Aware And Prepared

Self Defense & System Failure: Tackling Violence Against Women with HASSL

• Mandi Pratt • Season 3 • Episode 19

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What if we stopped telling women how to stay safe and instead fixed the systems that make them unsafe? In this powerful episode, Mandi Pratt sits down with Amy Watson, founder of Hassl—a UK-based social enterprise dedicated to tackling public harassment at its root. Amy and her team are on a mission to shift the burden off of women to stay safe and onto society, where it belongs. Hassl is pioneering a prevention-first model that includes everyone, not just women.

Amy shares her journey of witnessing everyday harassment, and reaching a breaking point. Together, Mandi and Amy talk about the deep roots of gender-based violence, why victim-blaming is so insidious, and how we can reframe safety as a collective responsibility inviting men into the conversation and building a world that’s safer for all genders. 

Whether you’ve experienced harassment or are passionate about dismantling systems of injustice, this episode offers thoughtful solutions, real-life stories, and a hopeful path forward.

  • Why Hassl was created to address the root causes of public harassment
  • How current safety tools and apps unintentionally shift the burden to women
  • Hassl’s 5-part approach: public space design, awareness, systemic misogyny, reporting barriers, and more
  • How society often minimizes or normalizes street harassment
  • The need to involve men in real change (and how Hassl is doing just that)
  • Why prevention must come before response
  • How Amy’s personal experiences and deep sense of justice led her to found Hassl
  • The parallels between Amy’s mission and Mandi’s own journey of reclaiming safety after trauma

RESOURCES

Connect with Amy & Hassle:

Connect with Mandi:

 Hey, brave one. Welcome to the Aware and Prepared Podcast. I'm your host, Mandi Pratt, trauma-informed, resilient speaker, domestic violence victim advocate, and narcissistic abuse survivor. Here we keep it real with true crime stories and real world strategies to prevent emotional and physical harm. My guests and I share a mix of insight and survivor grit, all to help you feel safer, trust yourself more deeply.

And live with greater peace and power. Let's trade fear for freedom and step into the peace that you deserve.

 Tired of being catcalled, followed, harassed, or even assaulted. Well meet my guest today, Amy Watson, founder of Hassl where they tackle the root causes of public harassment. They're over it. So they're doing something about it all the way over across the pond from me in California and in the UK. So they are fixing the system, not women. So Hassl was founded in October, 2024 to tackle harassment at the root.

They wanna shift the burden off of women and onto society where it belongs. Agree. I definitely agreed, which is why I wanted Amy to come on and share with us what they're doing over there and have this all got started. So without further ado, let's welcome in. Amy Watson.

Well thank you so much Amy, for joining us.

So welcome in and tell us more about Hassl . Thank you so much for having me. Hassl is essentially a social enterprise, that is all around tackling harassment globally, but at the root. So it's kind of all about redirecting the responsibility of harassment away from women, especially as individuals and on society as a whole.

I found it in October, 2024. So we're still very new. But we're essentially have a five stage plan. As I say, that's all around tackling different root causes. So we've got poor public space design, lack of awareness, systemic sexism and misogyny and barriers to reporting. They're like our.

Focus points that, you know, allow this problem to, to keep happening essentially. Um, so yeah, we have a a five stage panel that's a combination of different tech tools and training basically that, all kind of hones in on how we can create a safe world as a society and not keep point more and more, you know, sort of mental load and the burden carry the burden, uh, of that alone, which is.

Unfortunately, not necessarily intentionally, but what, um, you know, a lot of products and brands out there that are kind of safety apps or self-defense products and things ultimately are putting more financial and mental burden on women. Even if the intention, you know, even if the intention behind it is good, which I'd like to think most are.

So yeah, it's all about kind of tackling it from a different angle and prevention, not dealing with it after the fact kind of, kind of thing. So yeah, that's a little story for you. Cool. I love it. Thank you so much. Yeah. Found you on Instagram and um, I loved what you were doing and how you were tackling this issue at the root, because it goes deep, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, absolutely. Like, I think, you know, as I say, kind of one of the things that we're tackling is systemic sexism and misogyny, and obviously that's not, that's a big thing to tackle. It's not, you know, not easy. But yeah, it's all obviously deeply rooted, you know, for. Years and years and years in the, the systems, you know, that we kind of, I guess, abide by every day.

