I can't live my life in preparation for an attack." There's another issue: are these devices helping or hindering efforts to tackle sexual harassment and assault cases? Orla Sheehan, newly elected president of the Feminist Society at the University of Southampton, thinks the latter: "One of the fundamental issues with the Defender as marketed to women is that we should not have to carry one of these to be safe. McManus, however, says his device can be adapted for legal use: "For the UK market, there are alternative self-defence sprays that could be used." Most of these devices, including the Defender, may be classified as offensive weapons, and therefore illegal, in the UK. Another site, Rose Guardian, sells sharp-edged, cat-shaped "self-defense key-chains" and on Etsy you can find handmade switchblade necklaces. Women on Guard offers a pepper spray disguised as a hot pink perfume bottle for $12.95 (around £8), and Damsel in Defense carries what it calls "hermergency kits", which contain a waterproof whistle, a first aid kit and an LED flashlight, among other items. Several websites specialise in female-oriented protection products. The Defender joins a flourishing industry of self-defence devices for women in the US. "The service of responding to an alert and contacting the authorities is the real value," he says. Pepper spray is a long-established tool for self-defence, but the Defender has updated it for the internet age, according to McManus. It also doubles up as a medical alert device pressing a second button informs health services of a serious assault. The gadget is connected via Bluetooth to an app on your smartphone, sending the image of the attacker to a 24/7 monitoring system, which then forwards it to the emergency services along with GPS coordinates, which means the police can be dispatched straight away. "We hope that the technology will interest men and women, and men have been very interested in The Defender for their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers," he says. "The Defender started with a conversation about safety for a college student," says Ryan McManus, co-founder and marketing director of Pangaea Services, who developed The Defender.
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