Martha Langelan

Back Off! is filled with real-life success stories from women who have stopped harassers cold:

Sharon, who succeeded in stopping a whole crew of habitual harassers in a city park...
Stephanie, a ten-year-old who confronted and escaped a child molester...
Catharine and Molly, who stood up to their landlord and stopped him from harassing the tenants...

And dozens more. From an eight-year-old who sucessfully challenged two young harassers on the playground to an orgainzed group of fifty women who confronted a dockworker in response to an attempted rape on the job, here's what they did, how they did it-and how you can do it, too.

Back Off! is the first book to focus on the direct-action tactics that work and the first to deal with harassment everywhere it takes place, in both blue-collar and white-collar jobs, at school, and on the street, on the bus or subway, in the park, even in church.

Back Off! examines the dynamics of sex and power in sexual harassment, the motives behind harassers' actions, and why traditional responses such as appeasement or aggression don't work, and describes the successful resistance strategies that you really can use-including nonviolent personal confrontation techniques, group confrontations, administrative remedies, and formal lawsuits.

Martha J. Langelan, past president of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, is a senior economist at the U.S. Department of Transportation and as self-defense instructor. In addition to self-defense and harrassment-confrontation classes for women, she conducts the Rape Crisis Center's seminars on sexual harassment for corporations, government agencies, universities, and community organizations.

Contents

Preface by Catharine A. MacKinnon
Part I: The culture and history of harassment and resistance
Chapter 1 Sexual harassment: The beginning of the end
Chapter 2 What's going on here? Why do men harass women?
Chapter 3 The roots of successful resistance: Civil rights, self-defense, and nonviolence
Chapter 4 Confrontation: Stopping harassers on the the job and on the street
Part II: The success stories: Controntation n action
Chapter 5 When children are the target: Kids who defend themselves
Chapter 6 when the job becomes a misery: Confronting harassers at work
Chapter 7 Deep in hostile territory: confronting harassers in male-dominated jobs
Chapter 8 Not all men harass: Men as allies for women
Chapter 9 Construction workers, subway creeps, and other daily hazards: Confronting harassers in the community
Chapter 10 When your minister is a molester, your porfessor is a lech, or your landlord is a sleze: Stopping harassers in power positions
Chapter 11 Confronting muggers and burglars: Self-defense in a robbery
Chapter 12 Confronting rapists: Self-defense in a sexual assault
Chapter 13 There is strength in numbers: The power of group confrontations
Chapter 14 Where do we go from here: Community strategies for ending sexual harassment
Appendix A The confrontation survey
Appendix B Your legal options: Sexual harassment and the law
Appendix C Resources for action: Further reading and organizations
Notes… (mehr)