Introduction
"That's how I like to see all women; on their knees..."
A well-known kickboxing champion made this comment during a seminar that he was giving to a large group of male and female martial artists. It was the catalyst to finding a new approach to my martial arts training, and to my role as a women's self-defense instructor.
I was fairly new black belt in Tae Kwon Do when I attended that seminar with a friend who is a high ranking (third degree) female black belt. Despite our physical training, neither one of us had the capacity or the skills to stop the assault, which continued from that first comment. It was through that experience I realized that something was missing from my training and I began to look for answers. The following document is an accumulation of my research, personal discussions with martial arts colleagues, and training with my mentor. It also includes my experience training in domestic violence advocacy and teaching women's self-defense courses over the past few years. Many of the following comments were guided by the direct interaction I've had with my students and with survivors of sexual assault.
In the past twenty years, there has been an explosion of available information and data about violence against women. In reviewing both this data and the content of martial arts based women's self-defense courses, I discovered an alarming disconnection between what is being taught and the reality of assaults women and girls experience. Survivors of sexual assault are stepping up more than ever to tell their stories. Most self-defense courses for women I reviewed did not reflect the data or the actual experiences of these women and girls. This included those courses that claimed to consider current statistics and information about violence against women.
Characteristics of Effective Self Defense for Women
Based on Knowledge of Actual Attacks
To be most effective, women's self-defense programs should be based on several things. The first of these is knowledge of actual attacks. Women take self-defense courses for a variety of reasons, but underlying all of them is the reality of specific kinds of violence. Sexual assault and domestic violence are, by far, the most common types of violence women experience.
Women age 12 or older annually sustained almost 5 million violent victimizations in 1992 and 1993. About three-quarters of all lone-offender violence against women and 45% of violence involving multiple-offenders was perpetrated by offenders whom the victim knew. In 29% of all violence against women by a lone offender, the perpetrator was an intimate (husband, ex-husband, boyfriend or ex-boyfriend).
Women were about 6 times more likely than men to experience violence committed by an intimate.
Women annually reported about 500,000 rapes and sexual assaults to interviewers. Friends or acquaintances of the victims committed over half of these rapes or sexual assaults. Strangers were responsible for about 1 in 5.
Our culture promulgates and perpetuates massive and completely unnecessary ignorance about the violence women face. From advertising to news reporting, movies to television, violence against women (and how women respond to that violence) is flagrantly misrepresented. Rapists are most often portrayed as dirty, smelly, psychotic strangers who jump, unannounced, from behind bushes. Their physical features are sometimes exaggerated to the point of becoming huge ape like monsters with big teeth and hairy bodies. Very rarely are attackers depicted as friends or family members of their victims. In many instances it is either directly or indirectly implied that the victim secretly wanted to be raped.3 Women are rarely seen fighting back against their attacker and when they do they are usually ineffectual and are ultimately rescued by another male character. Sometimes the rapist himself turns out to be the hero.*
While stranger attacks do happen, the effects of which are nothing short of devastating and traumatic, the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults do not happen on the street or in an alley. Furthermore, assailants are usually not strangers. The overwhelming majority of assailants know their victims -84% of all sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim know. Furthermore, victims of sexual assault are very often young girls as indicated by a study reported in Body Politics by Nancy Henley: A social worker who has worked for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, has been concerned with sexual abuse in children, and has written papers on this topic. In one, presenting a survey of studies covering 2,152 cases of sexual offenses against children, she observes that the overwhelming majority of sexual offenses involving children (about 90%) are those committed by older males on young girls, and about 75 percent of these offenses are committed not by strangers, but by persons known to the victims-by fathers and other relatives, or by visitors and family friends. The pattern of such abuses, she concludes, shows "an early manifestation of male power and oppression on the female."
In Nigeria over 61 percent of female victims of assault are under age 18. It also reports that three-quarters of sexual assaults are committed by a friend, acquaintance, intimate partner or family member of the victim.
Violence against women is primarily partner violence: 76 percent of the women who were raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 were assaulted by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date.
Domestic violence is the leading cause of injuries to women ages 15 - 44, more common than automobile accidents, muggings, and cancer deaths combined. 22-35% of women who visit emergency rooms are there for injuries related to ongoing abuse. Although more than one million women seek medical treatment each year for injuries caused by their husbands or partners, doctors correctly identify the injuries as resulting from battering only 4% of the time.
The picture drawn by these statistics is one in which there is typically some sort of emotional connection between the victim and the assailant. It thereby suggests that sexual assault is a much more complicated issue than can be confronted merely by learning physical technique. Yet, in most cases, courses in self-defense for women focus almost exclusively on physical technique. The reality that women are usually assaulted by a known assailant means that self-defense skills for women should primarily include learning skills to recognize and defend against assaults committed by a trusted friend, neighbor or intimate partner. In other words, classes should begin to account for the emotional and psychological dynamics of the common relationships between victim and perpetrator. Some martial artists teaching self-defense for women, even while acknowledging that assailants are typically not strangers, tend to ignore the relationships and emotional dynamics that exist between victim and perpetrator.