And the, the environments we're in and the social conditioning of what we are and aren't expected to talk to, to kind of do, and especially what we're taught as gender roles plays a lot into that. So yeah, it's definitely an like extremely deep rooted problem. Um, but a lot of social issues are so, yeah.

True. And like you said, it's not something, you know, that we're gonna fix next year, but Yeah. Um, but definitely, you know, diving into that and making sure that. You know, I always talk about victim blaming, how Yeah, we don't victim blame, you know, because that gets us nowhere, right? And it just be victims down further.

And what we want to do is you know what you're doing and really address the whole picture. I say so many times that. Um, women's issue is a community issue. It's not just a women's issue, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a hundred percent like, I guess the mantra behind it because it's like.

This is a societal problem, and if anything, it's rooted in, in male violence, you know? Mm-hmm. If we kind of, yeah. Uh, it is unfortunately rooted in gender in terms of both, you know, violence against women, men, and all other genders is mm-hmm. Rooted, disproportionately with, um, with male violence.

We do have to bring. The topic of gender into it. Um, right. But it so you know, it's for everyone's, even if you don't wanna benefit, you know, the women in your life or whatever, it's still of benefit to everyone If we, if we tackle these root causes, 'cause you know, the hope is that it'll have a knock on positive effect for any, anyone else too.

'cause we're kind of trying to tackle that, you know, especially that male violence. Right, right. Yeah, and I love that. I, I can see that. You guys aren't just out there to be like men haters, but you're actually bringing the men in and you're helping them be ambassadors, which is amazing. So I loved seeing that.

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I, I kind of always said, like right from the beginning that I never felt like brands, charities, organizations out there that deal with these issues. Particularly talk to men or invite 'em into the conversation, or there is one, you know, there is also organizations working directly with men, but might be more around positive consequences for men, like maybe men's mental health and things like that.

Right. Mine is essentially like a women's safety brand, but designed around men. So it's a, a combination. That's kind of what I always felt like needed to happen. It was like, we're not gonna tackle this problem by just. Telling women that it's happening and getting them to help.

Like we need everyone on board. Right. And it definitely is like a fine balance, I think. You know, like you said, the kind of trying to avoid the man hating and that kind of side of things and trying to, you know, I always, I started it, especially the socials, knowing that I'd have to kind of bring. Women in first, because I knew they would be the ones who could relate and like definitely, you know, that would be the first advocates for this.

And to be honest, we're largely crying out for someone to do something like this. But then over time we started to, you know, we're really focused now on basically increasing our percentages, not only of ambassadors, but of social media following. So that, at we some point we get to kind of a, a 50 50, rough amount that we've, and we're spread kind of across all genders and there's no, that, that's kind of the end goal.

So we're starting to now bring in like a lot more content around, we've done like kind of a being a man series and trying to, yeah. Say like, being a man is, um. You know, and kind of almost that like opposite of like the toxic masculinity kind of alpha male like rhetoric or whatever. So yeah, it's, it is very much trying to do the opposite of that.

As I say, we had to get the, the women in first and you know, kind of other, genders too, who are more disproportionately affected by this issue. And then over time, you know, once. We've had more and more men join. We've seen that already. And I think it's through, you know, some, through, you know, their own autonomy kind of thing, but this through family sending our posts to them and like kind of helping them realize what women live every day kind of thing.

Yeah. So. Exactly. Yeah. It's been so like amazing to have men on board and like, we have a men's focus group every two weeks where we talk about. Essentially all, all different things around the initiatives and like what we're building and also ensuring kind of our social content speaks to, you know, that demographic.

And as I say, just kind of slowly moving it so that, you know, over time we don't lose the women in the process, but we bring more men in and yeah, essentially, like I kind of say that it's always about like dismantling the patriarchy at the end of the day, and it's kind of. Patriarchy also has a lot of negative effects for men.

