Women's Self-Defense

[julieandrews]

My employer, which is a city, is offering a free women's self-defense class. Which they've offered at least one time before.

I've been trying to work out why it bugs the heck out of me. (Though I'm still thinking of signing up.)

I think it's the implication that A) Women need self-defense more than men. Which just perpetuates the impression that women are weaker and the climate of women being attacked and abused.

And B) That men somehow know more about self-defense than women.

I took a few karate lessons in Girl Scouts. As far as I'm aware, my brother never learned anything similar. But maybe I'm wrong. I should ask him. Maybe he got something in gym class I didn't. We had segregated gym classes, which I later learned was not universal!

Are men just supposed to instinctually know how to fight better? Use their big, strong muscles? They're not real men if they can't beat someone up without a lesson!

And maybe it bothers me more because it's the city offering this as a one-time thing. If it was a gym or a dojo that offered these every once in awhile, I don't think it would bother me as much. It'd just be one class in a suite of classes. Even if none of them were men's self-defense classes. Because I can understand that women who had been attacked in the past would most likely feel more comfortable and confident in a class of all women. I do get that.

I just don't like the city thinking all its female employees need self-defense, and the male ones don't.

Comments

[chiieddy.livejournal.com]

First...
Statistically women are more likely to be assaulted than men - http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html

Second...
Many women are less comfortable going to a self-defense class where men are also taking the class, especially if they've been a victim of violence in the past perpetrated by men. This also holds true for gyms.

Third...
As a matter of upbringing, women are less encouraged to take a physical response when a wrong is perpetrated against them. Boys are almost encouraged to fight where girls are not. This is deeply seeded into our society and unlikely to change anytime soon given the way media and marketing currently target genders.

Fourth...
It's a physical fact that the adult male muscular structure is stronger than the female. Therefore, it's more likely a woman would need to learn different ways of utilizing leverage than a man would.

Have you checked the demographics and crime statistics in your town and checked to see if domestic violence against women and sexual assault against women are up against men? If so, that would be a legitimate reason to offer a class for women and not a separate class for men. The National Crime Statistics website should have information.

Also, who is sponsoring the class? It's unlikely this is coming out of the government's pot given the current economic climate. Likely this is being paid for by a non-profit, likely one that focuses on women's violence.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

First - I acknowledged this insomuch as I said I think it's contributing to the culture of belief that women's rightful place is as victims.

Second - I flat-out stated this.

Third - In general, in numbers, yes. But not true of all women and all men. And I allowed that women's defense classes have their place in the midst of a suite of classes on similar topics. And that it needn't be balanced by an equal number of men's only classes.

Fourth - This is a good point I hadn't considered. And a good argument for single-sex classes.

And I can't definitively tell you who's sponsoring the class, aka paying for it, but I do believe it's the city in some fashion or another. I don't see any 'in conjuction with Suchandsuch Gym' or 'sponsored by Dunkin Donuts' on any of the material.

Just a 'presented by instructors of' a martial arts 'training system', so possibly they're donating their time. But I can't tell. They're not a nonprofit, and so probably hoping to get some exposure and new students out of it, if they're not getting paid.

[chiieddy.livejournal.com]

You said 'culture of belief'. Belief <> Fact. Statistical arguments are not cultural or faith based.

[tomomi.livejournal.com]

This feels like a chicken or egg argument. Are you saying that society frames women as victims and thus women actually become victims? I suppose I can see that. But I don't know that women's self-defense classes really feed into it -- if women are trained in self-defense, then in an -actual- situation they should be able to fend someone off, thus contributing to a rising number of stories of women who avoided being victims, thus breaking the cycle.