The Myths and Truths of Female Martialists

[exile]

If you are female and are in trouble scream loud enough and a male will come and protect you. No need for us to mess up our nails when the trouble will be handled for us.

There is unfortunately an endless stream of data suggesting that this is not the case. Here is just the latest bit of counterevidence:

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=efa6db04-d522-4c4e-ae69-7a3151c46912

My neice and her husband knew this young woman; they had gone to school together on Salt Spring.

You cannot rely on someone, male or female, to save you. The experienced predators pick their time and place, as well as their victim, carefully. You have to assume that in extremis, you'll be completely, totally on your own—just you, your fighting skills and whatever weapons you carry or can improvise.

And you have to train for close quarters attacks, relentlessly, because attacks take place at close quarters. This young woman died of multiple stab wounds. A knife is a horrible weapon, but had she been better trained in awareness and self-defense, there's an excellent chance she still might be alive... Yes, females of every mammalian species at least will fight ferociously for their offspring, but they should fight just as ferociously for themselves. That's why I like that Dr. Ruthless clip so much. She illustrates the principle that to counter an attack, you must instantly redefine the situation as one where your attacker is the prey, and you are the predator, and you're going to hurt them, badly.

 

[harlan]

Things change in an instant. The biggest disservice we do to our children is to 'protect' them to the point of helplessness in the face of violence. Teach your children, especially your daughters, how to fight. Give them the tools to protect themselves, and rear them in such a way that they make the right decisions regarding using those tools.

 

[Jenna]

You cannot rely on someone, male or female, to save you. The experienced predators pick their time and place, as well as their victim, carefully. You have to assume that in extremis, you'll be completely, totally on your own—just you, your fighting skills and whatever weapons you carry or can improvise.

Hey exile I could not agree more with your points. Good post! And with reference to the OP, whether or not women were "designed" to fight does not preclude the NEED for women to at least know how to defend themselves.

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

 

[exile]

Things change in an instant. The biggest disservice we do to our children is to 'protect' them to the point of helplessness in the face of violence. Teach your children, especially your daughters, how to fight. Give them the tools to protect themselves, and rear them in such a way that they make the right decisions regarding using those tools.

Yes.

Hey exile I could not agree more with your points. Good post! And with reference to the OP, whether or not women were "designed" to fight does not preclude the NEED for women to at least know how to defend themselves.

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

Double yes.

My sense is that women have been whip-sawed by two widespread and 'deepspread' patterns in many cultures, not just our own:

(i) women are perceived as targets;

(ii) women are trained to think it inappropriate for them to defend themselves physically.

Talk about being set up, eh? The people who have greatest need of the skills to protect their bodies and physical space (because they are defined in cultural attitudes as victim material) are the ones socialized to think it somehow wrong for them to do so.

And the 'tiger-mother' idea, while certainly true, strikes me as sending something of the wrong message. Yes, it is... 'ladylike' rolleyes...to demolish someone who threatens your children—but not to demolish someone who threatens you. It ties in with the mystification of women's 'selflessness' that is still a very prevalent part of our culture, in spite of many political and economic gains during the past half-century. Be as savage as you want, as long as it's on someone else's behalf. But why not on your own behalf as well?

The MAs can, I think, be a great tool for women both in terms of self-protection (which MAs are an important part of, but just a part) and in terms of changing that attitude I was just complaining about—but only if they're taught by someone who stresses the importance and appropriateness of using them in their rawest, literally in-your-face hardest impact application. And part of that training has to involve communicating to the students that just exposure to the material isn't enough—it has to be practiced, long-term, ideally with another training partner, one who will not comply politely with your techs, but will force you to sharpen them and correct them if they turn out not to work in a down-and-dirty two-person simulation of a real street attack. This is true for the MAs in general but I think is especially urgent where women's SD is concerned, given all the layers of negative message that will have been deeply absorbed about 'feminine' behavior...

 

[harlan]

I agree with your post, but would amend it that all humans are born with the instinct to survive. Push come to shove, the deepest social conditioning can be overcome. The problem is...when that point comes...a female may not have the knowledge or training that CAN make a difference (no promises). The most horrible thing is to GET to that point of fighting...and not know how.

 

[KELLYG]

O.K. Some times I get a case of the smart asses. My point in my previous post was that, though society may have preconceived notions that fighting is a male thing, women should learn and use any physical self defense technique that will keep her out of harms way. We should also be taught (if your country permits) how to use a hand gun or other protective devices. We should also have experience in basic car maintenance in case of breakdown and be taught situational awareness techniques.

