Women’s versus men’s self-defense?

[Mallic]

As a woman, taught and trained by a woman, in a coed martial art... I think the issue of being unpreparred for the violence is the same for both sexes. While men are better prepared to respond to aggression with aggression, the brutality of an unexpected attack is a disadvantage for both sexes.

Laymen Self-Defense Classes
Any self-defense class is going to be limited by time, practice, and hesitancy of participants--both trainers who don't want to be sued, and learners who do not want to hurt or be hurt. I have participated in many self-defense trainings with girls, women, even the elderly. Each class is never more than an hour and you have to tailor what you can to their age and ability and their likely attackers. I can't grab my trainee with the aggression they are going to experience, only the strength... I can't surprise my trainee with the suddenness of a brutal attack, I can only respond unexpectantly to their effort to defend and keep them thinking. The best we can do for men or women is teach them how to stay calm and escape detainment if possible. How to be mindful and preventative, and how to be prepared when forced to be in possibly dangerous situations. The real difference in self-defense is not male vs female. It is practice and preparation. The woman, like me, who has trained, taught, fought, and is always conscious of risks surrounding me is in a better place than the strongest man with no preparation...

Marital Arts Self-defense
Now if your question in martial arts trained men vs women, here women should be at an definite ADVANTAGE becasue they are always training with bigger, stronger, possibly faster opponents. While both sexes are receiving the same training, only the women are practicing against a constant challenge. I personally completed in full-contact as a younger woman and even at 14, 15, 16, 17, I sparred with full grown men, full contact. While the most powerful did pull their strength a bit... it wasn't enough to keep a girl from flying if she wasnt mindful and never not practicing their best techniques to win. I also had a violently abusive parent, undiagnosed bipolar, who was much bigger and stronger. I did not fight... only made it worse, but was able to defend myself and evade, prevent major injury and sometimes even stop aggressive responses because this parent was just another opponent. (diagnosed, medicated and pretty awesome now) Such attacks could be a complete surprise, but I knew how to protect myself. The same is true for assault, experienced that early in college due to failing to be mindful of the risks at my young "I can fly" age. Traumatic as that was, I know I was safer for the years I spent training, better prepared and better responding than any one who only had a self-defense course or two.... or worse, no preparation at all!

In either case, laymen or arts, we can only talk about, show images or push each other as far as is safe in civil interactions. This is a disadvantage to anyone in a true sudden moment of brutality.

Yes. That's what I like to see.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

As a woman, taught and trained by a woman, in a coed martial art... I think the issue of being unpreparred for the violence is the same for both sexes. While men are better prepared to respond to aggression with aggression, the brutality of an unexpected attack is a disadvantage for both sexes.

Laymen Self-Defense Classes
Any self-defense class is going to be limited by time, practice, and hesitancy of participants--both trainers who don't want to be sued, and learners who do not want to hurt or be hurt. I have participated in many self-defense trainings with girls, women, even the elderly. Each class is never more than an hour and you have to tailor what you can to their age and ability and their likely attackers. I can't grab my trainee with the aggression they are going to experience, only the strength... I can't surprise my trainee with the suddenness of a brutal attack, I can only respond unexpectantly to their effort to defend and keep them thinking. The best we can do for men or women is teach them how to stay calm and escape detainment if possible. How to be mindful and preventative, and how to be prepared when forced to be in possibly dangerous situations. The real difference in self-defense is not male vs female. It is practice and preparation. The woman, like me, who has trained, taught, fought, and is always conscious of risks surrounding me is in a better place than the strongest man with no preparation...

Marital Arts Self-defense
Now if your question in martial arts trained men vs women, here women should be at an definite ADVANTAGE becasue they are always training with bigger, stronger, possibly faster opponents. While both sexes are receiving the same training, only the women are practicing against a constant challenge. I personally completed in full-contact as a younger woman and even at 14, 15, 16, 17, I sparred with full grown men, full contact. While the most powerful did pull their strength a bit... it wasn't enough to keep a girl from flying if she wasnt mindful and never not practicing their best techniques to win. I also had a violently abusive parent, undiagnosed bipolar, who was much bigger and stronger. I did not fight... only made it worse, but was able to defend myself and evade, prevent major injury and sometimes even stop aggressive responses because this parent was just another opponent. (diagnosed, medicated and pretty awesome now) Such attacks could be a complete surprise, but I knew how to protect myself. The same is true for assault, experienced that early in college due to failing to be mindful of the risks at my young "I can fly" age. Traumatic as that was, I know I was safer for the years I spent training, better prepared and better responding than any one who only had a self-defense course or two.... or worse, no preparation at all!

