The Cost of Fear

A violence prevention expert helps women and other targets of gender-based violence discern fact from fiction, improve their personal safety, and support social change Personal safety shouldn’t mean living in fear, nor should it come at the expense of political progress. There are two kinds of safety choices: those that disrupt power structures and those that leave them unquestioned. Safety decisions that challenge power inequities require more fortitude, but they also lead to real 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. In The Cost of Fear, nationally recognized leader in abuse prevention Meg Stone returns the focus to empowerment and shows us safety strategies that really work. Stone argues there are two opposing philosophies of how to make people safer, one of which exacerbates victim-blame (safety through compliance) and the other challenges it (safety through resistance). Deeply researched, The Cost of Fear includes interviews with people who have used their bodies to stop violence, those who teach self-defense as part of political organizing, as well as organizations that are effectively preventing sexual violence by inviting people to speak up for themselves. Stone gives readers practical strategies for keeping themselves and their loved ones safer and shows how personal safety is an essential part of political change, especially for an injustice as intimate as gender-based violence.