In 2016, Boston University College of Communication alumna Vanessa Marcotte was violently murdered while jogging near her home in Princeton, Massachusetts. On Sunday, the foundation established in her memory held an introductory self-defense workshop for women at BU.
The sold-out workshop, titled STRIKE for Vanessa, aimed to teach women ages 14 and up techniques from the Soteria Method of self-defense. The Soteria Method was created by celebrity trainer Avital Zeisler, who instructed the self-defense portion of the workshop.
The purpose of the workshop was to empower women and transform their lives, said Steve Vittorioso, a cousin of Marcotte and board member of the Vanessa T. Marcotte Foundation.
“Self-defense helps empower women by allowing them to live their lives free from the fear of violence,” Vittorioso wrote in an email. “Women shouldn’t fear going for a run early in the morning, for example, and they shouldn’t have to alter their lives because of the threat of violence.”
Foundation co-founder Ashley McNiff said more than 450 people attended the workshop in Metcalf Hall, including roughly 430 women who registered for the workshop, and volunteers, 20 of which were men. During the workshop’s opening remarks, McNiff said accomplishing the foundation’s mission was not going to be easy.
“Driving this type of social change will require support from both women and men,” McNiff said. “Our vision is that one day, women truly live boldly and fearlessly, but we’re not there yet.”
Tickets to the workshop were $25 for students or $40 for regular admission. The proceeds, McNiff said, will go toward institutions that will promote gender equality through educational programs.
“[Gender equality education] is one of the factors that has been proven to reduce objectification and harassment,” McNiff said.
McNiff added that Zeisler’s Soteria Method of self-defense was a particularly empowering tool for women because of how practical it can be in practice.
“It focuses on a lot of visualization, which is missing from a lot of methods [of self-defense],” McNiff said. “The biggest takeaway from [Zeisler’s] method is it doesn’t matter how big you are, it doesn’t matter how strong you are, her techniques can make it so that you can take any person who is attacking you.”
Kimberly Mancino, 50, of Cambridge, was one of the hundreds of women who participated in the workshop. Mancino said she had previous experience in self-defense training through a program offered by the Cambridge Police Department, but said she decided to attend the workshop with her 14-year-old daughter because she felt self-defense was an important skill for her daughter to learn.
“I think that she has perhaps a little bit of a false sense of her own power right now that comes from being 14,” Mancino said of her daughter. “I hope to have my daughter walk away with some of these ideas that, if she’s ever put in [a threatening] position, she has some options.”
Before she started teaching the self-defense techniques, Zeisler shared what motivated her to develop the Soteria Method.
“As somebody who has experienced violence and sexual assault, it became my life mission and my life passion to arm as many women as I could with the tools to prevent, survive and overcome trauma associated with violence and sexual assault,” Zeisler said.
Part of Zeisler’s Soteria Method revolves around the acronym RACE, standing for recognize, analyze, create and execute. Zeisler said the word “race” itself is significant because it reminds women that they need to race their reactions as quickly as possible.
The workshop attracted a wide variety of women of many different ages and backgrounds, many of whom had no prior self-defense training.
Gigi Moise, 30, of Boston, attended the workshop with a friend. Moise had experience carrying Mace on her person, but said STRIKE for Vanessa was her first physical self-defense experience.
Moise said that because women are often the victims of violence and sexual harassment, knowing what to do in the event of an emergency was a way of empowering women.
“I think [female empowerment] is important because of what’s going on in this day and age,” Moise said. “It’s just important to let others know that we’re here — others being men.”
Louisa Monahan, 16, of Cambridge, said she found out about STRIKE for Vanessa when a friend emailed her about it. Having never had self-defense training in the past, she hoped to walk away from the workshop with more confidence in regard to defending herself.
“I think it’s important for women to be less scared of being alone,” Monahan said. “If they feel empowered through this sort of thing, they’ll be more [confident].”
