Street Smart Safety for Women

Book excerpt: In a book written by women for women, Street Smart Safety for Women offers tips on defensive living that will increase readers' reliance on the one thing that can protect them most: their safety intuition. Violence against women is a global health issue. The threats women face today are unparalleled and more dangerous than ever before. And, for the first time in history, the toxic cocktail of technology and social media has weaponized misogyny and virtualized violence against women. There’s an even more serious challenge that faces women today. Social conditioning—the way our systems of family life, education, employment, entertainment and pop culture, spirituality and religion influence us— leaves many of us ill-equipped to deal not only with this escalating surge of attacks, but also the unrelenting prevalence of sexual assault, domestic violence, and scams. Women have been culturally trained to discount one of their greatest protections – safety intuition. As women, it is so ingrained in us to attend to everyone else, including strangers on the street, before we listen to ourselves, that we have lost touch with our innate ability to often detect dangerous situations. As the result, we are left generally defenseless to recognize predators who manipulate our natural compassion, to our own detriment. This inability to listen to ourselves and be persuasion-proof directly affects our personal safety and data shows that attacks on women continue to escalate daily across the world, inside and outside of the home. Though everyone is talking about how women continue to be less safe, few offer solutions. Women are terrified and they are looking for answers. In Street Smart Safety for Women, retired Deputy Sheriff Joy Farrow and technologist Laura Frombach, herself a survivor of a violent household, draw on their experiences both personal and professional to provide those answers. Dedicated to educating women in personal safety and showing them a defensive living strategy and trusting in themselves can reduce their probability of becoming a victim of a crime. Chapter 1 – Design for Defensive Living Chapter 2 - Technology Terror Chapter 3 – Can You Recognize a Predator? Chapter 4 - Persuasion, Manipulation, or More? Chapter 5 - Dating Diligence Chapter 6 – What Do Victims of Domestic Abuse Have in Common with Korean War POWs? Chapter 7 - Financial Security is Key to Your Safety Chapter 8 – Tips from a Female Cop Chapter 9 - Shams, Scams and Cons Chapter 10 - Women and Weapons Chapter 11 - From Victim to Victor