Get Home Safe
A Guide to Self-Defense and Building Our Collective Power
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Grounded in her experience as a blackbelt, self-defense instructor, and globally recognized organizer, Rana Abdelhamid offers a bold, urgent roadmap to a safer world.
Abdelhamid wants every woman and survivor of gender-based violence to be able to defend themselves, and every community to build collective safety. What if we didn't accept that it’s unsafe to walk home alone as a fact of life, but instead went out and created safe spaces for ourselves?
Through thousands of training sessions, she’s seen firsthand the strength we carry in our bodies, no matter our background or circumstance. Her revolutionary framework for finding that strength starts with emotional healing, then teaches physical self-defense and economic safety, and finally equips readers with organizing strategies to fight the systems that enable violence in the first place. A rallying cry and a practical guide, Get Home Safe will leave readers, regardless of strength, identity, or income, knowing they can fight back and reclaim power.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Abdelhamid, founder of the Queens, N.Y.–based antiviolence organization Malikah, grounds her valuable debut guide to women's self-defense in a call for marginalized groups to reclaim their collective strength. Her strategy for ending violence comprises four interconnected layers: fostering emotional safety via healing methods such as journaling or small-group discussion to untangle the psychological effects of gender-based violence; ensuring physical safety by building situational awareness (heeding gut feelings when something feels off; taking stock of "energy shifts, body language, exits, red flags"); building financial safety and the means to escape harmful domestic situations by monetizing marketable skills; and working toward communal safety by supporting political initiatives that aim to protect the most marginalized. Though the task Abdelhamid takes on is daunting, she provides a surprising amount of clear, usable strategies (including a lucid guide to physical self-defense with tips on breaking free from wrist grabs and headlocks), and the links she draws between individual and communal healing offer a potent corrective to the isolation and shame that gender-based violence can breed. This empowers and informs.