So it, it is, you know, that's more, I guess, underlying our overall mission. But obviously the focus is on, the first priority focus is that the positive outcomes are for like mm-hmm. Violence against women and girls. But obviously there should be a lot of other positive knock on effects for everyone, so, yeah.

Right. Definitely. Yeah. That makes me think of, I had a, a special guest on in the past, he, he's a toxic masculinity expert. Okay. And, um, his name is Dr. Hill. I'll make sure to link to that in the show notes. But yeah, he was talking about that I love how he was actually sharing an example of what had happened to him.

He was standing in line and there was a guy in line and there were two women, and the guy was saying things about how women shouldn't lead or whatever, and I was so proud of him, how he addressed the other male without cursing at him.

Or like, just like full on letting him have it, which I know sometimes we wanna do. Yeah. Yeah. He was like super helpful and also very respectful to the women who were standing there. 'cause he first asked them, you know, do you mind if I if I speak to him for a minute about what's, yeah. And I was just like, oh my gosh.

Like, that's amazing. So I know further in our conversation that we're gonna brainstorm some ideas to have the men come alongside us and be allies, but, before we do that, I would love to hear how you got started with this and did it have anything to do with, um, the Sarah Everard case? Remember that?

Yeah. So she, I mean, it didn't, I guess, directly, but it was a accumulation of a lot of things. And I, I actually live in the same place where she went missing, so it wasn't a direct result of that. But I think it's just, a combination of hearing stories time and time again.

So she definitely, you know, her story definitely contributed, somewhere in my mind to, to thinking about this. For me, like I've had a lot of, you know, incidents of public harassment in various forms and levels of severity. And I think moving to London especially, 'cause I live in London now and lived in London for five years and I think moving to London.

Because there's so many more people and I travel a lot by myself, it kind of became even more apparent how bad it was, if that makes sense. It's just like a heightened Oh yeah. You know, you've got more frequency of seeing people and all this kind of stuff. Right. Um, I just had so many incidents myself and then.

Like whenever I used to speak to, any of my friends or just even people that, when you go to go to someone's birthday or something, like you get chatting to people and it's just, it just came up so often and I realized just how normalized it was that we talked about it in a way that.

Not, not that it's a joke, but in a way that's just like, oh, classic. Like, here we go again like this, and then we just move on. Yeah. Because we've got so used to like that being the norm. Yeah. Um, you know, and then in my previous job I like managed a team and I used to have, you know, people in my team coming in, being like, this happened to me on the train this morning.

And like, and I think obviously you feel very like protective over. You know, that's kind of how I manage, but I feel very like protective over my team and stuff. I think, yeah, it just got to a point with me where, as I say, it was, it was friends, it was colleagues, it was my own experiences, um, time and time again.

And I just, there was, there was basically an instant, which was one of my. Friends and ex-colleagues, where she'd essentially been followed and recorded. The man who had followed her, confronted him, had his face on video. He admitted he was following her in the dark, all this kind of stuff. And then at the time, I was her manager and she'd asked me, you know, can I have time off tomorrow to go to the police?

And I was obviously like, yes, of course. And essentially the response that she got was. Just drop it. Like there's literally no point. And I think for me that was like the final straw. 'cause I, it's bad enough to you, but then when it happens to someone care about, yeah. And the fact that, you know, most of the time we don't get evidence.

Like I don't think I've ever. From memory, from anything I can remember have ever videoed or voice recorded or anything. 'cause in that moment I'm just focusing on trying to, of course. Right. Um, it's, you know, people always say, you know, why didn't you feel like, why didn't you film and stuff? And it is really hard in that moment because you're just trying to, again, victim blaming.

Right? Yeah, exactly. And the fact that she'd actually been, you know, bold enough to Yeah. Not only, not only film him, but you know, fully ask him like. You're following me, aren't you? And he admits it and it's his face and all this kind of stuff. And, and just for them to turn around and say, don't bother, you know, and obviously without, you know, going into those details, like she was obviously upset by that response.

