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There’s an app for that. (Yeah, I went there.)

Caperton

The fight against violence against women has reached the Office of the Vice President–which is good, because there are a lot of other offices that would have let it sit in the foyer without even offering it a cup of coffee until it gave up and went home. Even better is the surprisingly modern approach Joe Biden is taking: He’s harnessing the power of crowdsourcing and the technology of smartphone apps in a contest called Apps Against Abuse, “envisioned to empower young people, in real time, to look out for their friends in order to prevent violence or assault before it occurs.”

To open: I think that’s pretty cool.

To continue: I think there are a lot of potential applications for women dealing with domestic violence. Apps that could connect with 911 from your home screen, help find both immediate and long-term assistance for women with kids, or even act as a kind of a live-man switch in particularly urgent situations could be helpful. (Of course, this assumes we can ensure that vulnerable women have access to smartphones, which we really can’t, so that becomes its own issue.)

To continue further: Raise your hand if you see the inherent weakness in this plan.

Unless there’s an app that could help a guy step in when one of his friends is about to rape someone–or help a guy recognize when he’s about to commit rape and stop in time–there aren’t a lot of options that don’t, per usual, put the burden on women to prevent sexual assault. This is hardly universal, of course, but a guy who’s thoughtful enough to download an anti-sexual-assault app probably isn’t the type who’s likely to end up committing rape anyway. And the guy who’s likely to commit rape probably isn’t going to think to download such an app before he goes out.

“Dude, let’s go. They charge a cover after nine.”

“Hold on. I’m downloading an app that reminds me to get affirmative consent before I get down with a chick.”

“Oh, cool. Do they have that for Android?”

And most of the apps that could help protect women from sexual assault already exist: Find and call a cab. Count drinks. Heck, take a photo of a guy’s driver’s license before heading home with him. There are even apps that let you and your friends track each other on a map (so there’s the “keep tabs on one another’s locations” right there). But there aren’t any apps that can identify when a friend’s consensual encounter has turned nonconsensual, when the trusted guy-friend who’s escorted you home turns untrustworthy, or when a woman has passed out and someone is about to take advantage. There’s no app that convinces the public that she wasn’t asking for it after she’s raped because a guy forgot to download the How Drunk Is She? Consent-o-Meter.

That doesn’t mean, though, that such apps can’t exist. The whole point of a crowdsourcing initiative is that you get the access to the brains that don’t think like yours. I believe strongly in the power of the crowd, and my faith therein leads me to believe that at least one of the infinite monkeys out there has to have at least one novel idea that could help protect women.

Joe Biden has a good idea with a lot of potential, and it’s nice to see someone in the administration taking a real focus on this. Crowd, can you help Biden protect women from domestic violence and sexual assault?*

*No need to go into extensive detail here–I also believe strongly in the power of intellectual property rights.

15 thoughts on There’s an app for that. (Yeah, I went there.)

  1. I know that I’m just a Slow, Old F__t Man, but when will it become common knowledge that we have major problems with Masculinity as it affects us Men, instead of a “Women’s Problem” – with epidemic violence – from Men and Boys – Against Other Men and Boys, Women and Girls (and even Animals).

    It seems strange that we had a “White Problem” pre-The Mid ’60’s (that unfortunately) most of us White Folks – tried to then picture as a “Black Problem” once significant, but minimal legislation was passed.

    We, as a society, have never noted that – Men – we Men – have issues and that we need to focus upon our issues, instead of piecemeal efforts to punish and “cure” – “those men”.

    “Our mission is to improve the gender-based, mental health care of men and boys, with a special focus on healing men and boys that have been impacted by some type of trauma or abuse.” – http://theunifyingcenter.org/ – The Unifying Center recognizes the need to reach men.

    A Men’s Project – http://www.AMensProject.com – attempts to reach men in positive ways, providing resources to help men and reach the efforts that already exist.

