The Cost of Fear, by IMPACT Executive Director, Meg Stone
When it comes to avoiding violence, most women have gotten a lot of questionable advice, like “don’t wear a ponytail, an attacker could grab it” or “or “don’t go shopping alone.” Directives like these come mostly from the police or other men in authority, men who abruptly change the subject when you ask for evidence that any of these precautions work.
In The Cost of Fear, nationally recognized violence prevention expert Meg Stone helps readers separate fact from fiction. It’s full of practical, research-based strategies that women and others who are targeted for gender-based violence can use to keep themselves and their communities safer. Increased safety comes not from complying with rigid rules or avoiding of white vans, but from developing the skills to resist coercive control, especially from people we know or people in authority.
This deeply researched book draws timely connections between personal safety and political change — from Latina organizers in California working to stop sexual violence against night shift janitorial workers to rural moms who face threats and harassment for speaking out against book bans to teenage girls who call out double standards.
Gender-based violence is a systemic and political injustice, but it’s often enacted in the most intimate spheres of our lives. To stop this violence, we need strategies that are just as intimate.
Political violence is the new normal. Sexual assault persists despite impressive changes in public opinion. Crime is going down, but the sharpest declines are in stranger violence against the highest income people. We all need strategies to navigate our immediate safety that add up to social and political change.
Every time we alter our lives to avoid violence, we are making a political statement, whether we intend to or not. Crossing the street to avoid a homeless person says one thing. Not leaving your kid alone with a parish priest in the wake of a clergy sexual abuse crisis says another.
Work to change laws and change people’s minds is essential, but without practical strategies that people who are targeted for this violence can use to protect themselves, the change is incomplete. The Cost of Fear will show you how we can make safety choices that expand our worlds and contribute to the fight for social justice.
Meg Stone has written a powerful, accessible, and devastatingly acute analysis of the pervasiveness of gender-based violence and why our efforts to prevent it have failed, packed with expert insight drawn from her decades-long career and practical tips to empower women and others who are targeted. The Cost of Fear moved me, enraged me, and educated me. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about it. I wish this book weren’t necessary. But until we live in a better world, get this book.
Meg Stone is the Executive Director of IMPACT Boston, an abuse prevention and empowerment self-defense organization. Her writing has been published in Huffington Post, Newsweek, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Dame, and Ms.. She has received numerous awards for her work over the past 30 years. Meg lives in Cambridge, MA with her partner Mal and a shockingly large collection of musical theatre cast albums.