Personal Defense Is Important

Women in Serious Danger

Need Serious Help

All women live with a certain level of risk of becoming the victim of a violent crime.  Statistics show that a 21 year old woman has a 1 in 4 chance of experiencing a violent crime.  For her, information which could reduce her risk and, likewise, teach her how to respond in a life or death situation is readily available.

Being in Danger

Some women are at an unusually high risk of serious assault or even murder.  According to the National Organization for Women, every day a total of four women die in this country as a result of domestic violence.  There are also 572,000 reports of assault by intimates officially reported every year, but most federal officials estimate this number is painfully conservative.  Most estimate that between two and four million women of all races and classes are battered each year¹.

Women’s shelters and other similar advocacy programs offer a great deal of assistance and reassurance as well as information on personal security matters  ranging from what to pack in an “emergency get-away bag” to how to go into hiding.  This information is not only useful, it is vital in that it is always better to avoid a violent attack than to try to survive one.  Nonetheless, a quick review of just a few of the more than three million web sites on line that contain horrific domestic violence stories as told by the victims themselves will convince you that hiding does not always work and that it is not always realistic to expect another – even if that ‘other’ is the legal system – to protect you at all times.  You must also learn to protect yourself.

If ever you are confronted with a dangerous situation despite all possible avoidance measures, you will find that there is often no opportunity to summon help.  That is one of the factors that makes the situation dangerous.  In a case such as this, a woman is forced to face her attacker alone, using only her own resources and knowledge to survive the encounter, and it is here where training truly counts.  Women who are properly trained and confident in their ability to protect themselves can do so quite effectively.

The idea of fighting back may be difficult for some women to conceive of, but the alternative is much, much worse.  Even though surviving a dangerous assault is not the only issue here, it remains the first one.  Nonetheless, consider the aftermath.

What follows is what one survivor of a violent incident had to say in response to the question: “What can we say to convince women they ought to care about personal defense?”

• The first thing that comes to mind is to describe what a miserable feeling it is to have been attacked, assaulted, and hurt by someone.
• The side effects of being a victim of a violent assault can be everlasting. Fighting back is justified because it can save women from having the mental and physical scars of an assault to deal with for the rest of their lives.
• Tell them they have to learn to fight back for themselves because the ugly reality is that others would rather turn their heads than come to their aid if they are in trouble.
• Tell them that being a victim stays with you for life; that you cross a point of no return, and you will never be the same person – ever – again.
• Tell them that by successfully defending themselves, they can help make the world safer for ALL other women, because they prove, to at least one criminal, that not all women are easy prey.
• Tell them that learning self-defense is better than waking up screaming and crying at night from nightmares.
• Tell them about the 1993 Brandeis University study that found conclusively that the women most apt to be raped or harmed were those who did NOT fight back.
• Make analogies. Explain how much people pay for various types of insurance that they are not very likely to use, and how few people are willing to invest in the ‘insurance’ of self-defense training to protect them from the very real risk of a criminal assault?
• Make women aware of the fact that the prospect of going to jail is no deterrent to criminals. Criminals know that the chances of their getting caught, charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, and having to serve time is very small.  Essentially the ONLY deterrent they see is that the victim could pose a risk to their life or well-being.
• If they talk about not wanting to be paranoid, ask them if having auto insurance indicates they are ‘paranoid’ about getting into an accident, or if having fire insurance is a statement of their morbid fear of fire.
• Tell them it is not as hard as they may think to learn how to defend themselves, and that it is much harder than they think to recover from a rape or assault.

Fighting Back

A woman’s ability to fend off an attacker is directly proportional to her confidence for doing so and the training that backs that confidence.  Human predators behave very much like their animal counterparts.  A predator will never elect to attack a woman whom they feel will fight back and win.  The predator relies on a woman’s fear and panic levels in order to subdue and control her.  Without this, the predator is at a serious loss.  His initial assault, even if it includes a physical act, is a mental one.  Consequently, she must be armed with more than just the sheer will to live.

A woman must be armed with the confidence, the know-how, and the skills to deliver an excruciatingly painful assault upon her attacker as rapidly as possible in order to secure her survival.  There is no one technique and no one tool that will save her.  She must be fortified with a number of abilities because any one single technique or tool may fail her when it matters most.  Pepper spray, a favorite of many women, cannot, for instance, be used on windy days or in enclosed environments such as cars.  To do so could be a foolish mistake committed at her great peril.

Fighting back requires an arsenal of knowledge and a few techniques which a woman must be capable of effectively articulating. But most importantly, it requires a woman be committed to taking a proactive stance in regards to her own personal safety and securing the training necessary to assure it.

Is it better to fight back, or not?

It is always better to fight back, particularly if you are trained in how to fight back appropriately. Women who fight back are injured less often, are more successful in stopping the attacks regardless of what kind of attack it is, and feel better about themselves afterwards.

Is self-defense OK?

Avoidance of danger is a woman’s moral responsibility. Yet when you find yourself in a hostile environment you could not avoid, preservation of self is your highest responsibility. Defending yourself by any means necessary is absolutely the most moral and ethical course of action.  It is also the most effective.

Knowing your attacker does not change your right to self defense, and it should not change the conviction that you are worth defending.

Traditionally, women have been given a selection of options that are either impractical, ineffective (“Spray him in the eyes with hair spray,” or “Get a rape whistle”), or that don’t cover the whole spectrum of possibilities in which personal protection might be necessary.

A prime example of this is advising women not to go into dangerous areas at night or, equally as poor, advising them to stay home.  This may be well and good in an ideal world, however, in the real world it neglects several factors:

• A high percentage of rapes occur when a woman is in her home.
• Some women must work after dark.
• Some women are being targeted for violence by assailants who will not be deterred by casual protective measures.
• Staying home only guards against certain types of random crime or low level threats.
• Random acts of violence are rarely random; your attacker has likely calculated the attack and planned ahead.

 

An essential Personal Defense Class can be very helpful and is better than having no training at all.  However, the responsibility you have to your safety and peace of mind should NOT end here.  Overall defense training that includes techniques that cannot be taught in an introductory course is a must.  This training helps you to hone your skills, develop faster reflexes, and sharpen your perception, all with the aim of helping you to become more aware of potential dangers and respond to them appropriately.

Women who have never been in a situation where they wanted to fight often think that they cannot fight.  Yet, you will find that if you are faced with a life or death situation, it is simply instinctive to fight.  Nevertheless, you need to know how to fight back in order for that instinct to be effective.  Otherwise, you could simply be overpowered.  Training helps you overcome the emotional resistance to fighting and sharpens your instinctive and primal defensive nature by giving you the mindset and the skills you need.  In a crisis situation, it could mean the difference between life and death.

We urge you to choose life.  We urge you to stay safe.