Letter: Preparation is also a good self-defense

Editor,

Regarding the article about the recent self-defense class taught at UNM, I think it is great that women are being given the opportunity to learn how to defend themselves.

However, I think women (and men as well, although women tend to be more vulnerable targets) need to know there are different methods in which they can defend themselves. For example, I use the city bus to get to and from school.

In the evenings, I have to wait approximately 45 minutes downtown for my bus home. Just today, a middle-aged man sat down next to me and started touching me (putting his arm around me, rubbing my shoulders) and I took out my canister of pepper spray, sprayed him in the face and ran about a block and a half to the nearest alternative stop for my bus.

I wasn't "attacked," but I feel that I was violated and if I had not sprayed him, he may have attempted to rub me in a place other than my back. I was able to fend him off because I had made three preparations. The first was purchasing the pepper spray. I did this even before the first day of school, because I knew that I would be riding the bus and may be placed in a dangerous situation. It can be purchased at any sporting goods store in the gun section.

The second was knowing to be alert while waiting for the bus and walking between my house and the bus stop. Shady people hang around the bus stops sometimes and I have heard of some instances that placed people in dangerous situations.

The last preparation was knowing an alternative bus stop I could wait at. The stop I usually wait at is right where the bus I take from UNM lets me off, so it is convenient. However, if there is person there that makes me uncomfortable, I go to the next possible stop. Several middle-aged men have come on to me while I was waiting for the bus, but today was the first attempt any of them made at actually touching me. Knowing another place I could go to wait for the bus helped me because it enabled me to get away from the guy that was giving me problems.

In this case, it was much easier for me to respond with pepper spray and run than to try to physically attack him. We were both seated, which would have made such a defense difficult.

Your article mentioned that only 30 women attended the class and, while you also mention that there will be other classes, not all women will be able to attend these meetings. The women who don't attend need to be aware of ways they can defend themselves and the women who do attend should be made aware of alternate defense tactics in case it is ever more appropriate to use these alternatives rather than person-to-person contact.

Andrea Brown

UNM student