- Easy to use: In an emergency, just bonk and break the bangles on the head of the offender. The red hot pepper powder or aerosol will temporarily blind and disorient the attacker providing time for the victim to escape to safety.
- Relatively low-cost and easy to manufacture: A low cost safety hack would simply involve wrapping the bangle with spaced strips of Sellotape to assuage the breakage impact on the wearer. A "safer" version could be made from a windshield-type glass material (that shatters into harmless fragments) to protect the wearer from any harm upon deployment. Another option to obviate the use of glass would be to use a modded plastic glow bracelet, which can provide an additional measure of assurance to the wearer (light) while traversing darker spaces in the urban landscape. A red indelible dye could also be added to the aerosol to "tag" the attacker. US Patent 5358144 "Self defense bracelet" and it's citing patents offer even more design possibilities.
- Symbolism: Red is a highly symbolic color for women in many cultures. In India, the breaking of bangles is an event heavily laden with symbolic meaning, occuring ritualistically at widowhood or as an accidental ill omen. Unlike the traditional post-event ritualism, however, the red bangles in our concept are broken DURING the attack, with the final outcome still hanging in the balance, transmuting a potential tragedy into an act of resistance and power, with an ill-omen converted into a saving grace.
- Deterrent effect: Deterrence can be scaled up by wearing more bangles to enhance confidence. An effective national ad campaign portraying the painful consequences for the attacker along with more positive messages of solidarity with the red bangle wearing women would widen the scope and scale of the deterrent effect. "Don't mess with me, I have THE red bangle!"
- Hard to steal or lose: Any man found with a red bangle would be subject to public shaming.
- Community: Every other woman who wears the distinctive red bangle is an instant partner in protection. The red bangle can also serve as a prompt to and a prop in women's self defence training.
- Local Production: Production of the bangle can be undertaken by a local women's cooperative to ensure a viable design and generate revenue.
- Healing: Making your own bangle out of molten glass and filling it with the red chilli powder could be a healing/empowerment ritual for survivors of previous attacks.
- Enlisting men to "protect" women as their "sisters": The Indian Raksha Bandhan ("Sister Protection Bond") festival could be leveraged (with corporate sponsorship) in the context of the red chilli bangle idea to enlist men as "protectors" of their chosen "sisters".
Red Chilli Powder Filled Glass Bangle for Women's Self-defense
A hollow glass bangle filled with hot red chilli powder or pepper spray for use by women in self-defense.
Written by Avi Solomon
Red Chilli Powder Filled Glass Bangle for Women's Self-defense
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49814079@N07/7488281568/
http://www.google.com/patents/US5358144
http://www.flickr.com/photos/poonamparihar/7843713952/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyhorizons/146237938/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarin1975/8303107268/
http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/handblown-glass-chili-pepper-ornament
http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/the-guardians-of-rajasthan/
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