 

[celtic_crippler]

Bottom line: Every one, regardless of gender, has the right to defend themselves from bodily harm.

That right may manifest in different ways: joining a gun club, taking martial arts, hiring a body-gaurd...whatever....

...it does not change the fact that it is a right. Women are not excluded from that right and should do whatever they feel necessary to feel safe.

My 0.02....though with inflation it is more like 20.02 these days...lol

 

[Jenna]

I agree with your post, but would amend it that all humans are born with the instinct to survive. Push come to shove, the deepest social conditioning can be overcome. The problem is...when that point comes...a female may not have the knowledge or training that CAN make a difference (no promises). The most horrible thing is to GET to that point of fighting...and not know how.

Hey harlan I think you are definitely working on the correct premise - that of social conditioning, and but I would have to disagree and say that I feel this is one of the most difficult aspects of our personal makeup to overcome, regardless of any underlying self-preservation instinct. I have been involved with a crisis counselling service for a little while and am surprised (and yet not) by the reaction of women in recounting circumstances of attacks. Many women just completely froze, suggesting that somehow the instinct to survive is muted under these other factors. I think as women we are - again harping back to the OP - not designed to physically hurt, even when such retaliation is necessary for our own defence. And of course many women simply have taken no time to educate themselves to that end. I do not believe fighting is instinctive for women. Therefore in order to mitigate any attack, we must have trained at least for the possibility.

I train with men. I always have done. I have found my guys courteous and they treat me as they expect to be treated. Among my guys, I have never encountered misogyny of any kind or even close to. But when discussing any kind of self-defence issues with girl friends, I know I will more often than not, be written off as tomboy Jenna, even just in idle banter these prevalent attitudes come out. And that is even despite stuff that I have been through.

What I mean is, it is not ONLY that women are not designed for fighting but also that many women perceive fighting as a men-only thing. It is often the prejudice of many women against physical defence training, and might I even say, a blissful ignorance of the potential for attack, that can prove detrimental to their own safety. I hate ranting like this and but I wish I could do more to encourage women to train basic defence or perhaps even take up the arts *sighs*

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

 

[harlan]

Men freeze too. And die. It's not a gender-specific reaction to stress.

Do you think that circumstances may have something to do with when and how one freezes? Of those you encounter in your work, I'd be curious if you are referring to domestic violence vs. stranger violence.

 

[exile]

Men freeze too. And die. It's not a gender-specific reaction to stress.

We're getting into some very deep and troubling water here. Yes, men do freeze and die, especially in war on the front lines. One of the hardest things for commanding officers in active combat zones, apparently, is to get their soldiers—the overwhelming majority of whom are men—to shoot enemy fighters. This has been abundantly documented in Lt.-Col. David Grossman's remarkable, Pulitzer-nominated 1995 book, On Killing, which he wrote based on his experiences as a pschological trainer for troops in 'hot zones'. He found that even under intense fire, they often could not bring themselves to pull the trigger when face to face with attacking enemy troops. Part of his job was to devise techniques to dehumanize these enemy troops in the minds of the soldiers under his 'care', so that they would react immediately and with deadly force on command. He began to examine the historical record and found evidence that this was a pattern not just in modern armies, but back to the American Civil War, and even earlier, and that it was geographically widespread—the Japanese encountered this with their own troops during WWII and had to devise methods, representing early versions of Grossman and his associates' own much more sophisticated techniques, for overcoming their aversion to killing. There appears to be a deeply built-in reluctance to kill each other that informs the behavior of normal members of our species—the abnormal ones, the psychopaths for whom it's easy, wind up working for Tony Soprano, whatever stage in history we're talking about. So yes, that aversion is there.... BUT...

Hey harlan I have been involved with a crisis counselling service for a little while and am surprised (and yet not) by the reaction of women in recounting circumstances of attacks. Many women just completely froze, suggesting that somehow the instinct to survive is muted under these other factors....when discussing any kind of self-defence issues with girl friends, I know I will more often than not, be written off as tomboy Jenna, even just in idle banter these prevalent attitudes come out. And that is even despite stuff that I have been through.

What I mean is, it is not ONLY that women are not designed for fighting but also that many women perceive fighting as a men-only thing.

... the problem for women is that this wired-in aversion is heavily reinforced by cultural norms about physicality and violence that girls learn from the time they're infants, that are reinforced heavily in school, at home, and in virtually all environments with an instructional dimension... except (if you're lucky and have instructors with their heads screwed on right) MA training schools. And it's going to take an awful lot of training, even with a dedicated instructor whose mission is to enable women to defend themselves, to counteract all of those years, decades in most cases, of socialization to the contrary.

