My colleague Lauren Taylor of Defend Yourself! and I wrote an editorial that appeared in the online edition of the Washington Post on Monday after critics blasted newly crowned Miss USA for promoting self defense as a method of preventing sexual assault.

We said, 

"Of course we believe that only one person is responsible for any act of violation: the perpetrator. But we also believe in the power and agency of women. In a dangerous world — in the face of what the American Medical Association has called an “epidemic” of sexual violence — there are things all people can do to increase safety for ourselves and for one another.

This is why we believe the White House was wrong to omit self-defense from its prevention recommendations to college campuses. And why we think Miss USA was right to endorse it."

Read the rest of the editorial here.