A question for the women

[Joab]

Have you experienced any sexism at your school? The reason I ask is that one self defense teacher I had hated teaching women and didn't believe they were tough enough. While talking to an all male class, he stated "Do you notice there are no women in this class? Could it be my attitude?" He talked about not even returning the phone calls of two women who left messages in his voicemail because "of the way they sounded" Do you or have you ever found this kind of attitude in your present school or one you have attended in the past? I think women really need self defense more than men, as they are targeted for rapes far more often than men. Women are normally physically not as strong as men, hence they need to know techniques that at least give them a chance to survive against a male attacker.

 

[Andrew Green]

I think you;d best find a new instructor, that one sounds like he is there more to show himself how tough he is and have a little intellectual make out session with himself then to actually teach...

 

[terryl965]

Any instructor that has that type of attitude should not be an instructor in my eyes.

 

[bluekey88]

Agreed. Some of the best martial artists I know are women...that dude is living in his own fantasy world...a rather unhealthy one at that.

Peace,
Erik

 

[Joab]

I think you;d best find a new instructor, that one sounds like he is there more to show himself how tough he is and have a little intellectual make out session with himself then to actually teach...

Joab: That's not him at all, he merely hates teaching women. And I'm no longer a student of his.

 

[Joab]

Any instructor that has that type of attitude should not be an instructor in my eyes.

Joab: Well, he has the right to choose who he teaches. There is a cost, he is barely making ends meet, not surprisingly, not teaching half the market makes it tough to survive financially. To be fair, he sometimes teaches women, but he doesn't like to do it. Not very often, but sometimes.

 

[Joab]

Agreed. Some of the best martial artists I know are women...that dude is living in his own fantasy world...a rather unhealthy one at that.

Peace,
Erik

Joab: Perhaps. But my question was to women, do you find bad attitudes out there in any school you have attended?

 

[MrsM]

Our school is family oriented and I have felt very welcome there. In the adult classes there are more men than women, but I have never felt excluded. I even participated in a Fight Class and have been invited to roll with the guys in BJJ. Our school is owned by a husband/wife team, so that might be part of the reason for the open atmosphere there.

 

[Tez3]

There's choosing who to teach and there's hating half the population. Frankly he sounds like a bad instructor, I imagine he didn't teach anyone well.
Joab if you require a question specifically from women, posting on the female forum would have been better.

I teach men, some don't like it and they leave, thats tough. Their loss.

 

[searcher]

My Wife ran into this type of attitude while we were training at one particular school. The school had not produced one female BB in its history, over 31 years at that time. That is, until My Wife came along. I was an instructor at the school, but did not teach her classes. The males in the class would try to run off the females by beating the crap out of them while sparring or during self-defense training. I took it upon myself to take over her training and I prepped her for the class. She ended up knocking out 2 guys in one night, out cold. After she made her move to turn the tables, I made the announcement that if anyone wanted to hurt her they would have to spar with me. But the funny thing is, she earned the respect she needed on her own. Occasionally we go back to that school and do a little sparring and once in a while she has to remind them that she EARNED her BB the same as the rest.


FYI-in the schools 40+ year history, there have only been 24 BBs.

 

[hkfuie]

I have heard of two local instructors who will not teach women.

I have nothing good to say about that, so I won't.

I have only trained in schools that welcome women. I think most good guys want to protect women. From what I have seen of my instructors, they think the best way to do that is to teach women to protect themselves.

 

[Joab]

Our school is family oriented and I have felt very welcome there. In the adult classes there are more men than women, but I have never felt excluded. I even participated in a Fight Class and have been invited to roll with the guys in BJJ. Our school is owned by a husband/wife team, so that might be part of the reason for the open atmosphere there.

Joab: Thanks for the input, your the first on this thread to answer my question. Glad to read your in a good school.

 

[Joab]

There's choosing who to teach and there's hating half the population. Frankly he sounds like a bad instructor, I imagine he didn't teach anyone well.
Joab if you require a question specifically from women, posting on the female forum would have been better.

I teach men, some don't like it and they leave, thats tough. Their loss.

Joab: He's actually a very good teacher who merely hates teaching women. We all have our problems. Yeah, I probably should have posted this in the female forum, I didn't know there was a female forum, I'm relatively new here.

 

[Joab]

My Wife ran into this type of attitude while we were training at one particular school. The school had not produced one female BB in its history, over 31 years at that time. That is, until My Wife came along. I was an instructor at the school, but did not teach her classes. The males in the class would try to run off the females by beating the crap out of them while sparring or during self-defense training. I took it upon myself to take over her training and I prepped her for the class. She ended up knocking out 2 guys in one night, out cold. After she made her move to turn the tables, I made the announcement that if anyone wanted to hurt her they would have to spar with me. But the funny thing is, she earned the respect she needed on her own. Occasionally we go back to that school and do a little sparring and once in a while she has to remind them that she EARNED her BB the same as the rest.

Joab: Way to go for your wife and for you for sticking up for her! Must have humbled those guys and perhaps made them rethink their attitudes!


FYI-in the schools 40+ year history, there have only been 24 BBs.

Joab: Yeah, the self defense teacher I'm thinking of hasn't graduated many black belts either, no women.

 

[Joab]

I have heard of two local instructors who will not teach women.

I have nothing good to say about that, so I won't.

I have only trained in schools that welcome women. I think most good guys want to protect women. From what I have seen of my instructors, they think the best way to do that is to teach women to protect themselves.

Joab: To be fair, the self defense teacher I'm thinking of is all for protecting women and has been happily married for 39 years. He dedicated the reprinting of one of his books to her. And he is something of a legend in self defense circles, although I won't give out his name. I'm just curious as to whether women have found this attitude in other schools. I'm all for teaching women self defense, I want them to be able to knock the crap out of a rapist!