 

[Sukerkin]

Hey exile I could not agree more with your points. Good post! And with reference to the OP, whether or not women were "designed" to fight does not preclude the NEED for women to at least know how to defend themselves.

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

That eerily echoes a quote I left out when I decided not to include my own views in the OP:

"The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them"

:rei:

 

[Jenna]

... the problem for women is that this wired-in aversion is heavily reinforced by cultural norms about physicality and violence that girls learn from the time they're infants, that are reinforced heavily in school, at home, and in virtually all environments with an instructional dimension... except (if you're lucky and have instructors with their heads screwed on right) MA training schools. And it's going to take an awful lot of training, even with a dedicated instructor whose mission is to enable women to defend themselves, to counteract all of those years, decades in most cases, of socialization to the contrary.

Wow, these are some great thoughts you guys have.

I have another thought and but in comparison, it will seem dilettantish, so apologies. I believe that people as a race are not peaceable beings needing schooled in fight skills, but rather we are instinctively competitive, aggressive and seeking dominance and arguably, ultimately dominion, explicit or otherwise, over each other. I think though, that these predilections are pro-actively trained OUT of us as children - every parent understandably wishing their children to fit well in their community and in society. Society after all, cannot condone the acts of children in adults and thus society in its jurisprudence will not tolerate violence. I think however, that this does give rise to a certain dichotomy when it comes to ingraining the requirements for physical self-defence in our children. Teaching children, both boys and girls, not to hit, the caveat being *unless they need to*, is a complicated pedagogy for sure.

Cool thread

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

 

[exile]

Teaching children, both boys and girls, not to hit, the caveat being *unless they need to*, is a complicated pedagogy for sure.

Definitely, that is the biggie. And it's a hard one because even for adults, the kind of judgment that goes into the decision that it's now or never—that you're right on the edge of the violence threshold and the momentum of the situation means you're going to be over the edge in fractions of a second—is tough to make and relies on intuitions and recognition of subtle cues that take a long, long time to develop, if they ever do. For children, it's orders of magnitude harder....

Cool thread

Absolutely—kudos to Sukerkin for getting us talking about this unpleasant, distressing but very important personal safety issue! :asian:

 

[harlan]

Post edited: rewording for later.

 

[Xue Sheng]

OK I will admit it right now, I have not read all the previous posts but I do wish to add a comment.

About half way through my MA career and early in my CMA career I spared a lot. I also spared a lot of Aikido people and I will admit I was wholly unimpressed. It was a woman that was half my size that had trained Aikido that changed my mind and impressed the hell out of me; she also locked me and slammed in to the floor a few times. She was a serious well trained aikido person where the others I spared before her were not that is all and the others were all male.

A good friend of mine is married to a little Japanese woman that would be a threat to know one but put a short staff in her hand and I have no desire to be in the same room. She is a black belt in Kendo trained in Japan.

My wife is a TCM OMD trained in China and has never taken any MA for more than a couple of months and her mother made her go then and I am greater than 2 times heavier than her by weight. But she is a master at Pressure points for heath and pain should you so deserve it.

There is a post on here now about a Japanese woman teaching in Northern Italy I would love to train with but I would never challenge and there is that clip of the woman from Japan that is in MMA that makes me think twice about challenging her too

Talking strictly physically men in general have a greater number of muscle fibers that a woman does but then I am also bigger than my taiji sifu too and he can throw me around like a rag doll it is not strength or size or style or gender that matters in MA it is training.

Never under estimate your opponent no mater size or gender, it will bite you if you do

 

[tellner]

One has to keep in mind that there are smarter and less smart ways of fighting. For a 5'0" 100 pound woman to get in a game of knuckle tag with a 6'0" 220 pound man is probably not so smart. A knife, a little bit of deception, a system that takes advantage of sensitivity and other attributes which are not based so much on mass and raw strength might be a better choice.

And of course, there's such a thing as using one's natural advantages. Wait until your enemy has gray in his beard and thinks himself safe from all harm. Women have the option of raising up many strong sons who will hunt him down in his lair. "The hand that rocks the cradle" and all the rest...
:sniper:

 

[Xue Sheng]

One has to keep in mind that there are smarter and less smart ways of fighting. For a 5'0" 100 pound woman to get in a game of knuckle tag with a 6'0" 220 pound man is probably not so smart. A knife, a little bit of deception, a system that takes advantage of sensitivity and other attributes which are not based so much on mass and raw strength might be a better choice.