In either case, laymen or arts, we can only talk about, show images or push each other as far as is safe in civil interactions. This is a disadvantage to anyone in a true sudden moment of brutality.

From what I’ve seen, if you can get women to embrace being violent, foul-mouthed, and Aggro in a training environment, that’s half the job done. They already have the talent for situational awareness, seeing pre-assault cues, it’s just a question of their ability to weaponize it and assert their boundaries. If you know what you’re doing, you could even develop drills to exercise their anti-surveillance capability. If you can get them comfortable with training to cause severe and potentially lethal damage (i.e stabbing, shooting, bludgeoning) then that’s another quarter. The closest you’re going to get is giving the biggest man in the room a full-contact suit, and sending him after all of them.

 

[Tez3]

Sometimes I wonder why I choose to wade into the cesspool of these type conversations but here we go again.
For starters I see no attempt to define and categorize the different types of threats that actually exist other than the comment about family and friends. Any serious conversation would start there and build from there. Without that this entire thread is going nowhere.
Second I don't think people want the truth, especially in a thread like this. It's more fun to be in a world of make believe and fantasize about training ( or maybe being in some cases) some bad *** Be,atch..
Here is the truth. Women already know the answer about drink spiking. DONT GO TO BARS AND DRINK. If your going to take that risk you go out with friends who have your back. You don't leave your drink unattended and stick with a bottle where you can keep your thumb over the top. Yeah, someone is going to try to tell me about how the bartender could be in on it, yes sure, go back to the first rule, Don't Drink. Statistically speaking most sexual assault and violence happens when both parties are under the influence. Problem solved.

SEXUAL ASSAULT BY FAMILY OR CLOSE FRIEND:
Ok you want the actual truth? martial arts is not the solution for this problem. In fact it is so low on the scale of importance that it's not on the list. Combative skills, knife work, guns, less lethal options, nope none are on the list of priorities. In most cases (as an adult) the real answer is years of therapy that should take place long before the assault so you are in a better emotional place so it never happens. And in many cases I would add the word "again" to that statement. Victims during childhood are far more likely to experience repeating assaults throughout their lives from multiple attackers. Good therapy will allow people to see the patterns of grooming that happens long before the assault.

STALKING: Yeah kinda the same advise. most perpetrators are from a past relationship. Get counseling to figure out why you are repeatedly getting into relationships with narcissistic men with violent tendencies. These never end well, most often homicide. Martial arts, ect ect .... not the appropriate answer.
Now there may be cases of stalking from unknown assailants. Example would be someone famous with a deranged fan. In this case I would advise top notch home security and a firearm. Oh you live in a country that outlawed firearms? Well your SOL. follow your governments solution, call the police and wait.

ANTI- what ever you want to call it:
I call BS on this one, if your not military or law enforcement. Only crazy people walk around throughout their day looking for possible threats.
Truth, it takes too much mental energy and an obsessive compulsive personality to do this. Normal people will get tired of it after a few hours. Just listen to your gut instincts. Your brain is collecting more data than your frontal Cortex can process. Your intuition is actually collected data that is being recognized by other parts of your brain. You don't need to do anything fancy or special training. You only need to listen and act on it.

WHEN TO USE force ..BLAH BLAH BLAH:
this is very specific to local laws. It's already written down in law. However it's not that simple. This is very straightforward a matter for legal advise.

Those are my general thoughts. Most conversation on women's self defense, when discussed by men fail to understand the actual issues women face. It's mostly fantasy talk. Men can't understand. It's like arguing the When Harry met Sally troupe. Can men and women be friends? It's a circular argument with no end that will never have any sort of agreement.

I absolutely agree but I'm fed up of explaining over and over again for many,many years a woman's point of view so I'm just here to say, I'm reading the thread but have no hopes at all of, apart from this post and a couple from old friends, anything else making much sense.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

I absolutely agree but I'm fed up of explaining over and over again for many,many years a woman's point of view so I'm just here to say, I'm reading the thread but have no hopes at all of, apart from this post and a couple from old friends, anything else making much sense.

It’s definitely a slow start.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

So, a little recap of the relevant and useful information:

—Women’s threat model mostly includes male family and friends, but also people they meet at the bar

—First element of situational awareness is recognizing grooming and otherwise manipulative behaviors (also protecting drinks)

—2nd element is recognizing when men are attempting to make a move (like the aforementioned example from Gift of Fear)

—3rd element is a continuum of boundary assertion: politely decline, decline more firmly, decline aggressively

—Women are better at behavioral profiling and analysis than men are

Use of force:

Low-threat— General grappling and striking skills

High-threat— (SA and overpowering): Bludgeon, stab, shoot

Women can move faster in bursts than men

Fight Training:

—Heavy bag and pads(knees, palms, elbows, training knife, FMA sticks)

—Power-focused

—Eye and throat strikes

—Grappling

—Scenario training with big dudes in full-contact suits

Did I miss anything?

