Gems from the Forum:
Personal Safety

Looking at the statistics about visitors on this site tells me that many of the people who read the articles or use the netlinks resources don't visit the forum for this site. That's ok, many of the forum visitors don't read the articles or use the other resources here either. There are only so many hours in the day, and everybody makes choices about how to spend them.

Those of you who don't visit the forum are missing interesting discussions with a great group of people - both women and men. But occasionally, you're also missing something more important: Useful information and advice from people who know what they're talking about. So, I have decided to bring some of those little gems of information to you!

To start, I have prepared a set of pages taken from forum posts about personal safety. While most of the people writing on these subjects are not "professionals" in the field of safety, they have learned many lessons from the most demanding teacher of all - real life.

I chose this place to start because safety is an important issue for both women and men. In fact, according to the newly released 1999 National Crime Victimization Survey, men were the victims of violent crime more often than women. (Violent crime for this report includes murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and assault.) Fifty-six percent of the victims of violent crime were men, and 44 percent were women. As might be expected, rape and sexual assault were the exception to the gender pattern; females were raped or sexually assaulted at a rate about eight times that of males in 1999. Violence by intimates tells a different story as well. Men were far more likely to be victimized by strangers, women were more likely to be violently victimized by a friend, an acquaintance, or an intimate.

However, the National Crime Victimization Survey is a survey, meant to account for unreported crimes as well as reported crimes. In 1998, according to FBI statistics of actual reported violent crimes, males were 42 percent of the victims, females were 58 percent of the victims of violent crime (for this report, "violent crime" is defined as murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation and "other"). The discrepancy of the numbers is due to the differences in the definition of "violent crime" and, obviously, the fact that not all crimes that occur are actually reported.

The good news is that violent crime is actually down from past years - a fact which doesn't get nearly the same amount of attention by the media as horrific crimes do. Nonetheless, violent crime is out there, and all of us need to be aware of ways to protect ourselves from being a victim of one of those crimes reported on the evening news. The members of the Women's Issues Forum have shared their knowledge and experiences on that subject with the forum - and now, I share them with you. Enjoy. (And learn!)

Karen

Precautions
Obviously, the first line of defense is to take what steps you can to avoid becoming a victim in the first place. Forum member SherRiley shares some hard-earned wisdom.

Internet Safety
Most of the people on the internet mean you no harm. But there are those who will use information they can obtain from your internet activities to hurt you. Your Guide and forum member AdrenaGrrrl share some tips for safe surfing.

Self Defense
Sometimes, the worst happens and you find yourself under attack. Forum members PaxtonJR and NiceAsIWant offer tips for surviving that worst-case scenario.

Gun Safety
Forum member and former armed self-defense instructor ACHESSOR offers his expertise to those who choose to include guns in their self-defense planning.

More information on self-defense

Self-Defense for Women
Links to information and resources to help you protect yourself from rape, sexual assault, stalking, and cyberstalking, from your Guide.

Don't Be a Victim
About Crime/Punishment Guide Bill Bickel's extensive links to information to help you protect yourself against violent crime and fraud.

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