And of course, there's such a thing as using one's natural advantages. Wait until your enemy has gray in his beard and thinks himself safe from all harm. Women have the option of raising up many strong sons who will hunt him down in his lair. "The hand that rocks the cradle" and all the rest...
:sniper:

I meant a very thin little old guy with long white hair in China that scared the heck out of me with a look and I am MUCH bigger and MUCH younger than him and I "pity the fool" that messes with him... of course he is a Xingyiquan and Baguazhang master that has been training it his whole life

And there is a woman in Beijing that I think is named Feng Xiufang that I do not recommend any one taking on but then again she is Feng Zhiqiang daughter and the inheritor of his style of Chen

 

[Darth F.Takeda]

I'll say this, while I will encourage my boys to study martial arts, I will not force it on them beyond basic "How to fight like a man 101" if I had a daughter I would make her sepnd x amount of months out of a year training in martial arts and I would be more inclinded to train her with knives and allow her to carry them at a younger age then the boys.

I based my Ukemi on that of one of our lady black belts, who indeed I would put in the small catagory of women I would walk through Hell with.

 

[Jenna]

I'll say this, while I will encourage my boys to study martial arts, I will not force it on them beyond basic "How to fight like a man 101" if I had a daughter I would make her sepnd x amount of months out of a year training in martial arts and I would be more inclinded to train her with knives and allow her to carry them at a younger age then the boys.

Hey there Darth F. I know exactly what you are saying, girls I agree do need that extra push. And but how come you would make this distinction between the necessity of training for boys or girls?

I am not a parent yet and but forgive me for saying, is it not incumbent upon parents to teach their children the ways of their own defence and correct use of force, irrespective of their gender?

I am not getting at you my friend, far, far from it and but we are having major discussion here in England about the rise and rise of knife crime. Personally I would not be a knife advocate. Though I am happy to concede that if we had more parents like yourself who at least took the time to educate their children in the use of aggression only when absolutely mandated, we would have many fewer stabbings.

But still, both boys and girls do need this education..

Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

 

[Darth F.Takeda]

Well there is a difference between training in the arts, which is a long term commitment and learning to fight, which is not that big a commitment.

Lots of my Dojo Bros with kids feel if you push your kids into it, they wont like it as much or not at all and the likelyhood of them becomeing martial artist becomes much lower than if you let them chose, whereas a girl is not usually going to have the physical attributes of a boy/man but could be the victum of one, so she would be forced into more training than the boys.

As for knives, our nations are different with different outlooks on armed citizens. I sometimes carry a gun, but I almost allways have a blade or 3 on me, because it makes me alot more potentially dangerous.
With in 3 feet, it is the best weapon around and can beat guns and multiple attackers.

we do alot of multiple attacker work and empty hand it ends up so so, sometimes you do well sometimes you know if it was real you would be dead, the victories dramatically rise when we use a knife.

I taught an ex girl friend some simple, nasty knifing techniques and then I had Dojo mates set upon her and everyone got stabbed in the groin area (plastic knife folks), so if I had a daughter, she'd have a blade with her when she went out as a teen, her chances of being raped will go down.

Boys tend to get into fights that are not worth anything, so I wont let them do the same.

Beleive me, my boys will have plenty of MA options available to them and some compulsery H2H trainig anyways.

By the time they leave my nest, they will speak 3 languages (English, Spanish and German with a little Latin), be able to drive a car,large trucks, drive stick shift, motorcycles and I mean not just opperate but have defensive training with the vehicles, know basic wilderness survival techniques, know how to hunt both the right way and the wrong way if the situation warrents, fish, combative pistol, shotgun and rifle shooting, how to fight and kill with knives, and clubs as well as their bare hands and the deadliest weapon, their minds. All before they go off to University, the Military or both.

All that will be expected of them, it's if they want to take it beyond basic level that's up to them. The eldest boy's (6 year old) education, in some of this has allready begun, but in a playfull, fun way.

We play "Roman Legionary" with his foam sheild and sword, he allready knows that stabs and short cuts are better than big hacks and understands how to use his sheild and sword at the same time and is learning to use his body and BASIC footwork. He holds the sword just like we hold it in Pekiti Tarsia.

My boys are to be Gentlemen, by the old southern landed standards.
Polite, educated, honorable and deadly as would any sister be a lady who can do the above as well.

Shugyo!