    Women have been doing “the work” for decades. When will more of us men wake up (and stop blaming women and “society” for our issues) and start really working on our issues????

  2. “Our mission is to improve the gender-based, mental health care of men and boys, with a special focus on healing men and boys that have been impacted by some type of trauma or abuse.”

    That sounds like a really worthy cause. Thank you for sharing it!

  3. I agree with Geo. We have never advanced a coherent, cohesive narrative geared towards men. This is why so many hurtful assumptions about masculinity and male identity still persist. But I think being in a dominant position for as long as we have is partially why fixing what is wrong remains so difficult.

  4. Geo – nicely said and agreed. Teaching boys and men to embrace a more socially healthy view of Masculinity is what is best for men, women and society as a whole. Thanks for the links.

  5. Hmm. I’m trying to think of ways to build rape-prevention into apps that would appeal to guys.

    I imagine you could figure out some kind of bystander app, on how call out rape jokes or keep an eye on at-risk friends, or how to get your creepy-but-not-realising-it friend away from the chick he’s harassing, but that would be targeted at guys who are already aware. Might still be useful to some, though.

    As for building the idea of getting consent more strongly into male consciousness, I guess you could have some kind of flirt-guidance app? Not a PUA how-to-seal-the-deal type thing, but pointers that suggest someone at the bar might be interested; polite ways of breaking the ice; how to take a rejection; a hookup checklist to make sure you have before leaving the bar (breath mints, condoms, etc); warning signs that suggest she might be too incapacitated to consent; making sure she’s having fun when you’re getting down… and one of the bullet points at each stage would say “if she’s not into it or says no, or you aren’t, back off–here’s how to do it gracefully”.

  7. Kind of irrelevant: I had to dial 911 a couple of days ago to report domestic violence. It was scary as hell. But! Did you know that if you dial 911 on your cell it automatically erases it from your history? I went to delete it and it wasn’t there. THAT’S BRILLIANT!

  8. On the topic of calling 9-11 on your cell…

    I had to call when I was personally in a crises situation with a man – and I’m not sure if this is just a Canadian thing – but my cell was actually “locked” until the police arrived.

    It didn’t say “911” on the call display and it didn’t remain on – but it wouldn’t let me make any calls, send text…anything. Before the police arrived, the man I was grabbed my phone to see if I had called anyone – and when it didn’t work, he got suspicious and angry (it made the situation worse).

    I get that its probably a means of locating/GPS type dealy so they can find us if we had moved… but it was actually a huge threat to my safety.

  9. many, many women in abusive relationships have partners that check their phones or control their cell phones somehow. I don’t think this is the solution.

  10. Amanda:
    On the topic of calling 9-11 on your cell…

    I had to call when I was personally in a crises situation with a man – and I’m not sure if this is just a Canadian thing – but my cell was actually “locked” until the police arrived.
    It didn’t say “911″ on the call display and it didn’t remain on – but it wouldn’t let me make any calls, send text…anything.Before the police arrived, the man I was grabbed my phone to see if I had called anyone – and when it didn’t work, he got suspicious and angry (it made the situation worse).

    I get that its probably a means of locating/GPS type dealy so they can find us if we had moved… but it was actually a huge threat to my safety.

    Hmm.. I’ve never heard of this (also in Canada).. the last time I called 911 I was able to use my phone after – mind you, I got like 5 or 6 follow up calls because there were a few different precincts involved. Long Story.

    but yeah, I would think that would be a huge problem.

  11. There’s a phone application at Brown University called Rave Guardian that functions sort of like the “dead man switch” that you described.

    You register online, giving your name and a either a photo or physical description to be released to police officers in case of emergency. Then to activate the switch, you call a number and enter a 4 digit PIN, the number of minutes on the timer, and a short voicemail with information to be given to the authorities (campus police officers) in case of emergency.

