Red Emma’s

Don’t walk alone at night. Don’t leave your drink unattended. Don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

Most women and nonbinary people are taught these rules, intended to keep us safe from harassment, abuse, and assault, from a young age. While the #MeToo movement has swept the globe and shined a light on the pervasiveness of gender-based violence that led to these “rules,” the fears persist—and for good reason.

While men—who commit almost all gender-based violence—are the ones who should be responsible for changing, those of us who are targeted shouldn’t have to wait for the world to transform and become a better place in order to live safer, fuller, more authentic lives.

Through real-life stories, meaningful questions, and interactive exercises, Get Empowered will teach readers to:

• understand why gendered violence exists and how it shows up
• take up space
• say what they want
• let go of self-blame
• heal from past traumas

Whether you’re looking for ways to stand up for yourself, you’re a survivor focused on healing, or you’re committed to being an ally, this book will give you the tools you need to thrive.

Lauren has been working to end gender-based violence since 1978, when she co-founded Washington, D.C.’s first shelter for abused women. As an empowerment self-defense teacher and founder-director of Defend Yourself, she’s trained more than 35,000 people in the D.C. area and elsewhere in the U.S. She's also trained dozens of trainers around the country and around the world.

Lauren's also co-founded and directed Safe Bars, which teaches active bystander skills to staff of bars, restaurants, breweries, and clubs, working to create safe and respectful hospitality spaces. ​ Lauren R. Taylor’s work has been featured in The Washington Post, Self, the Huffington Post, and on National Public Radio, Upworthy, and .Mic. Her writing has been published in The Washington Post, Ms. Blog, and more. She has spoken at the National Sexual Assault Conference, the National Center for Victims of Crime Conference, Creating Change, and the Houston Women's Conference, which together reach more than 8,000 leaders in the field.

Sarah Trembath, a Baltimore resident, is instructor emeritus at Defend Yourself, a Washington DC-based organization that empowers people in a culture of gender-based violence. She is also a writer and a teacher of writing at American University whose work has appeared in Radical Teacher, the Rumpus, the Washington Independent Review of Books, the Grace in Darkness anthology of DC women writers, and several other publications. She has written two books: It Was the Scarlet that Did It (Moonstone Press, 2019) and This Past Was Waiting for Me (2nd ed.; in press, Lazuli Literary Group). She was the 2019 recipient of the American Studies Association’s Gloria Anzaldúa Award for independent scholars for her social justice writing and teaching.