 

[drop bear]

It is ultimatly change in rule set and priorities.

Guys can use women's self defence methods. They just don't have to as much. But you still see it.

so you need an exit. You should set that up before you enter.

Then you need a delivery system that gets you to that exit.

And a good risk assessment process.

which everyone can benefit from.

 

[hoshin1600]

Women’s threat model mostly includes male family and friends, but also people they meet at the bar

While this does condense what was posted, I think it's not 100% accurate as I would include acquaintances.
True crime story:

Kind Coworker Beaten, Raped, and Stomped On

A woman was terrorized and left for dead in East Rock Park after doing a favor for a coworker.

www.nbcconnecticut.com

Since the story was first reported she has done interviews. From those we find that she had never spoken with the attacker prior, so she did not have any real relationship with him but did know him from work. She started to sense something very wrong almost right away. As the perpetrators behavior was "off". My conclusion is that the victim has to start their defense before the actual assault begins. By defense I mean a recognition and counter action. This has to be appropriate to the situation. Sometimes this could be as subtle as verbal/ emotional positioning, or as blatant as an ambush of violence.
The example I linked is a very difficult situation. She was obligated to bring the person home. She had very few options to get out of the situation. However waiting for the assault to begin is a worse option.

 

[Mallic]

While this does condense what was posted, I think it's not 100% accurate as I would include acquaintances.
True crime story:

Kind Coworker Beaten, Raped, and Stomped On

A woman was terrorized and left for dead in East Rock Park after doing a favor for a coworker.

www.nbcconnecticut.com

Since the story was first reported she has done interviews. From those we find that she had never spoken with the attacker prior, so she did not have any real relationship with him but did know him from work. She started to sense something very wrong almost right away. As the perpetrators behavior was "off". My conclusion is that the victim has to start their defense before the actual assault begins. By defense I mean a recognition and counter action. This has to be appropriate to the situation. Sometimes this could be as subtle as verbal/ emotional positioning, or as blatant as an ambush of violence.
The example I linked is a very difficult situation. She was obligated to bring the person home. She had very few options to get out of the situation. However waiting for the assault to begin is a worse option.

Something I never quite got. This guy was her coworker right? That means it's very likely people would start asking questions if she suddenly stopped showing up, plus the method was very very messy so even if he did succeed his evidence would have been all over her body.

Why would you just throw everything away like that? Did he really think wouldn't start going "Hey, y'all seen such and such lately?"

 

[hoshin1600]

Something I never quite got. This guy was her coworker right? That means it's very likely people would start asking questions if she suddenly stopped showing up, plus the method was very very messy so even if he did succeed his evidence would have been all over her body.

Why would you just throw everything away like that? Did he really think wouldn't start going "Hey, y'all seen such and such lately?"

That's because your thinking like a rational adult.
In this particular case, the perpetrator would be classified as an Unorganized, Power Assertive, killer of lower intelligence. This type is driven by immediate impulse gratification and cannot control themselves or think of the consequences of thier actions in a way that would modify their behavior.
It's a 90 percent probability that she was not his first victim. He had gotten away with it before. He will just move to the next town somewhere.

 

[Mallic]

That's because your thinking like a rational adult.
In this particular case, the perpetrator would be classified as an Unorganized, Power Assertive, killer of lower intelligence. This type is driven by immediate impulse gratification and cannot control themselves or think of the consequences of thier actions in a way that would modify their behavior.
It's a 90 percent probability that she was not his first victim. He had gotten away with it before. He will just move to the next town somewhere.

So his thinking is closer to a wild animal then anything else. Sheesh.

 

[hoshin1600]

So his thinking is closer to a wild animal then anything else. Sheesh.

No. Many people think that and I feel it's a mistake. We are all subject to the challenges of instant gratification. If we all could control our impulses, teen pregnancy would not be a thing. They are just not thinking about tomorrow.

 

[Mallic]

No. Many people think that and I feel it's a mistake. We are all subject to the challenges of instant gratification. If we all could control our impulses, teen pregnancy would not be a thing. They are just not thinking about tomorrow.

Well that or just not giving a damn, sociopathy is also a possibility.