I had a fabulous time with the students and hosts at UTPB!   I want to send a big thank you to Falconpalooza and Student Life for bringing me out to empower their students. Members of the UTPB Crisis Center and 2 uniformed UTPB Police Officers were in attendance as well which was great! I always love it when the campus community comes together to support a common cause and goal.

Instead of having just 2 volunteers I had 4 students ready to step in and help me demonstrate our awesome skills! We got it narrowed down to 2 who did an amazing job pretending to be creepers. We covered the importance of trusting your intuition and being an active ally and we covered why an elbow isn’t a first choice if you’re looking for a vulnerable spot to disable an attacker.   An elbow is a great weapon for us to use against an attacker though!

I fielded a lot of great questions during Q&A including several students who were interested in taking Full Contact Self-Defense classes. One student even commented that since their area is primarily oil infrastructure, a male dominated industry, that there unfortunately are many reports of sexual assaults happening. She emphasized the importance of self-defense training and I chimed in that in addition to self-defense we all need to look out for each other and challenge the rape culture so that we can chip away at the very core of why sexual assaults happen in the first place.

I hope to come back to UTPB soon and teach even more students how they can be their own best protector and live their lives fearlessly with no apologies!

Cheers,

GFB Nicole

The Panhellenic Council joined forces with the Woman’s Resource Center to bring the Students Fight Back message of self-empowerment and badassery to Ohio Wesleyan University. The sororities and fraternities at OWU each have the option of making 1 or 2 of their planned school events to be mandatory for the other. Lucky for the men, this was one of those events!

With a room full of 200 students reppin’ all gender identities, sexual orientations and life experiences we got started breaking down myths about sexual assault including why victim blaming is wrong and why fighting back is a choice, NOT a reason to blame a survivor. We discussed the fact that EVERYONE has the right to set a boundary about their body and expect that boundary to be respected. Mic drop!

I had so much fun with this group! The energy in the room was palpable… they were snapping & clapping throughout and we were laughing together through most of the event. I even had a group of men in the front who were super engaged and would shout out answers to me! I love it when audiences get involved! I had 2 volunteers this time: Dr. Dwayne Todd who is not only a professor but also the Title IX Coordinator and Phoebe who was one of the sorority members putting on the event. They did an awesome job of helping me demonstrate verbal strategies, vulnerable hot spots and finally the some basic physical self-defense skills. 

Thank you so much for having me OWU! You were incredible and I hope to see you all again soon. Keep on being badasses and don’t let anyone keep you from living the life that you choose!

Cheers,

GFB Nicole