 

[Tez3]

My chief instructor and I run our club so there's no attitude of being anti women allowed. Most of out students are soldiers who are used to training and working with females. If they don't like it they either don't come in or keep it very quiet.

 

[Aefibird]

I've occasionally experienced less than positive attitudes towards female martial artists (such as a guy who was attending this karate seminar that I went to who point-blank refused to pair up with me, even though I was a Dan grade and he was a Kyu grade. I was one of only 2 female students on the seminar and he'd been fine doing partner work with the other males but when it came to his turn to work with me he wouldn't and he wouldn't pair up with the other woman there either).

Often it's not been an overtly negative attitude, just a way of speaking or behaving, such as once when I was a 3rd kyu and paired up with a 1st kyu and the guy spent all the time minutely pointing out in great detail exactly where I was going wrong with this particular technique...until Sensei came across and said how well I was doing it.

I've also found that some guys either go in full-on when sparring (which I don't mind, I like a bit of contact) and try and show off how strong they are, or they take it the other way and seem almost afraid to make contact with a woman (which IMO won't help female students if they get attacked for real).

 

[Aikikitty]

I've never had someone "tell" me anything, but I've experienced the "attitude" every now and then over the years. All the guys in my class were great, but I remember when my mom and I were still beginners in Aikido, there was a more advanced guy in the class who went through a stage of avoiding us. I don't know if it was because we are women or partly because we were still beginners and he didn't want to "slow down" for us, but I remember that whatever the reason, it hurt and it was discouraging....

I remember the occasional man who would come to our class (most were very nice and had no problem practicing with us) and one guy in particular was a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do and had a real attitude. He made a point of doing whatever technique we were working on really hard on any woman he partnered up with (he almost sprained my wrist) and when it was our turn to do it on him, he'd buck up and be as difficult as possible. I remember our sensei came to the rescue by "demonstrating" on the guy to me how to make the technique work on someone being difficult. Sensei gave him a taste of his own medicine and the guy never came back. :uhyeah:

I remember similar experiences at a couple of Aikido seminars. Some guys would only want to work with me or my mom as a last resort and then be extra rough, or they'd seek us out and "try to make us pay for daring to show up". I did prove my ability to one of the guys on one seminar though and he didn't bother me after that.

Last summer, I was interested in cross-training in BJJ (my boyfriend was doing it at the time) and there was one girl in their class. He felt sorry for her because even though most of the guys were nice, most went out of their way to avoid partnering up with her. (She is smaller than me so I wouldn't be surprised if they were afraid of hurting her, but she was paying to train and she's tough.) I understood what she was feeling and I attended a trial week of BJJ and really enjoyed myself and me and the other girl paired up with each other when the other guys wouldn't work with us. A few weeks passed and I was saving up to enroll in BJJ when the other girl had to quit for school and finances. My boyfriend had to stop going for similar reasons. To me, it's more than just learning the techniques that makes martial arts great, but also the people itself and the atmosphere. Maybe someday I'll have a better opportunity to try BJJ, but I'm not willing to pay good money, drive far in traffic, to participate in a class that most of the guys don't even want to pair up with me.

Now, I'm the only remaining female in my Aikido class (all the others dropped out from real life getting in the way) and I just got my shodan and the other guys treat me like a member of the family. One of the guys goes out of his way TO be with me as he says he learns more from training with me (or any other woman) than he does from the guys because I can't power my way through a technique like they sometimes can get away with. Also, the guy I mentioned in the first paragaph comes to class when he can and he is now is so impressed with some of my techniques that he makes me blush when he keeps praising me over them.

But I hope that the guys reading this post and all the others in this thread realize what a difference the bad attitude towards women of even just a couple of guys in your class can make. Also, I know a similar thread like this not too long ago having to do with guys favoring a "pretty" girl in the class and ignoring the others. A girl friend of mine who used to do Tang Soo Do for many years had to deal with both such attitudes and she finally didn't want to renue her contract at that school because of it.

Robyn :asian:

 

[teekin]

I've only once run into one instructor who when he HAD to teach me was an absolute dick and always made a point of hurting me. It didn't help that I laughed at him. He power tripped on everyone, but he didn't refuse to teach any of the guys. This is 1 guy, out of say 15 different instructors that had a negative tude. Everyone else has been between excellent and phenomenal. An example, in the last class before Rodrigo (Munduruca) left for Brazil, he grabbed the instructor taking his place and made him respondsible for keeping my technique clean. there are instructors who will spend as much time as needed to solve your unique problem even if means the class gets dragged along on occasion.
I think the bad ones, like the general population, are heavily outnumbered by the good ones.
lori

 

[Jade Tigress]

Have you experienced any sexism at your school? The reason I ask is that one self defense teacher I had hated teaching women and didn't believe they were tough enough. While talking to an all male class, he stated "Do you notice there are no women in this class? Could it be my attitude?" He talked about not even returning the phone calls of two women who left messages in his voicemail because "of the way they sounded" Do you or have you ever found this kind of attitude in your present school or one you have attended in the past? I think women really need self defense more than men, as they are targeted for rapes far more often than men. Women are normally physically not as strong as men, hence they need to know techniques that at least give them a chance to survive against a male attacker.

I have not experienced even the slightest bit of sexism at either of the two schools I've trained at. My instructors have welcomed women into their classes, we don't get treated harshly, nor are we treated with kid gloves. I have been taught that I can be effective against a much larger, stronger opponent.

It saddens me to hear the negative experiences of others in this regard. Those instructors should be ashamed of themselves, that is not the attitude of a true martial artist.