly rebuff unwanted approaches, but I know it is difficult to do. Just as rapport-building has a good reputation, explicitness applied by women in this culture has a terrible reputation. A woman who is clear and precise is viewed as cold, or a bitch, or both. A woman is expected, first and foremost, to respond to every communication from a man. And the response is expected to be one of willingness and attentiveness. It is considered attractive if she is a bit uncertain (the opposite of explicit). Women are expected to be warm and open, and in the context of approaches from male strangers, warmth lengthens the encounter, raises his expectations, increases his investment, and, at best, wastes time. At worst, it serves the man who has sinister intent by providing much of the information he will need to evaluate and then control his prospective victim.

  Too Many Details

  People who want to deceive you, I explain to Kelly, will often use a simple technique which has a simple name: too many details. The man’s use of the story about the cat he left unfed in a friend’s apartment: too many details. His reference to leaving the door open, “like ladies do in old movies”: too many details. His volunteering that he is always late (“broken watch, not my fault”): too many details.

  When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details. When people lie, however, even if what they say sounds credible to you, it doesn’t sound credible to them, so they keep talking.

  Each detail may be only a small tack he throws on the road, but together they can stop a truck. The defense is to remain consciously aware of the context in which details are offered.

  Context is always apparent at the start of an interaction and usually apparent at the end of one, but too many details can make us lose sight of it. Imagine gazing out the window of a train as it pulls away from the station. Details move by you, or you by them, slowly at first. As the train gets going a little faster, you see more details, but each one more briefly: an empty playground, a phrase painted in graffiti, some kids playing in the street, a construction site, the steeple of a church, until the train reaches a speed that requires you to let the individual components become… a neighborhood. This same transition can occur as a conversation becomes… a robbery. Every type of con relies upon distracting us from the obvious.

  Kelly had so many details thrown at her that she lost sight of this simple context: the man was an absolute stranger. Whenever the train got going fast enough that she was uncomfortable, whenever she might have seen what was happening, like his taking the shopping bag from her hand even though she said no, he slowed the train down with some new irrelevance. He used catchy details to come to be perceived as someone familiar to her, someone she could trust. But she knew him artificially; she knew the con, not the con man.

  The person who recognizes the strategy of Too Many Details sees the forest while simultaneously being able to see the few trees that really matter. When approached by a stranger while walking on some city street at night, no matter how engaging he might be, you must never lose sight of the context: He is a stranger who approached you. A good exercise is to occasionally remind yourself of where you are and what your relationship is to the people around you. With a date who stays beyond his welcome, for example, no matter how jokey or charming he may be, a woman can keep herself focused on context simply by thinking, “I have asked him to leave twice.” The defense for too many details is simple: bring the context into conscious thought.

  TYPECASTING

  Another strategy used by Kelly’s rapist is called typecasting. A man labels a woman in some slightly critical way, hoping she’ll feel compelled to prove that his opinion is not accurate. “You’re probably too snobbish to talk to the likes of me,” a man might say, and the woman will cast off the mantle of “snob” by talking to him. A man tells a woman, “You don’t look like someone who reads the newspaper,” and she sets out to prove that she is intelligent and well-informed. When Kelly refused her attacker’s assistance, he said, “There’s such thing as being too proud, you know,” and she resisted the label by accepting his help.

  Typecasting always involves a slight insult, and usually one that is easy to refute. But since it is the response itself that the typecaster seeks, the defense is silence, acting as if the words weren’t even spoken. If you engage, you can win the point, but you might lose something greater. Not that it matters what some stranger thinks anyway, but the typecaster doesn’t even believe what he says is true. He just believes that it will work.

  Loan Sharking

  The next signal I explain to Kelly is one I call loan-sharking: “He wanted to be allowed to help you because that would place you in his debt, and the fact that you owe a person something makes it hard to ask him to leave you alone.” The more traditional loan shark gladly lends one amount but cruelly collects much more. Likewise, the predatory criminal generously offers assistance but is always calculating the debt. The defense is to bring two rarely remembered facts into consciousness: He approached me, and I didn’t ask for any help. Then, though a person may turn out to be just a kindly stranger, watch for other signals.

  We are all familiar with the stranger who offers to help a woman with her groceries; most often he is a fairly unsophisticated loan shark looking to pick someone up. The debt he records in his ledger can usually be paid off quite easily, just a little talk will do it. But he has something in common with the predatory criminal who imposes his counterfeit charity into someone’s life: motive. There is no spiritually minded movement dedicated to lightening the burden of American women by carrying their groceries. At its best, loan sharking is a strategy on a par with asking a woman, “Do you come here often?” At its worst, it exploits a victim’s sense of obligation and fairness.

