What do Kim Khardashian and Maria Shriver have in common...Stephany Alexander founder of Woman Savers, and author of "Sex, Lies and the Internet", has been the leader in on line men's database ratings since 2003, making us the first and most established of its kind. If only there were a way you could talk to men's exes BEFORE you got involved and be able screen your dates free and easily. Well, now you can "Research & Rate B4 U Date" to promote safer dating worldwide. Millions of women have posted their experiences networking together to help women worldwide avoid dating alleged cheating men, lying men or abusive men. Website: www.womansavers.com
Pictures provided on Diva Maverick Mavens website are courtesy of Stephany Alexander.
Angelia Miller is the founder of Diva Maverick Mavens www.divamaverickmavens.com a new bread of feisty, non-conformist adventure loving adrenaline-high entrepreneur. The tag-line is: Empowering Women by Interviewing Empowered Women...Inspiring "You" to Take Action! Casting exceptional dynamic talent for fresh content is the mission of Diva Maverick Mavens. The interview is in the original transcript form with minimal editing to preserve the integrity of the content. Tell me about your background and how did you start Woman Savers? Stephany Alexander I started Woman Savers in 2002. I have experienced all forms of abuse: emotional, physical, sexual and verbal throughout the years. I experienced sexual abuse as a child and then emotional and physical abuse in college. I was date-raped; thereafter, I had to file a restraining order against somebody I was dating. And then I started internet dating and then I had a series of very bad on line dating experiences where people completely misrepresented themselves completely and wasted my time. I then actually met someone through an associate I knew and was involved with him for 3 years and then we had a bad breakup. I was living in New York City at the time and I thought wouldn't it have been great if I would have had the opportunity to speak to one of their ex's before moving so fast, putting my heart on a platter and basically uprooting and changing my entire life. I came up with the idea of Woman Savers and it works like this if you date someone you can put your experience on the website be it positive or negative and if another woman has contact with that guy she can contact the author and ask what was that guy like with you. It's like a little black book but now its gone to the internet and it's now internationally accessible. What was the actual moment when you went from being a victim to being a victor? Stephany Alexander When I started helping other women, I started healing. It's a magical thing. What it does is put your situation into perspective because there is always a person out there who has it worse. When I started reading some of the stories of abuse on my website and started guiding them, I couldn't believe what I was reading. I was reading stories of women whose dates molested their children and on and on. It made my situation seem like nothing. It helped my healing to speed up and thereafter it empowered me because I was changing things in a big way. Tell me about a specific story that was really disturbing to you? Stephany Alexander There was a story of a serial bigamist. He was married to 7 different women in different states and marriage records are currently interlinked in Nevada, Texas and Florida. He targeted older women who were insecure, wanted to get married and they were lonely. He knew exactly what he was going after. They were so happy to have a man in their life they wouldn't question why he would be working on all these holidays like Christmas. They found out about each other thought the website and started talking to each other and became empowered. One of the women wrote a book about her experience and the guy got into a lot of trouble. Women can empower themselves by research and being more informed about their decisions. If you run around blindly trusting people without doing your research, your gonna get burned. Why the guy would want to have that many wives is beyond me but different strokes for different folks. The movie "Obsessed" with Ali Larter and Beyonce is about stalkers. Can you tell me about some of the celebrities on your websites that have had these experiences? Stephany Alexander Stalkers are very common today and even more so with the internet. You can find anything out about anyone. You can do a background check on websites Intelius.com for under $50. Knowx.com is another good one. You can google their name find out what their house looks like what their neighbors are and who their relatives are, if they own a boat or plane, if they have professional licenses. You can find out pretty much everything about them and that's scary. If you've got somebody who wants to stalk you, the internet gives them an open door. They can trace you on face book or twitter so you have to be very careful if you are a politician or have celebrity status. Politicians and celebrities have to be careful with what they let the public know because you never know who is going to snap. Barbara Niven who is an actress on Young and the Restless I met her in LA I'm a friend of hers and she did an endorsement for Woman Savors. She had a stalker. He was a reporter and he had done a story about her 10 years ago. He had been stalker her and showing up at locations where she was at and it got ugly. She had to get a restraining order. She said he seemed extremely lucid. You never know who you are dealing with. And I've had stalker women and men. You said that you have had death threats. What have you suffered bringing this information to women? Stephany Alexander I haven't really suffered. It hasn't been an easy website to create. Basically Woman Savers is a search engine that categorizes women's information so we don't author it, edit it, we don't do anything to it. It's the author that creates it. The laws that govern the internet currently go like this: your free to state your opinion like I think John or Jane is a jerk but if you say something that could be libel such as John or Jane gave me Aids you had better have