The Future Is Now: Dorothy and Safety Apps

Women today are all too familiar with the awkward bar scene where someone won’t stop hitting on you to the point where it’s harassment. Now that women’s rights are coming more into the forefront of society there are more ways to escape unwanted advances than ever, including countless apps and different devices to help someone get away when just walking away isn’t an option.

Meet the new device Dorothy. Dorothy, developed by I Strategy Labs, is a device to help people get away from situations where you cannot simply say goodbye without being harassed. This is a little plastic device in a square shape that you can slip into your shoe for whenever you go.

To activate the device you click your heels three times. Once you do this, it will either activate a fake call to your phone to give you a way out of the conversation, text a friend where you are and that you need help or call an Uber car service which will come to your location to pick you up. You can program which of these is activated by the heel click. This is a subtle way to get out of a situation with little conflict.

An app that serves a similar purpose is circleof6. This app can prevent violence before it happens in a subtle way. You program six of your contacts into this app. Once you set up your app you have three options: car, call or text. If you press the car button a text will be sent to all of the people in your circle that says that you are in a potentially dangerous situation and sends a GPS location to be picked up at. The call option is if you need a reason to step away from the situation, it will send a text to your circle for someone to call you. The text option will say that you need advice on whether or not your relationship that you are in is healthy or not.

The design of this app is so simple that it will not take less time than texting so that the your harasser doesn’t think that you are trying to get help. This app is free to all smartphone users.

With one in four college women becoming victims of domestic violence, it’s important that you make sure to protect yourself from harm. Using either of these devices could be the difference between safety and rape for some people. It only takes a few minutes to download an app to protect yourself.