And I'd a couple of incidents literal, well this, I had an incident the same night that she had this incident. 'cause we were actually an event together and she'd just gone home a bit earlier than me. So she got followed and I got harassed like on the tube when I was going home.

So I'd actually text her, text her to basically be like, L classic happened again. And then she then told me what happened to her and I was like, obviously that's awful. So yeah, that was just like the final straw for me, I think. And. It is just, yeah, like you said, accumulation of all these stories of hearing in the media.

As, as I say, I live in the same place, you know, roundabouts where Sarah Arod got killed sorry, for our listeners who aren't familiar with that.

So she was unfortunately, killed and then when they were trying to figure out when she was missing and everything, didn't they tell everybody like to have a curfew and not and that Yeah, it was, yeah. I mean it was during, uh, I'm gonna try and make sure I get the details right.

'cause obviously I've been lizard to so many cases constantly, but it was during COVID I'm pretty sure, um, or roundabouts that time. And it was a police officer that actually stopped and. Basically told her she was breaking like curfew or something like that and she was just walking home from a friend's house.

Something like, she was on the phone with her boyfriend at the time. Um, you know, kind of done everything right that we're told to do right home down kind of main roads and stuff like that. And police officer basically pulled up to her and got her in the car and he was the one who ended up.

Murdering her. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, and it's just like, what chance do you have when you think you should trust people in positions of authority and Right. And I remember here in the US too, we were really upset about that too. And I remember the police making then a curfew, like, all the women stay in

and the women were like, what? How about let's keep the men inside? Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. And it is always like that. I mean, that's the problem. And the narrative for so long has kind of been like, men can't help themselves. So women should have to, restrict what they do.

And, I do think it's kind of reached a point where collectively with the rise of feminism and I guess the new generation who are like really proud to, you know, fight for women's rights and that kind of thing, I think it's all just kind of come to a head. Like you said, with more and more stories coming out all the time, and it's, I mean, in the UK it's like a national emergency, um, is in a lot of other countries and you know, and it's such a universal issue as well.

Like I think this is the thing, it's not an issue that. It transcends borders. It's Right. It's not based on your wealth or Right. Your race or whatever. Exactly. Everywhere. Like, and doesn't matter if it's a third world country or you know, a super progressive society, like it is just this experiences are so universal.

Mm-hmm. Um, I think that's, that's the thing. It's just, you know, for me, I felt like no one was speaking about it in the way, in like an unapologetic. We're not standing for this anymore. Right. And, and just trying to like highlight those narratives. Women too.

Like women victim blame a lot. Oh yeah. A lot of internalized misogyny and that kind of thing and Right. You know, sometimes you don't even realize you're doing it. And Yeah. And that's the start. That was the starting point for me was kind of like, how do I even just make people like think differently?

And that's how we start and then we build from there because. People will say about themselves, oh, well maybe I should have done this, or maybe I should, or maybe I shouldn't have gone that way, or whatever. And it's like, but it's not your fault. Like Right. Like we should be able to walk home at night and be safe.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and I think it's also all the contradictions of what we're supposed to do as well. Totally. In terms of, it's like. Don't, don't use public transport, get a taxi and then something happens in a taxi and it's like, don't, don't use a private taxi 'cause you go on your own.

So beyond public transport and something happens on public transport and it's like, don't have your earphones in so you can hear someone behind you. But then it's like, do have your earphones in, 'cause you supposed to indicate to them that you not, you don't wanna speak to them. And it's just overwhelming.

And it's like, there are hundreds of things like that I think for a long time I didn't realize that I was doing, you know, it becomes so normal. It's like second nature to us to Sure. Yeah. Yeah. When you get to your front door, do I, do I go to my front door and check there's no one there?

