About Face

Susie Kahlich has always been brassy, even back to her early years in Chicago and punk rock days in 1980s New York. In this episode, we sit down and talk about the impact of sexual assault, the night she was brutally attacked in L.A. and her life’s work teaching self-defense to women. We did this interview before the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, before the #metoo campaign went viral. At the time, not even two months ago, it did feel like no one was talking about all the forms of harassment and assault that don’t involve penetration or rape that doesn’t involve a stranger or violence, but is still, just as painful, just as unwanted.  And we all know that it has everything to do with power. Even the conversation felt so cutting, and yet beneath the surface, both of us simmering with this feeling, this anger and agitation and fear and rage about what we knew had happened to us, what had happened to others, and this consuming, feeling that there was so much to say, so much unsaid. This episode is about sexual