Juanita always hated hearing about women who have had to pick up lock stock and barrel and move somewhere to get away from a stalker and then who continued to live in fear. As can be seen from the strategies she suggests, it is not terribly difficult to prevent stalking with some effective strategies. And even if prevention doesn't happen, it is also possible to stop stalking, again given the right strategies. The differences between the running away method and Juanita's method are that Juanita's method works and it doesn't require people to live in fear.
I thought it was really important to put something about stalking on this blog because this is a huge problem. Also, this shows another way to use the apology strategy.
15 April 1997
Jeffrey Toobin
c/o The New Yorker
20 W. 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
Dear Jeffrey Toobin
We read with a great deal of interest your article in the New Yorker about stalking.
As battered women's advocates with a combined thirty-some years of service, we have found that the best way to deal with stalking is to identify the problem as early as possible and to address it before it becomes life threatening.
Of course, anyone would agree with this idea; however, most people are not aware of either the signs of possible stalking behavior (except at the point where the behavior is already well established) or effective strategies for dealing with the potential stalker at an early point.
We found ourselves drawn to the scenario of "Mary" and "John" which began your article; the following is a brief analysis of how Mary might have been able to identify John's problematic behavior earlier in the scenario and how she might have been able to stop his behavior before it got to the point of requiring such drastic action to protect herself.
There are two events in the scenario that we would like to address: The first event is John asking Mary "if he could help her move her trash cans back from the curb after a garbage pickup." Event two consists of John's escalation of his "help": "A couple of days later, he just went and picked up the cans for me. Then I noticed that he was putting them behind a gate, inside my house."
It is clear from the unfortunate outcome of this scenario that John did not have Mary's best interest at heart; he may have said how much he "loved" her and he may have appeared to be generous with gifts, but his primary interest lay in having a person to control. John had to have sized Mary up before risking his initial approach. We think it likely that he was threatened by Mary's appearance of competence and independence. At some level he wondered if she was all that she appeared to be. He suspected that she might be vulnerable, and he devised a test in order to find whether or not he might be able to gain control over a seemingly independent woman.
Women are socialized to respond to men in two ways when the interaction with a man is not based on romance: fear and sympathy. Unfortunately, neither of these ways helps a woman to prevent a likely stalker from escalating his behavior.
In Event 1, John makes a request of Mary. A request is not a command or order--it leaves the opportunity for saying no, for turning it down.
Mary thought that John was just trying to be nice, and that she should be nice in return. She responded to John with sympathy, and in so doing, she gave John a gift: strength. His initial "plan" (whether or not this is fully worked out consciously in John's mind does not matter) worked and he gained the strength (from Mary's sympathetic response) to take the next step which is an escalation of his "help" and, not coincidentally, his access to Mary.
The main symptom that Mary missed (and many women would miss, by the way) is that the help was not needed. The garbage cans were empty and in any case city garbage cans are often designed for ease of transport. The cue to remember in this situation is: When someone offers or asks to give help where no help is needed, one should--appearances of friendly gestures notwithstanding--be cautious of ulterior motives.
Had Mary known of this cue, there is a strategy that would have stopped John in his tracks. John began by asking a question. By answering his question Mary came under John's control of the conversation, which was the first step in his control over her. When unsure, it is a wise technique to respond to a question with a question. Mary could have looked at John with a pleasant expression on her face and asked, "Why?" John would no longer have the control he sought to assert through his strategy of asking a question.
Mary could continue her strategy of questioning as she pulled the garbage cans to their resting place herself. In a pleasant voice, and in the spirit of rhetorical questioning, she might say in John's hearing: "Why do men in general feel that women cannot take care of themselves? Do men think women are weak or fools or both? Why do men think that any woman should jump at the chance to have his help? Why..."
It is important that Mary do this in the spirit of intellectual curiosity and not anger or hostility toward men in general or John in particular. The purpose of this strategy is not that Mary can become oppressive or hurtful to John; rather, this strategy allows Mary to retain control over the conversation. Both the content of what Mary says (wondering out loud why men think women need certain kinds of help) and the fact that John lost control of the conversation the moment he finished asking his question give John an extremely important message: Mary is not an easy victim. If he wants an easy victim (and that's what stalkers want), he will have to go elsewhere.
Mary did not know about this strategy, so she did none of this. John walked away having gained admittance into her life, a portion of her strength, and the seed of disrespect for Mary that he would shortly flaunt in the guise of more "helpfulness."
John lost no time in displaying his disrespect for Mary by escalating immediately into removing her trash cans without permission from her. When Mary let this pass John rewarded her with escalation into absolute contempt and no respect by entering her house (still hiding behind "helping" with the trash cans).
If Mary had hesitated at first about John's motivations, here is where she might have seen a confirmation that he was up to no good. A wise and respectful man, seeking to help for legitimate reason, would never enter a woman's house without her express invitation. The fact that John entered Mary's space uninvited is a clear sign that he had an inappropriate idea (at best) of his "right" of access to her.
John has escalated his behavior and should Mary want to deal with it at this point, she needs to escalate her behavior--but not in an aggressive way. The technique we recommend at this point seems counterintuitive; and yet we have seen this technique work again and again. Both of us have used this technique in countering the efforts of potential stalkers in our own lives.
The technique in question is an apology. Mary needs to get to the garbage cans before John does--to meet him there. She needs to say to him something like: "John, I owe you an apology. I am sorry that I have allowed myself to become such an intrusion on your life. I apologize for this and I can assure you that I will not be doing this again in the future." Then she needs to take care of her garbage cans herself, in front of him.
In the original scenario Mary got John to stop bringing in the garbage cans by telling him that he did not have to do that job any more. But her technique did not remove John from her life.
The apology technique is a more effective technique than simply telling John he no longer had to do that job in part because an apology is a taking of responsibility for something. When a responsible person takes responsibility for something, that is very threatening to an irresponsible person, who does not wish to have this example held up before him. Mary takes responsibility for being a bigger part of his life than is necessary--and it is true, that she is a bigger part of his life than is necessary.
The other aspect of this apology technique is that Mary should choose her words carefully. She should choose words that would describe his behavior--which is why she should use the word "intrusion"--but without making direct accusations toward him. Were she to make accusations, he would feel justified in becoming threatening to her because he would perceive that she had committed a wrong against him. Instead, couched in the terms of a sincere apology in which she takes responsibility for "intruding" on his life, John cannot take offense. At a more subtle level, the apology makes John realize that Mary has a perspective on their relationship that is not conducive to his continuing the escalation. Again, she becomes a difficult victim and he will probably choose to go elsewhere.
It is abundantly clear that the stalker will not leave the victim alone because of her fear and suffering--in fact, he psychologically feeds off of this kind of control over her. But he will leave her alone because of his own discomfort. The important principle in dealing with potential stalkers is to find a third avenue, not fear or sympathy (both of which allow him to establish and/or continue his control of the situation), but through communicating one's own sense of self--both confidence in one's self and willingness to take responsibility for one's impact on others. This kind of communication is non-accusatory; it does not "turn the tables" on the stalker. Instead, it lets the stalker know in no uncertain terms that this woman is not going to be easy to control. Finally, the best time for stopping a stalker is as close to the moment of his first attempts to take control as is possible.
Thank you for writing such an excellent article.
Sincerely yours,
Juanita D. Price
Carolyn E. Cutler
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