Or do I quickly just unlock it, you know, so I'm not hanging around and just all these tiny little calculations that we do. Right, right. Um, something for me, it was kind of just as a starting point. Like I wanted to make that a lot more known and just raise people's awareness of that. And as I say, women too, not just, you know, people who maybe haven't experienced it as much.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, and I guess like, long answer to the question, but, my whole life I've been really interested in social issues and always been quite interested in like politics and things like that. I always used to like keep me up at night just thinking about, you know, those kind of things from being pretty young.

I dunno why, I don't know what, what weird thing in my brain made me think about that. That's not weird. I just think that's one of your life values. It's justice, right? Yeah. I think it is real. It is that like just justice, you know, sensitivity kind of thing. Mm-hmm. And just being like. To me, I've always seen kind of everyone as equal, and I just have never understood how people see it any differently and how, how something like, you know, the color of your skin or the parents that you have, how in any way that determines whether you're a good person or not and all that kind of stuff.

And yeah, I mean, I grew up in a household. My parents are super supportive and like, they always kind of educated me a lot on. Like what was happening in the world I like to think I have a lot of the values that they hold and they've probably, you know, passed on a lot of that to me.

So yeah, I think I've always felt like I'm super privileged, because of, the family I was born into. Like, as I say, they're so supportive and I can't like, ask for anymore. And I, I did nothing to deserve that. Like, I just was born randomly.

It was just a lottery, right? Like I could've been born anywhere and I just always felt like I want use that for. People who can't do it for themselves. Like a lot of people would probably love to do what I do every day, but they are not in the position to maybe, you know, risk, risk the job or whatever.

And, and I am privileged enough to be able to do that. So, yeah, I always wanted to do something and I, I kind of always hated, I guess I hated charities, but I hated how they had to be so like. There's never any money and you are always having to like fumble around for, you know, scrape things together.

And, and I, I did my degree in entrepreneurship. When I was at university, this is when I like, kind of came across social enterprise as a concept because I think like I wasn't really that many people doing that at the time. And I was like, this is what I'm meant to do because I've always loved business.

I'd run my own, you know, smaller businesses and things and then. Yeah, I just was like, this is the perfect hybrid, using, business strategy and business models. So it's sustainable and self-funded, but actually for the purpose of making a positive impact in the world, not just like going in some,

generally rich, man's pocket kind of thing. Right, right. Yeah. That was when I discovered social enterprise, I was like, that's what I wanna do with my life. So Yep. That's why you're here, because I wanted to lift you up and share what you're doing with other people, because first of all, it's so brave.

Thank you. Yeah. And second of all, it's so needed. So, yeah, just wanted to share what you guys are doing and, love that you are tackling that from the root. A lot of times I will have people ask me, because my, so I started out because I have a crazy life story where I was married to somebody who ended up being abusive.

I left and then. Lo and behold, I find the FBI on my doorstep and they are there to tell me that. Um, ma'am, are you aware of your, I hope he's your, soon to be ex. Are you aware of his whereabouts lately? We've been searching for him for the past six to nine months for multiple bank robberies.

And I was like, what? Oh my. So when that happened, I realized, you know, that we were in a whole different realm than I thought we were, right? So I thought we were just getting away from an abuser, which was horrible on its own. Um, 'cause I suffered so much post-separation abuse. But then now we have like the criminal element.

So, you know, he had become a gambler and. Yeah, I guess that had led to the bank robbery. And so now it was me and my son who was only like four at that time. And so I just thought, oh my gosh, you know, like, I don't know, does he owe somebody money? Do they know where we live? You know, so I felt like I had to start,

protecting ourselves. 'cause same thing. I would go to the police, it would take 20 minutes, blah, blah, blah. You know? And they would just say, oh gosh, you know, it's another restraining order violation. Well, he is already done. You know?

And I actually took a lot of self defense, training. And so I, that's how I started my business because I decided, you know what, like we need a woman friendly space because I. I was already traumatized. I had complex PTSD and I was going to somebody who was a family friend, so that was helpful. But he was super gnarly.

So like, you know, teaching me how to use a gun and like all these things. And I was like, whoa, okay. But like what women wanna know about pepper spray? Where's that? You know? Yeah. And so it's finding out about all that and then teaching others, women specifically in a softer space and helping them understand, like, they always wanna know what's the tools, but really the best tool is our brain, right?

