Defensive Stance

The familiar chant of 'no' reverberates in my mind from Sunday afternoon. Once a month, I volunteer with a self defense coursed tailored specifically for women that is run by Edmonton police officer members.

Self defense courses gives women the opportunity to choose whether or not they want to fight back, rather than inevitably falling into the victim role from a lack of knowledge or skill. Self defense, according to Cahill, "transform[s] the feminine body from an enemy into an ally" (372) changing how women see and respond to their bodies. While important critiques have been made against self defense, citing its shift of blame from the perpetrator to the victim to stop the assault, having your body on your side can be very empowering, especially in a context where women's bodies are consistently under another's control. The cultural context that has allowed rape to occur continues to exist today so women should discover and rediscover their body and minds' capabilities until we live in a rape free world.

The gym's echoes of pads being hit by punches women never thought they could throw interrupts the rape script and how women identify with it. Offenders typically choose their victims based on the assumption they won't fight back, so the act of fighting back itself can be enough to end the assault. Obviously this is not always the case, and there is a very real possibility for this to end with the opposite of the desired effect. Self defense courses for women do, however, use "those differences to enhance women's physical power" (377). For example, the popular quip of punching like a girl can be debunked by employing methods like using one's hips instead of upper body to put power behind the punch.

There are a number of intersecting setbacks to self defense. Speaking anecdotally, despite having the physical skill to defend myself, I still lack the mindset to utilize it in life outside the course. I don't want to make a scene about an ass grab, something so seemingly trivial, for fear of being labeled as a hysterical, over reactive bitch. "Self defense training does hold the potential to undermine some of the most crucial and embodied tenets of a rape culture" (378)but only if one is willing to enter a situation as an actor of violence, unchartered territory for many women. Knowledge also does not always transition neatly into practice because knowing how to break someone's nose is very different from believing you're worth breaking someone's nose over. Additionally, there exists a strange fear of rejection in acting in self defense if the perpetrator doesn't take you seriously as a threat because "contemporary gendering practices do not encourage, facilitate, or make likely this kind of response" (376).

If gender inequality, not the individual female body, is emphasized for the root of rape, self defense "[articulates] possibilities for constructive, effective ways of undoing the norms of a rape culture [and] is not the same as demanding that women take responsibility for keeping themselves safe" (374).

Works Cited

Cahill, Ann J. "In Defense of Self-Defense." Philosophical Papers 38.3 (2009): 363-80. <http://login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=53467089&site=eds-live&scope=site