  I haven’t focused here on the criminal who simply walks up, displays a weapon, and demands money. That’s because he is distinctly more obvious than those who use the strategies I’ve described.

  It’s important to clarify that forced teaming, too many details, charm, niceness, typecasting and loan sharking are all in daily use by people who have no sinister intent. You might have already recognized several of these strategies as those commonly used by men who want little more than an opportunity to engage a woman in conversation. I don’t mean to cramp the style of some crude Casanova, but times have changed, and we men can surely develop some approaches which are not steeped in deceit and manipulation.

  The Unsolicited Promise

  For the next signal, I ask Kelly to go back to that moment when she was reluctant to let her attacker into her apartment. He had said, “I’ll just put this stuff down and go. I promise.”

  The unsolicited promise is one of the most reliable signals because it is nearly always of questionable motive. Promises are used to convince us of an intention, but they are not guarantees. A guarantee is a promise that offers some compensation if the speaker fails to deliver; he commits to make it all right again if things don’t go as he says they would. But promises offer no such collateral. They are the very hollowest instruments of speech, showing nothing more than the speaker’s desire to convince you of something. So, aside from meeting all unsolicited promises with skepticism (whether or not they are about safety), it’s useful to ask yourself: Why does this person need to convince me? The answer, it turns out, is not about him—it is about you. The reason a person promises something, the reason he needs to convince you, is that he can see that you are not convinced. You have doubt (which is a messenger of intuition), likely because there is reason to doubt. The great gift of the unsolicited promise is that the speaker tells you so himself!

  In effect, the promise holds up a mirror in which you get a second chance to see your own intuitive signal; the promise is the image and the reflection of your doubt. Always, in every context, be suspicious of the unsolicited promise. When Kelly’s rapist told her he would leave after he got something to drink from the kitchen, he detected her doubt, so
he added, “I promise.”

  Here’s the defense: When someone says “I promise,” you say (at least in your head) “You’re right, I am hesitant about trusting you, and maybe with good reason. Thank you for pointing it out.”

  Discounting the Word “No”

  It is late, and I suggest to Kelly that we’ll discuss the rest tomorrow, but she wants another signal before we stop. Like every victim of a truly awful crime, she is anxious to make some sense of it, to understand it, to control it. So I speak to her about one more signal, perhaps the most universally significant one of all: a man’s ignoring or discounting the concept of no. Kelly’s rapist ignored it several times, in various forms. First she said no, she didn’t want his help. Then she showed him no when she didn’t immediately let go of the bag.

  Actions are far more eloquent and credible than words, particularly a short and under-valued word like “no,” and particularly when it’s offered tentatively or without conviction. So when Kelly said no but then agreed, it wasn’t really no anymore. “No” is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you.

  In situations in which unsolicited offers of assistance are appropriate, such as approaches by a salesman or flight attendant, it is simply annoying if you have to decline three times. With a stranger, however, refusal to hear no can be an important survival signal, as with a suitor, a friend, a boyfriend, even a husband.

  Declining to hear “no” is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it. With strangers, even those with the best intentions, never, ever relent on the issue of “no,” because it sets the stage for more efforts to control. If you let someone talk you out of the word “no,” you might as well wear a sign that reads, “You are in charge.”

  The worst response when someone fails to accept “no” is to give ever-weakening refusals and then give in. Another common response that serves the criminal is to negotiate (“I really appreciate your offer, but let me try to do it on my own first”). Negotiations are about possibilities, and providing access to someone who makes you apprehensive is not a possibility you want to keep on the agenda. I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.

  The criminal’s process of victim selection, which I call “the interview,” is similar to a shark’s circling potential prey. The predatory criminal of every variety is looking for someone, a vulnerable someone who will allow him to be in control, and just as he constantly gives signals, so does he read them.

  The man in the underground parking lot who approaches a woman as she puts groceries in the trunk of her car and offers assistance may be a gentleman or he may be conducting an interview. The woman whose shoulders tense slightly, who looks intimidated and shyly says, “No, thanks, I think I’ve got it,” may be his victim. Conversely, the woman who turns toward him, raises her hands to the STOP position, and says directly, “I don’t want your help,” is less likely to be his victim.

  A decent man would understand her reaction or, more likely, wouldn’t have approached a woman alone in the first place, unless she really had some obvious need. If a man doesn’t understand the reaction and stomps off dejected, that’s fine too. In fact, any reaction—even anger—from a decent man who had no sinister intent is preferable to continued attention from a violent man who might have used your concern about rudeness to his advantage.