And so I'm always sharing that and about our intuition and, you know, making sure it's not victim blamey. I was gonna say, I mean obviously sorry to No, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry to hear as well. I mean it's, you know, obviously I hear stories constantly and it's horrendous like what people have experienced and stuff.

I always kind of say that it sounds like I'm shading self-defense stuff, and it's not that I don't think it's got its place. It's just I don't think that should be the only thing but in the meantime, we should also be tackling it. You know, it is kind of the same with like healthcare is, you know Yeah. Totally treat things when it happens, but we should also be preventing these things from happening in the first place as much as possible. Exactly.

And like you said, if you're in that situation and you are, you are afraid, or, I mean, a lot of women are just afraid in general, not even, you know, from us. Like being in a specific situation like that. If it does give you some peace of mind, if it does at least give you some, like you said, some kind of tools to use to feel like you are prepared.

If a situation arises, then you know, that's, that's really important too. It is just, I always say we are not a self-defense type thing. To make it really clear. Do you know what I mean? Because that's kind of Yeah, totally. Almost the opposite of what we did. Not the opposite, but you know, kind of the The complimentary definitely.

I mean, obviously if we only use self-defense tools. And did those things, then there wouldn't be a problem. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's not fixing it. Yeah. And they also find new ways around it, like, you know.

Yeah, exactly. The technology when you're, abused, oh gosh, online or whatever, there's just, as soon as they bring in new legislation or new technologies to prevent it, to just find another way around it. So that's the thing, like air tags. Yeah. I always kinda say you're plastering over the problem to an extent, but

you are not fixing it to prevent it happening in future. Obviously there's also a place, like we said, I mean the problem is as well, I guess that it, it varies country to country, but in terms of what self-defense tools you are allowed to use. Yes. You use a self-defense tool, it can be held against you if you go to court.

It's so different. I'm in California. Yeah, you're in London. And I know that, you know, like you guys can't even carry pepper spray. Not that that's the end all be all, but um, I always carry two different things on me and.

I am lucky because I can do that, you know? Um, and it does help me feel safer only because I have studied it. I've practiced it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't just chuck pepper spray in my purse and think I'm good or the worst. I always tell people, please, please don't like put it on your key chain. Yeah. Because then there's no element of surprise.

Yeah. You know, so anyway, but um, that's a whole nother conversation. But, um, yeah. So to wrap up what we were saying, yes. Self-defense is important, but I think that it's important to look at it holistically. Because like I will go to like women's events and I'll see out on the table, like, you know, those companies that sell the gadgets and all that, but like, that's not gonna help if we're not teaching, like listening to our intuition.

Right. Yeah. Or if we're not like addressing the whole issue, making sure that we're raising up young men who respect women and who, you know, truly know what consent means and who go off to college and realize, guess what? The laws in general also apply in college, you know?  Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Yeah.

So how can people follow you and find out about all of that? Yeah, so, our website is just has.uk, that's it. H-A-S-S-L. , It's hassle but without an E on.

You can also go and follow those on socials, which is just hassle official on. All accounts. So H-A-S-S-L and then official.

All right, so we're actually going to wrap up this part of our great conversation between me and Amy Watson from Hassell, because we had so much good stuff and this first part we wrapped up. This is just the beginning. We've pulled back the curtain on how women are expected to keep themselves safe and.

Talking about the burden women carry and the broken systems that fail them. But in part two, we dig into actually what needs to change and how we start making it happen. So we have actionable, tips in part two coming next week that will help you. So I hope that you stay tuned and join us next week.

 Thanks for being here on the Aware and Prepared Podcast. Don't forget to hit, follow that little plus sign in your app in the top right, ensures you never miss an episode. Curious how tuned in your intuition really is. Take the free quiz at aware and prepared. Life and get your score. See how sharp your inner guide is.

Remember, you are worthy of a safe and peaceful life. Talk to you next week.