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Flip the Script

The Flip the Script with EAAA program is designed to empower women in all their diversity to stand up for their sexual rights.

Flip the Script is a trauma-informed, interactive curriculum delivered by two highly trained peer educators. Four 3-hour units provide a positive and fun environment that empowers young women to:

  • Assess: We begin by examining risk factors for sexual violence, and cues that indicate increased risk.
  • Acknowledge: Identify the barriers that make it difficult for us to resist when someone is being coercive
  • Act: Provides you with a range of verbal and physical strategies for keeping yourself safe if someone tries to hurt you.
  • Relationships & Sexuality: explore your relationship values and boundaries and feel empowered to express them in personal relationships.

Unit content includes:

  • mini-lectures
  • games
  • audio and video clips
  • individual, small, and large group application activities
  • 3 hours of empowerment self-defense.

Why 'Flip the Script'?

As they grow up, girls are often taught to believe that they are responsible for preventing an assault. They're taught to fear stranger attacks and to stay safe by carefully monitoring their whereabouts, actions, and clothing choices. They're also led to believe that if they are assaulted, it's somehow their fault, and they're told they lack the strength to defend themselves.

This is wrong.

One in five young women will experience sexual assault during their university years. One in three women who are 15 or older will experience physical violence from a partner, ex-partner, family member, or someone they know.

Girls and women are not to blame when someone else makes the decision to hurt and coerce them into sexual contact that they do not want. Further, it doesn’t matter where women go, what they do, or what they wear – this doesn’t protect them; it just restricts their freedom. And, women are not taught that the men who are most likely to hurt them are men they know – this isn’t to say that every man they know wants to hurt them, just that the men who are most likely to hurt them, aren’t strangers to them.

Evidence shows women who fight back have a far greater chance of escaping an assault compared to women who don’t, and the more resistance strategies a woman uses, the more likely she is to escape.

Traditional stereotypes that girls and women are socialised to believe are harmful. It is never your fault for being assaulted and women have the right and the strength to resist.

Let’s flip the script for women. In this evidence-based program, participants learn to trust themselves and overcome the social pressures to be “nice”.

How to register

Audience: Women up to the age of 30 years enrolled at La Trobe University
Duration: 12 hours (delivered in 2 -full days or over 4 evenings)
Capacity: no more than 20 women per session
Cost: FREE including full catering (to the value of $2000 per participant)

Upcoming Sessions:

Melbourne (Bundoora) Campus: Friday 22 & Saturday 23 March - 10am - 4.30pm

Bendigo: Friday 12 & Saturday 13 April - 10am - 4.30pm

Melbourne (Bundoora) Campus: Friday 26 April & Friday 3 May - 10am - 4.30pm

Register your interest

About the program

Flip the Script was developed by Professor Charlene Senn at the University of Windsor in Ontario and is currently the only program available that’s been evaluated in a clinical trial and shown to significantly reduce the incidence of sexual assault. It’s one critical piece of our comprehensive strategy to prevent sexual harm on our campuses.

For information on the curriculum and its research, visit the SARE Centre website.

The program was recommended to me by a friend in my halls of residence and I would certainly recommend it myself. Having experienced sexual harassment, I was worried the session would be too confronting. However, the facilitators handled the difficult subject matter perfectly, meaning I was able to engage with the sessions and leave them feeling empowered. I am so grateful for this program, allowing women to appreciate their strength and feel more confident in their safety.

Flip the Script Program Participant

For more information about the program at La Trobe email the Respectful Communities team, respect@latrobe.edu.au