Response to Basile’s (2022) Commentary on “Rape Resistance: A Critical Piece of All Women’s Empowerment and Holistic Rape Prevention”

ABSTRACT

In this response to Kathleen Basile’s 2022 commentary on my 2020 article, Rape resistance: a critical piece of all women’s empowerment and holistic rape prevention, I respond to her critiques of my article that emphasized the limitations of Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) emphasis on bystander intervention training as sexual assault prevention, as well as some other aspects of my article. I go through each of her points to clarify, explain, and further document my argument that researchers and funders have overlooked or ignored the empirical evidence for rape resistance and self-defense training as effective prevention in favor of other approaches, with bystander intervention being the most promulgated.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult survivor
• females
• gender issues
• resistance
• rape
• prevention
• sexual assault
• women

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Martha McCaughey and Jill Cermele for helpful input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).