‘Women need to protect themselves against sexual assault’: Meet the girl fighting for nationwide campus carry

“As a woman, what can I do to protect myself at a school that isn’t doing anything about it?” says Antonia Okafor, graduate student at UT Dallas, and founder of EmPOWERed, a movement of women on college campuses using their guns for self-defense.

Okafor started EmPOWERed a year ago because she believes a woman can be a feminist, pro-female empowerment and pro-gun.

She says women are “embracing” this stance regardless of political background – so we spoke to her about the growing movement of armed young women on campus.

Are women safer being able to carry guns?

Stats have not shown that campus will be safer with guns. It’s more about the individual. There are stories every day of women protecting themselves against sexual assault or violence in general with guns. We’re enabling law-abiding citizens – a student – to make that decision for herself with a firearm on campus. Let them have the same option to personal protection on-campus just as they do off-campus.

Do you find a lot of women disagreeing with you?

Yeah, definitely. A lot of people hear “gun” and think “gun violence.” I know where that comes from, and we’re not going to be people who say anything bad about that. But there are also women who want to protect themselves from people who are going to harm them regardless of the law, so that they have some way of protecting themselves. It’s a voice that has not been heard as much. I talk to women every day who hate my politics but who now see guns as not a weapon but as a tool for their self-defense.

You’re pro-life. Can you speak about feminism and the role it plays for you?

I am proud of calling myself a feminist. I wouldn’t say I’m a third-wave feminist, but I’m definitely a classical feminist. I taught feminism to inner city girls for two years. I teach them empowerment for women — getting them into politics. Feminism is about equality of the sexes, that means all people. Being feminist and pro-gun definitely intersects well.

You’ve been called a sellout. Do you feel women pushing you to be a victim for them?

I feel people generating the message the people on top are the ones who gain from this victimhood mentality. This narrative is one I heard when I was a leftist, and I got really sick of it. The message was not empowering, it was defeating.

So I said OK. If the government gets out of the way I can do a lot of these things myself.

What kind of backlash have you received?

It depends – on the black side, or the feminist side. Black Twitter basically got upset with me when I took a picture with Tomi Lahren. It’s this guilt of association — you’re with someone who has a different view than a black woman should have. So then you become a “traitor” against your race, against your sex when that’s not true. That’s the age we’re in – you can’t have a slightly different view and not be on the same team. That’s the gist of the attacks I get.

What’s the end goal – a gun for every student, on every campus in America?

We want campus carry to be a reality in every state. We want those who have guns off-campus already to be able to have them on campus as well.

What guns do you have?

I always have my Ruger LC 9, that’s my self-protection gun. The first gun I had was a shotgun – even before a handgun – for home defense. A lot of people grew up that way, using a shotgun as their home defense gun. But having a gun on my person, on campus, was really important to me. So the handgun came after.

What has been your most proud moment?

A girl read one of my pieces about why as a black woman it was important for me to protect myself. She’s on the other side – very liberal, voted for Bernie – but she told me she finally looked at a gun and realized it was something that could be used to protect herself against someone who is a bigot, who wants to harm her because of the color of her skin. She told me how much I had changed her mind on that. It’s going to be slow process, one step at a time, but we can come together on this Second Amendment, self-defense issue.

@carolinephinney