Feminist Pub VII - Chat, questions, random thoughts too small for a thread ...

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Just setting this up while we finish off the last few posts on the old thread. Come in and pull up a bar stool!

I also love your posts, Outs. And the sad thing is, I remember how strong I was before all that conditioning kicked in, and before puberty. I really mourn that power now.

Bravo Outs. You are so right. My 5ft 7stone daughter once disarmed a would-be rapist who broke into her room in Asia and attacked her. She physically threw him over the balcony, breaking his arm (pity it wasn't his neck).

I've twice seen off muggers in the London underground and I am only pretty small too.

No one is saying men, on average, are not stronger than women, but IMO many women do not do themselves justice.

As for women saying they don't lift weights in the gym because they don't want to get muscles. What's that all about? Muscles are good

Many of us collude in our own helplessness like the elephant on a rope.

Glad you lot like my posts

WRT rethinking yourself as powerful. In general, I'd say women and girls need to hit stuff more, have you ever booted a football for miles, or really smacked a rounders ball? That, every week of your life. And loads of overam throwing. Squat to get stuff instead of elegant waist bending. Notice the many powerful movements you make on a daily basis, I carry the shopping up the stairs to my place, that leg action is very powerful. Notice yourself breeze through heavy doors. Most people actually have to restrain themselves from smacking doors open too hard.

I think there's nothing like really learning to fight, though. Getting smacked in the face and not falling over and crying is huge, life changing in fact. And learning to fight with a weapon like a stick or staff, means every room with a broom in it feels totally different. Everyone is deadly with a weapon if they know how to use it, strength is almost immaterial as compared to technique. DP is a martial artist, he's good, he does a weaponless form though. Which means if there's a weapon in the room, I win. Even if there are two, and we start with one each, or he starts with one and I'm empty handed. I can take his off him and he's fucked. Brooms and other lengths of wood - chair legs, sports equipment, anything heavy in a pinch, all make good weapons substitutes.

I'm another who loves your posts Outs. I do think the social conditioning is a bigger problem than our physical strength.

Denzel I too remember how strong I was before the social conditioning too hold. I protected my older brother when he was being bullied at primary school, I didn't know that a girl wasn't supposed to be able to beat up a boy, so i did. It was somewhere around the teenage years that I started to believe that boys were too strong for me to take on, but I think Cailin is onto something with how we've been trained not to show our underwear. I had to wear a skirt for school, so kicking someone in a fight would show my knickers and that's not something I was ever allowed to do, which gives boys an advantage because they've never been conditioned to think about showing their underwear and haven't had to wear clothing that restricts their movements.

they would just change the rules so that fighting well just got you punished

I thought there were going to be Thread Staffs a while ago?

My brother and his friend, aged 12 at the time, got in a fight with a 'bad boy' on the way home from school once. They were both very much beaten up and lost big time, even though there was 2 of them and only 1 opponent. Why? He was not afraid to actually hurt them; they were wussy naice boys, and he was not.

I consider myself strong (unfit and untrained, but strong), but that is because there was a time that I was quite athletic, I know what my body can do, I have never been made to feel sexually at risk of violence and I like the 'heft' that my broad shoulder/wrists/ankles give me (I'd like long legs and a slim waist, but hey ho ).

I am sure Staff Training could help the waist, if not the legs!

I fear you're right mab. If women suddenly started training in karate in large numbers and there was a conscious effort to encourage women to fight attackers, you can be the prison sentences for ABH and battery would suddenly go up and be handed out much more generously, only to women though of course. And a certain shit rag newspaper would start spouting outrage at the "thuggish" women who dared to be strong.

you can be certain - I know I'm tired when words start disappearing from my posts.

Sorry. Actually I think Outself's posts are brilliant and really important.
Inspiring and brilliant for us as individuals.

I do quite fancy staff training. There's a sword-fighting class near me that I fancy having a go at (they use wooden swords to start with that look suspiciously like broom handles to me) but it clashes with one of dd1's activities that she needs to be collected from, so I can't go.

I also fancy archery, I've had a go a few times and was pretty good for a beginner, but I suspect I might have more problems finding a handy bow and arrow than a spare broom handle.