    If you the call the number back and enter your PIN before the timer ends, then the system erases your message and does not share your personal information with the police. If you don’t call back with your correct PIN, then the campus safety officers get a call with your voice message and can call you or send help right away. It will also give them your photo and your current location (determined using the signals to the phone). If someone is threatening you to enter your number when you don’t feel safe, you can enter an incorrect PIN and the Rave Guardian system will pretend to deactivate but then send someone over anyway.

    It’s a complicated system and I think some of the details could be implemented better, but I like that it can be used with any type of phone, not just a smartphone.

  12. I think the Rave Guardian thing sounds really interesting. It still puts the onus on the …I’m going to make up a word, here, based on that congresscritter who analogized being prepared for rape to being prepared for a flat tire – “pre-victim” to do all the setup and checking in.

    Which, come to think of it, is maybe not necessarily bad. Whenever we (in my circle of on and offline feminist friends) talk about male contraception, for example, or other things that put the ball in the man’s court, we all criticize it because none of us have sufficient trust to believe the hypothetical man who says he had a vasectomy, or is on the pill, or whatever. It seems the same here would also apply – that many women would not trust enough to sacrifice that control.

    I like the idea of a panic button or a live-man switch that can take many forms – smartphone app, pre-programmed phone that triggers 911 call when you hit a specific button, normal-looking pager that isn’t. The problem with those that aren’t “live-man switches” (is there a better word for that?) is what happens to the woman who gets disconnected from her device in some way.

    The joking suggestion I was going to make originally was for every woman who goes out somewhere to wear a little badge that says “NO” and she changes it to say “YES” if, when, and how, she chooses, using a PIN number or something, and then it changes back to “NO” after 20 minutes or something like that. And then everyone’s Facebook status or wall updates appropriately.

    But in the end, it comes down to do you trust the hypothetical man in the equation to stop when confronted with a ‘no’ at all, or do you assume there must be some other party who intervenes to stop the man? (And of course, this whole discussion is pretty heteronormative.) If you do, then the issues boil down to something cheap that gets a cop fast. And if that’s the case, I’m not sure there’s a better solution than the various donation programs around that get used cellphones to women facing domestic abuse, because even a phone with no plan will dial 911 (or it used to be that way).

    I dunno. Fascinating that the OVP is taking this interest.

  13. The fight against violence against women has reached the Office of the Vice President

    Fascinating that the OVP is taking this interest.

    Well, I imagine that office is taking an interest because Joe Biden works there now.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_Against_Women_Act

    Not trying to assume ignorance on anyone’s part, and in fact maybe the OP assumed that we all do know this — just to point out that this isn’t some new shiny interest JB just got.

  14. Sexual assault is generally pretty different from domestic violence. There’s some overlap, but really those are completely different issues that this article conflates entirely. Granted, so did the article it refers to, but that’s something I would think Feministe would be parsing out, not replicating.

    Apps to prevent domestic violence would target people who are controlled and abused by someone else, usually whom they live with, and who often lack the ability to walk away, not because they’re drunk, but because their abuser has the keys, the kids, their passport, or whatever. It’s entirely a different dynamic and psychology than the sexual assault examples discussed.

    DV victims shouldn’t be responsible for preventing their abuse either, but some kind of app that gives them emergency information for dealing with their situation doesn’t really seem like it’s passing off the problem onto them; it’s more of an attempt to deliver crisis services.

  15. I think that a fruitful approach might be apps that make it easier for bystanders to get involved in situations that are targeting their Sketch-o-Meter, but don’t seem to have escalated to “call the police” levels and aren’t things they’re necessarily personally equipped to handle.

    Like, for instance, seeing a very drunk woman getting into a cab with a man. He could be her boyfriend, taking her home to sleep it off, or he could be an attacker taking advantage of her incapacitated state. Are there ways that motivated bystanders could use technology to try to separate out those two situations?

    Or what about apps that make it possible to anonymously and securely report when you hear loud fighting, or potentially violent encounters? Police could review the database to look for locations that have had multiple reports of such encounters, or to contact potential witnesses after a crime has been reported?

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