factual proof that you could prove in a court of law. So if you are anywhere even on a blog you need to make sure you state your opinion and tell the truth and that will help protect you. I've had a lot of legal threats because people thought I could be sued or the company and websites, blogs owners and message board owners are protected under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which basically states that third party providers can not be held liable for what somebody else says. We're not authoring, we're not writing it, so we are not liable for it. The internet wouldn't even exist if the owners were liable for everything that other people wrote. Those are some of the troubles I have dealt with besides the stalkings and the threats. That is a hardship. You had a life where you didn't have that and now you have that. Stephany Alexander That's true I've become a little hardened. In the beginning, I was very sensitive I guess and now I have learned to use the delete button pretty quickly. What advice can you give to someone who may be potentially dating someone who is an abuser. Stephany Alexander If a woman is really strong, she walks at the first sign of abuse. When she sees those red flags she turns and walks away and doesn't give it a second thought. Some women are already in to deep. Once a woman becomes intimate with a man she becomes emotionally attached and in the very beginning a lot of men don't show their abusive behavior if they did there would never be a second date so this is something that happens slowly. If they're strong enough maybe walk away if they aren't maybe give that person a second chance but many women are nurturing and they want to go in a fix these people. It's not our jobs to fix them, it's their job to fix themselves. What is the biggest mistake women make when they are dating? Stephany Alexander Moving too fast and trusting blindly. I know a lot of women who meet somebody and just because he talks a good game he's a wonderful guy. Well sociopaths, narcissist, con artists and abusers already have their game down. They know how to charm people. They know how to get people hooked. If they weren't as charming as they are they would never get to point B. If you meet someone you think is great or too good to be true then it's time to do your research. I compare dating to doing a research paper. You find out the person's real first and last name. You google it in quotes. You do a full background check on them. You do a character check on websites like Woman Savers and if you are a single mother you do a sexual predator search. The internet is like a candy store to a predator. These women will take pictures of their children on line and immediately that gives a predator instant access to a mother's child. I have countless stories of pedophiles. There was a woman who date a man she met on line. She thought he was the most wonderful man who showed a lot of interest in her 6 year old son and wanted to spend time with him and offered to baby sit him. Well, suddenly her son started acting out. He started wetting the bed, throwing tantrums and not wanting to hang out with her boyfriend. She didn't put 2 and 2 together; she thought her son was just acting out because there was a new man around. The boyfriend suddenly moved away and didn't want anything to do with her. After 2 months of therapy her son told her that her boyfriend had been abusing him boy and if he told his mother, he would have killed her. Her son was scared out of his mind. Let's switch gears a bit. What has been your biggest stumbling block to getting this type business up and running? Stephany Alexander I think it's because I'm not a large corporation. In a way it's an asset because I don't have to do a lot of paper work to make decision. Decisions get made quickly. We are a small company and sometimes we don't have the manpower to deal with the development that I want to do. I am a work-a-holic as it is 7 days a week nonstop. I had become a little unbalanced but that has changed now. I am now taking time out for me and not basing my entire life on Woman Savers. The amount of work was a stumbling block. I had no idea how much work this would take. What advice would you give to someone that has a big idea they want to get off the ground? Stephany Alexander If you don't have passion, and you aren't 100 percent sure that this is what you want to do don't do it. You have to be so driven to be success because it so competitive out there right now. If you don't love it and believe it 100 percent you might fail. I was driven to point of obsession early on and that is kind of what it takes. It takes obsession and complete devotion. It's almost like you are married to your project. Is that the reason why you've become a vegan and changed your lifestyle to promote more health and well being in your life? Stephany Alexander As I evolved emotionally, I evolved physically also. I am very experimental so when something works, I stick with it. I didn't want to support a world that supports animal abuse, or torture, or force feeding or hormones or pesticides or anything like that. I don't want to support that with my dollars. It has made a hugh difference in the way I look and the way I think. I believe that an truly empowered woman has a complete life on her own. She's got interesting work or maybe school, hobbies and family and friends in her life. That is where you need to be in life before you even consider allowing someone else into your life. Stephany Alexander I met Kim Khardashian at a film party. She has had some rocky times with some men in her past and when I told her about the concept of Woman Savers she loved it. She said she wished she would have had this resource when she was dating. She said that she is in a solid relationship now. Maria Shriver was primarily concerned about her daughters. She wanted to use the screening tool to screen her daughters dates. She was worried about the safety of daughters since she is very high profile. If you want to hear the entire interview, visit this link: http://www.divamaverickmavens.com/main/podcast.html
What is the work you were doing with Kim Khardashian and Maria Shriver?
