Women Face Physical Final in Rape Defense Course

When push came to shove, the seven women did just what they had been taught to do. They defended themselves.

Push did come to shove—with some verbal taunting tossed into the mix—at the final class for the .

Two course instructors—police Sgt. Paul Tenney and Det. Edward Fumicello, the WMHS resource officer (SRO)—put the students, all SRO mentors, to the test individually in three different scenarios to get the women to use different techniques they had learned to ward off a simulated attack.

Elysia Batista said she doesn’t usually fight and didn’t know what to expect during the simulations. But when it was her turn in the first scenario, “I got serious,” she said, and used what she had learned in four classes to get away from her “attackers.”

Each scenario got harder, according to student Brittany Ahlstedt, more physical, and tested more of what they had learned.

“It feels good to know you’re not helpless,” she said.

The students began to breathe more heavily after they finished each round.

So did the instructors, who also began to sweat, partly from exertion and partly from their protective gear.

Along the side of the room sat a handful of the students’ mothers.

“I think (the program) gives girls confidence,” said Elysia’s stepmom, Yessica. “It’s good for women to feel empowerment.”

Mother Betty Anne Cassidy said when her daughter, Taylor, told her she was taking the classes, “I though it was a great thing, especially since she’s going to college.

"I was never taught this,” Betty Anne added.

It’s great way to prepare (the women) for college, agreed Denise Delaney, who was in the waiting room with the girls, preparing them for their turns by helping them strap on protective gear. Her daughter, Meghin, who is in college now, in Syracuse, NY, took the course, she said. The program is “a great tool,” Denise said. "(It) set my mind at ease.”

The course is not just for young women setting off for college. A teacher at the Altavesta School took it, Tenney said—along with her mother. Another woman, who was 65, also took the course, one of the instructors noted.

“Did you learn something?” Tenney asked the girls between the second and third scenarios.

“Guys are really strong,” Elysia told Woburn Patch. “You have to put up a fight. You can’t give up.”

“These moves will work,” Fumicello said emphatically.

“I hope they never have to use (what they learned)," said mother Betty Ann Cassidy, “but I’m glad they know what to do.”