  A woman alone who needs assistance is actually far better off choosing someone and asking for help, as opposed to waiting for an unsolicited approach. The person you choose is nowhere near as likely to bring you hazard as is the person who chooses you. That’s because the possibility that you’ll inadvertently select a predatory criminal for whom you are the right victim type is very remote. I encourage women to ask other women for help when they need it, and it’s likewise safer to accept an offer from a woman than from a man. (Unfortunately, women rarely make such offers to other women, and I wish more would.)

  I want to clarify that many men offer help without any sinister or self-serving intent, with no more in mind than kindness and chivalry, but I have been addressing those times that men refuse to hear the word “No,” and that is not chivalrous—it is dangerous.

  When someone ignores that word, ask yourself: Why is this person seeking to control me? What does he want? It is best to get away from the person altogether, but if that’s not practical, the response that serves safety is to dramatically raise your insistence, skipping several levels of politeness. “I said NO!”

  When I encounter people hung up on the seeming rudeness of this response (and there are many), I imagine this conversation after a stranger is told No by a woman he has approached:

  MAN: What a bitch. What’s your problem, lady? I was just trying to offer a little help to a pretty woman. What are you so paranoid about?

  WOMAN: You’re right. I shouldn’t be wary. I’m overreacting about nothing. I mean, just because a man makes an unsolicited and persistent approach in an underground parking lot in a society where crimes against women have risen four times faster than the general crime rate, and three out of four women will suffer a violent crime; and just because I’ve personally heard horror stories from every female friend I’ve ever had; and just because I have to consider where I park, where I walk, whom I talk to, and whom I date in the context of whether someone will kill me or rape me or scare me half to death; and just because several times a week someone makes an inappropriate remark, stares at me, harasses me, follows me, or drives alongside my car pacing me; and just because I have to deal with the apartment manager who gives me the creeps for reasons I haven’t figured out, yet I can tell by the way he looks at me that given an opportunity he’d do something that would get us both on the evening news; and just because these are life-and-death issues most men know nothing about so that I’m made to feel foolish for being cautious even though I live at the center of a swirl of possible hazards DOESN’T MEAN A WOMAN SHOULD BE WARY OF A STRANGER WHO IGNORES THE WORD ‘NO’.”

  Whether or not men can relate to it or believe it or accept it, that is the way it is. Women, particularly in big cities, live with a constant wariness. Their lives are literally on the line in ways men just don’t experience. Ask some man you know, “When is the last time you were concerned or afraid that another person would harm you?” Many men cannot recall an incident within years. Ask a woman the same question and most will give you a recent example or say, “Last night,” “Today,” or even “Every day.”

  Still, women’s concerns about safety are frequently the subject of critical comments from the men in their lives. One woman told me of constant ridicule and sarcasm from her boyfriend whenever she discussed fear or safety. He called her precautions silly and asked, “How can you live like that?” To which she replied, “How could I not?”

  I have a message for women who feel forced to defend their safety concerns: tell Mister I-Know-Everything-About-Danger that he has nothing to contribute to the topic of your personal security. Tell him that your survival instinct is a gift from Nature that knows a lot more about your safety than he does. And tell him that nature does not require his approval.

  It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different—men and women live in different worlds. I don’t remember where I first heard this simple description of one dramatic contrast between the genders, but it is strikingly accurate: At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  I referred Kelly to IMPACT, which I believe is the best self-defense course for women. She is now an instructor there, helping others to heed the signals. At IMPACT, which is available in most major cities, women have actual physical confrontations with male instructors who play assailants. (The men wear heavily padded outfits that can withstand direct punches and kicks.) Women learn not only physical defense tactics but also about how to deal with strangers who make unwanted approac
hes. (See appendix 2 for more information about IMPACT.)

  Most new IMPACT students are very concerned that they must avoid making a man angry, reasoning that this could turn someone whose intent was favorable into someone dangerous. Be aware, however, that it is impossible in this context to transform an ordinary, decent man into a rapist or killer. Thankfully, though, it is possible to transform yourself into a person who responds to the signals and is thus a less likely victim.

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  I recently got a close look at several of the strategies outlined above. I was on a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, seated next to a teenage girl who was traveling alone. A man in his forties who’d been watching her from across the aisle took off the headphones he was wearing and said to her with party-like flair, “These things just don’t get loud enough for me!” He then put his hand out toward her and said, “I’m Billy.” Though it may not be immediately apparent, his statement was actually a question, and the young girl responded with exactly the information Billy hoped for: She told him her full name. Then she put out her hand, which he held a little too long. In the conversation that ensued, he didn’t directly ask for any information, but he certainly got lots of it.