Pepperspray, Running with Headphones, and Other Self-Defense Myths
Food, We Need To Talk
Juna Gjata
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2025
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we talk to self-defense expert Meg Stone about the safety advice we’ve all heard—like whether you should ditch your headphones while running or give your kid pepper spray. Meg breaks down what actually makes you safer, why some classic tips don’t hold up, and how feminist self-defense can change the game. We also dive into how to balance risk with quality of life, so you can live your life and feel secure doing it.
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to another episode of the talk. Today we are continuing our conversation with Meg Stone, all about self-defense. And Meg, the first question we have for you is actually from one of our listeners, Megan. And the gist of the question is, is there any specific advice for runners? I know we've all seen a lot of really scary news stories of runners being |
| 0:23.9 | attacked. I know it's probably not that common, but I know like you run with your headphones. |
| 0:28.0 | That's also really scary is that like you can't hear what's going on. So yeah. Yeah. The reality |
| 0:33.0 | with most sort of practical safety questions is that there's not like a magic controlled experiment |
| 0:40.6 | where like half the runners had their headphones and half the runners didn't and they all ran the |
| 0:45.4 | same course at the same time and these got attacked and these didn't. So a lot of the questions |
| 0:50.8 | that are answered by higher quality evidence are not available in personal safety. |
| 0:56.5 | So in terms of running and in terms of any sort of activity that makes your life good, what I would |
| 1:03.9 | say, exactly, though my own personal running, whether it makes my life good is a little questionable. |
| 1:11.4 | Yeah, yeah, same. |
| 1:12.8 | Yes, I get very sore when I run and I'm getting slower and slower. |
| 1:16.5 | But anyway, what I would say is you're always balancing your quality of life with your risk tolerance. |
| 1:23.5 | So if you are fine running without headphones and you like looking around and it makes you feel better and it makes you feel safer, do it. |
| 1:34.2 | If you're like me and if you don't have music, your body will just not move, then I don't want to take that away from you. |
| 1:41.8 | I don't want to take something good away from you. |
| 1:43.7 | Some people say use one headphone, but when it comes to any sort of mundane or regular life |
| 1:54.4 | activity, really what I would say is get some basic feminist empowerment self-defense skills so that you can live your |
| 2:05.5 | life and if something comes up, you're ready for it. |
| 2:08.8 | Even before we get to the feminist self-defense skills, just a pragmatic thing, there was someone |
| 2:15.9 | running in my neighborhood in the dark without any thing |
| 2:21.3 | bright or lit up or high visibility or reflective. And I drove and I, of course, consider |
| 2:29.7 | myself and I'm a very attentive driver. That goes without saying. So I slowed down to say like, |
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