MISSION | Pretty Deadly

Pretty Deadly’s mission is to help millions of women feel safer through accessible, user-focused self defense.

We do this by providing martial arts and fitness professionals, studios and club owners the tools they need to deliver an innovative, field-tested program that grows client base, supports existing members and brings lapsed members back, and that sets the stage for long-term engagement through positive community impact.

What if we could reduce the risk of longterm trauma?

Self defense does not prevent violence.

It disrupts violent incidents as they happen, providing the target with autonomy and a sense of control, significantly reducing the potential short- and longterm impact of trauma.

Self defense changes the story.

Women who experience sexual violence suffer trauma that can lead to:

Reduced capacity to work
Menstrual irregularities & severe period pain
Difficulty conceiving and fear of childbirth
Intensified menopause symptoms
Depression
Suicidal ideation
Drug & alcohol abuse

Ongoing sexual harassment, violence and trauma costs everyone:

34.1% of students who have been sexually victimized drop out of college or university.

Workplace sexual harassment cost EU businesses $2.62 billion in lost productivity, which represents the loss of gross domestic product imposed by workplace sexual harassment.

Year over year, more than 25 million adults are raped in the U.S. alone, which carries a total economic burden of almost $3.1 trillion, according to 2019 CDC research.

GENERATIONAL TRAUMA

After a first generation survivor experiences trauma, they can transfer their trauma to their children and further generations of offspring via complex post-traumatic stress disorder mechanisms, e.g., adaptive coping mechanisms created to live with the trauma.

These trauma-incurred coping mechanisms are meant to be temporary; left untreated, they become what children and future generations learn as coping mechanisms for adulthood, adopting behaviors that, outside of the context of trauma, can become narcissistic, manipulative and ultimately abusive, perpetuating the cycle.