Based On What Women Do
Next, effective programs should be based on what women already do and provide women with opportunities to practice their skills. "Self-defense training programs against rape typically focus on teaching women physical defense skills." By defining self-defense as primarily techniques of physical force, martial arts instructors have historically minimized the successful and creative actions women already use to defend themselves, often ignoring women's own strategies completely. Anthologies like Her Wits About Her - Self-defense Success Stories by Women. Tapping into the resources and skills women already use is an essential part of teaching successful defense strategies. Women have been successfully defending themselves for centuries using combinations of verbal and physical strategies. Women's collective experience is one of the most effective teaching resources available to instructors. As a group, women have been forced to become true masters of self-defense. Experience is the best teacher and women have a surplus of it. With proper training, development and research, instructors can begin to help women see that they already know, and often use, the most common and effective forms of self-defense.
Building on existing strengths, inclinations, and abilities requires that instructors and students acknowledge the many ways in which women and children already resist sexual coercion and not narrowly define self-defense as physically stopping an attack.
Only okay to Fight "Back"
First, they perpetuate the myths and legitimize false information. This only serves to frighten women needlessly. But more important is that combative classes reinforce the notion that it is best to retaliate only when there is no doubt that a threat exists. They give permission only to fight back. In other words, it is only okay to fight when very clear cut lines are drawn and a victim is sure there is going to be a physical confrontation, or after the physical assault has begun-too late to prevent it. But sexual assault is overrun with ambiguity and attempts by an assailant to confuse the victim.
By focusing on scenarios with clear-cut lines of aggression, combative self-defense also serves to strengthen women's socially prescribed role as victim. These types of scenarios reject learning to rely on one's own sense of endangerment. As I states, "Even though the world has been proven to be dangerous for us, we often demand of ourselves that we be 100% right before taking an action that will ensure our safety."
Classes based on stranger assault present students with scenarios that have a clear cut beginning, middle and end. These scenarios take a student from point A (initial contact) to point C (verbal or physical confrontation) in a predictable pattern. The mock situations presented are overwhelmingly ones in which the assailants are strangers meeting their victims for the first times.
Denial
Denial is also a contributing factor to stranger based self-defense courses. Many martial artists acknowledge and report about the statistics and data but don't believe them. It is in many ways much easier to deny the reality of how sexual assaults happen, to whom they are happening, and who is committing them. It's easier for both men and women. For women it's easier because disbelief enables them to believe, "THAT wouldn't, won't, couldn't, EVER happen to me." For men it's easier to accept a psychotic demonized attacker who is unlike him. For instance "[W]omen are blamed for assaults against them or for staying in abusive situations; other women then participate in the blaming, partly in an effort to convince themselves that the assaults would not happen to them because they would not behave that way."
Ease
For most martial artists, teaching physical technique is much easier. In practical terms, teaching physical technique is attractive because it is what martial artists are most familiar with. Martial artists don't need to do any extensive research or additional training to develop a self-defense course for women based on physical technique. It should be noted that another compelling reason to create a combative course is marketability. Combative courses prey on the fears women have. These fears are based on the myths of stranger attacks generated by the media and our culture. Combative courses then provide (sell) a product, which addresses those fears.
It seems in most cases, however, that well-intentioned martial artists simply do not know how to build a self-defense class for women that integrates this information. But, for whatever reason, many martial artists teaching self-defense for women do accept the myths of stranger attacks and construct courses around them. Even those that report about statistics of known assailants offer little in terms of building skills that women need to confront the reality of violence against them. The skills and information necessary for women to learn effective self-defense strategies are not being offered in combative classes.
Other Courses
There are many other types of women's self-defense courses having no common thread other than that they are "self-defense" classes marketed exclusively to women. From one-hour seminars at a local high school or fitness club to various classes offered at martial arts studios, these classes and seminars are as diverse and unique in approach and content as the instructors who teach them.
Conclusion
In order to construct and teach effectively, women's self-defense instructors should be trained in four areas. They should have a solid knowledge about the reality of assaults against women and not teach based on the myth of "stranger danger." Instructors should be able to develop and include activities designed to advance women's self-esteem and self worth instead of primarily focusing on physical techniques. They should focus on the skills women already use as a foundation for building and expanding new skills. Finally, instructors should be trained to provide an environment of support and feedback.
The primary target of a woman's body is her heart. Like a sharpshooter, those who commit violence against women choose the most vulnerable area of their victims to attack. A woman's emotions and self-image are typically at the center of the bull's eye. How successful a woman is at defending herself directly depends on her own sense of self worth. The success of most assaults against women is determined long before the physical act of rape. In fact, physical force or restraint is often unnecessary for an assailant to succeed. Skills to protect the heart, mind and integrity surpass all others as the primary skills instructors need to focus on teaching. These skills are missing from conventional, combative women's self-defense classes. Instructors should teach, and students should be given the opportunity to learn, women's self-defense from the inside out.
below are some pictures
