Why are we not learning to fight?

[BMW6]

So often I see threads from women who are beaten, raped, abused.

Why can't we get together to teach each other how to defend yourself? Or attack if needs be?

Another truth is you dont know how you'll behave when your attacked, until your attacked, like being suddenly flung into a stressful traumatic incident.

Forget the films and the short scenes you might run through your head.

Men and women alike, a lot of men and I would imagine the vast majority of women would be stunned / shocked into submission right away with a decent punch, elbow, headbut etc.

The kind self defence class wont teach you unless your into competitive fighting.
(Northern female dart teams in west cumbria exepted)

You'll likely lose in a fight with any man, the best thing you can do in a violent confrontation is try to get away. Do not advise any woman to try and fight back, this is not good advice.

Google self defence classes?

It's totally pointless. I did quite a bit of martial arts, one of the unusual street fighting styles. We were still taught to run asap as men are so much stronger.

Even in class young/slim inexperienced guys could easily overpower any of the women because they are stronger

It is not our lack of fighting skills that makes us the victims of male violence. Most women are not strong enough to withstand an attack by a man, even if she can fight. Most abuse is from partners, and physically fighting back makes them more violent. The best advice in these situations (sadly) is to run away, lock the door, call the police. And in many many situations there is absolutely nothing to be done at all. Your body freezes, they overpower you because they are much much stronger. And it's very important that we don't send out the message that a woman is at fault for her abuse, or that violence happens to us because we're insufficiently prepared. Violence does not happen to us - men do it to us, no matter how many martial arts courses we've taken.

I guess at least in principle, it's not a bad idea to know some fight moves. Especially tactics that could help buy prescious time against a stranger turning forceful in a nightclub or something like that. It's a delusion to think that these measures would resolve the problem of male violence, though. The only thing that will resolve that problem is for men to stop being violent towards women: to stop raping, beating and killing us, just because they can.

This ☝🏻
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I'll be teaching my three (currently under 5yrs) sons exactly this

Because you don't have a chance in hell. If a man decides he wants to hurt you, he very easily can and it doesn't matter how well you can fight. They're too strong. Having experienced it myself, I teach my daughter to run.

Because they're strong, incredibly strong. I used to naively think I could fight one off, I've only just realised how little strength I have in comparison. They are something like 50% stronger than us. That's without even going into what sort of reaction you might have out of fear.

Because rape and sexual abuse is more than just the physical part. It’s about how we emotionally and mentally can’t do things. Frozen in fear or are mentally conditioned to not feel able to say no. And how rapists are skilled at making us feel it’s us.

we need to start at the baseline allowing our children to say no and respecting that. But parents who allow this are seen as weak and not ‘parenting’
we allow schools to give detentions for answering back, exclusion for saying no to things when we Shoukd be doing all we can to teach our kids to say no if they want, and make wise decisions

its so much more than physical

I know really mentally and physixally string people who have been raped, that stupid stupid question to victims ‘but did you say no’ needs to be turned around to rapists ‘did they say yes?’

Why are men not getting together to learn not to hurt women?

I did start doing karate classes, but then I got punched in the face so I quit. I don’t like being hurt and I was worried I might end up with an injury or broken teeth or something. I think women just have less drive to do that sort of thing, and more fear of getting hurt. It also didn’t help that it was a mixed class, so on the day I got punched I had been paired with a male who was twice my size. There aren’t a lot of exclusively female classes.

In general I agree with pp though - as an average female you won’t be able to overpower the majority of men. Your best strategy is to go for quick injuries and escape. I actually think it’s more helpful to be able to run and climb, because you can escape. Learn a few parkour skills, then if you’re in danger you can run away and leap over a wall, and your attacker probably can’t follow.

If you want to learn a martial art that will help in a real self defence setting then the only options are Judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu is incredibly fun I'd recommend it to anyone.

1000 times this! I'm sick of women being portrayed as victims when actually it's just men being evil assholes taking advantage of someone physically weaker than them

I don't really want to learn to fight.

Wouldn't help anyway. Most men are still physically stronger than most women.

I already don’t walk around at night on my own. Don’t get too drunk on a night out just incase. Watch my drinks like a hawk too on nights out. Lock my car doors when I’m sitting inside it.I Don’t make eye contact with unknown blokes because for some reason It seems to provoke some cuntish types “what the fuck you looking at?” Now I have to learn to fight too? Fuck that noise. Why can’t there be classes for wankers to learn not to be wankers?

Most people freeze when they are sexually attacked. Most people are taken off guard. I suppose if you can handle yourself you give off a confidence vibe that may make a stranger think twice about assaulting you . Most assaults are committed by someone known to the victims making it more difficult to report.

I remember when I was a know it all teen bragging to my dad that I could fight off a man if he attacked me . Dad was trying to tell me to keep my wits about me when out and about especially in the darkness. He suddenly just grabbed me in a bear hug from behind and I literally could not move . He was too strong . I've never forgotten how helpless I felt , but he proved a point and I learned the lesson that men were physically much much stronger than women .

When i worked in the NHS we had training every few years called “break away” training. It was if someone grabbed you eg head lock you knew how to get out of it. Quite useful, but with all these things- easy to forget. Theres a self defence chap on instagram who posts these kind of short vids. I follow him too

It’s hardly likely to be hard for most women to access self defence classes if they are so inclined.

Personally I don’t see the point. I am shorter and slighter than the vast majority of women as it is; against men I’m looking at 100%.. I did avoid getting mugged once though by just getting very angry but I’m not sure self righteous anger works often and or is advisable!

When I was being raped (by a stranger), I seriously considered eye gouging and biting (and had the determination), but decided that on balance, I didn’t want to give him any ideas he might turn back on me. I was already being beaten and strangled, I did not want to risk being blinded too.

I did kick and punch, but he was over a foot taller than me, and 40kg heavier (I was 5’2 and 47kg when it happened, he was a muscular 6’4 man). His arms were long enough to punch me without his head or body coming into range for me hitting him back. He just pulled me over and kneeled on me. Given that discrepancy in size, it doesn’t matter if you are trained in martial arts - that’s why there are weight categories in boxing and martial arts competitions.

You have obviously never been in an actual fight OP, which is lucky for you, but you need to recognise you have no idea what you are talking about. It isn’t like a Marvel film.

Why are we not locking more rapists up? Why aren't we educating men to stop attacking women? Why aren't men expected to attend long term rehabilitation for their VAWG?

Why is it always a woman's job to find solutions?

In the vast majority of cases, the best thing to do if you're attacked is to shout "stop!" very loudly (to get attention) and run away. It's all very well and good to say "I'd poke his eye out" or "I'd kick him in the groin", but against a taller aggressor with longer reach who is actively resisting, this is extremely difficult. Most of the time, your attacker will catch your arm or step back from your kick, and in the case of your kick, you may well then fall over.

Study after study has shown that self defence classes usually just lead to over confidence. You have to be extremely proficient (expert level) for it to actually be useful in a real attack scenario.

I'm you ever feel threatened by a stranger in real life, RUN AWAY if at all possible, and shout for help.

Why are we not locking more rapists up?

Yeah, this. And paedophiles.

Sadly it's because they're bloody everywhere and there's not half enough prison capacity