Well, I don't know what men would do in the case we all suddenly went, "yeah? You and whose?" instead of backing off, or trying not to fuck them off further, or whatever. But I do know that if they wanted to meet that revolution with force they would have to abandon the weaker sex argument and everything that goes with it. They'd be abandoning something key n patriarchal constructions of masculinity. And everything that goes with it.

If you are in the mood for it take a look at the comments here on this article about my campaign...

We might not be able to karate-kick ourselves out of patriarchy at the moment but I do think that it's very important for us to be able to again be more connected with our bodies and our strenght. The socialization is brutal. All the messages about femininity, beauty and especially all the abuse have really affected me, like so many others.

How about an unlearning/re-learning body stuff-thread?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: staffs for everyone and a Mumsnet Academy on their use.

Thing is though, outs, when push comes to shove, many people (men and women alike) simply don't want to get hurt. With two men fighting, the hurt is pretty much inevitable, but when women are attacked it's often because the man wants to rape her. So, for women, it often makes sense not to fight and just let him rape her and get the whole thing over with. Of course, that's no solution, but it's an added dimension to the whole thing.
Also, men often attack their partners. It's much harder to hit back against someone you love than it is to lash out against a stranger. Of course some of that is socialisation on the part of women too.

Hello, can I join in? I haven't learnt a martial art although for various reasons can handle myself well in a fight- have had to restrain and defend myself from my brother (physically bigger, looks stronger and intimidating) and can do it successfully. But I know that until I actually learnt a bit some basic self defence (in work) I didn't think I could fight off a man (or anyone, tbh), and I know most of the women in my work team thought the same.

Good idea about the relearning thread Briar. Although the talk about bodies makes me realise I do need to get my arse in gear and sort out that counselling I've been putting off for ages. The thought of simply engaging with my body is scary for me. I'm even having trouble with sex these days (partly due to bfing but not entirely, I know that) and that's a new thing. Old issues that I thought I'd put to bed are biting again. Sigh.

True, Outself.

I think it would be amazing in individual life to start taking up more space, squaring up to those who square up to us. In my limited experiments with this I haven't faced down the explicit thread of actual violence but I have challenged the implicit vibes that hint at it, without ever being expected to be called on it. it is fascinating. If I were stronger and fitter I would do more of this.

I don't know how this would effect power structure though because men pretend they are not physically pushing us around, and that this is not the basis of their being in charge. Actually I know and you know and deep down many of them know that this is what it is all about. Also once you get into structural stuff there is the fact that the law comes with truncheons and handcuffs and mobhanded gangs of thugs who can throw you down the stairs and then not know how your head got kicked in.

when you watch nature programmes it is interesting to see how hard smaller, weaker animals fight for their lives and how they are not defeatist. Often they make it, when you think the predator must have done for them.

I am not so sure that knowing and understanding ones own strength needs/should come with actual physical violence or whether the knowledge and assurance that would come from being strong would be enough to redress the balance.
Assault courses could give the same sense of strength and being capable - technique in self-defence without being at all times ready for battle.

I find it really hard to talk about this without slipping in to victim blaming, but i find a certain physical presence, an authoritative stance, without being aggressive or in-yer-face can diffuse many situations.

Feminity (as in weak/whimpering/gentle/quiet etc etc) needs to roar!

Sounds like a good thread idea, Briar.

Hiya Fringehead (name made me smile). The thought I could fight off a man scares the shit out of me - why?

I don't know about you, but with me, it seems unnatural/wrong. I guess a lot of us have grown up being shown how women and girls are the ones who are rescued (and barely make an effort to save themselves) and it's ingrained in us, the idea of men and boys being the ones to fight and women are the ones who don't really fight back, so when we can do exactly the same, it's going against nearly everything we've been taught.

Being frightened of being hurt is a big thing. I've really been hurt but not that badly when you consider the situation (fighting a bigger, well-trained man). The first time I was hit full in the face, I wanted to cry, it was horrifying. The emotional force of it was the devastating thing and the thing I had to get over. In my form, we learn to trade - you let yourself take a non-devastating blow to position yourself to land a devastating one. Getting over that fear is enormously empowering