Although she cannot see him, she senses his presence. For a moment, she fears she will freeze, unable to protect herself. When his hands touch her neck, she hears her daughter yell, “Go Mom!” Digging deep into her soul, she explodes.
I have had the privilege of meeting many powerful women in the self-defense workshops I teach. Some, like this mother and daughter, confront their greatest fears to support their loved ones. Others walk in alone, determined to confront demons they have been battling for decades. The generosity of the women who have suffered the most, their willingness to tell fifteen strangers about the unimaginable abuses they have suffered, encourages others to let go of their inhibitions and do the serious work of finding the warrior within.
Most often those of us who have been fortunate enough to live life relatively unscathed have the most work to do to be safe. We are also the hardest to convince that our safety should be an urgent priority. We forget that keeping our children safe depends upon us staying safe and setting a good, strong example.
Admittedly, walking in the door to a self-defense class demands that we take a personal inventory of our decisions, relationships, and experiences. We must think about the unthinkable—becoming victims—and recognize that most of us are victims at some point. Social conditioning teaches women to consider others’ needs and feelings before voicing our own, to be polite and avoid a scene. While admirable qualities all, they make us easy targets for predators.
Because desirable womanhood is soft-spoken and polite, it is not surprising that women in our self-defense courses find it harder to set firm verbal boundaries than to fight back physically. Effects can be subtle: In the office, the unwillingness to speak can mean inequitable work or pay and interruptions by colleagues. In personal relationships, the stakes are often higher. Many young women have confessed to me they find it easier to comply with sexual advances than to say, “No.”
Social conditioning also teaches us to disregard our instincts as silly products of our sensitive nature. As children, we may have been told to hug relatives our instincts told us to avoid. By adulthood, we are used to ignoring the gut feelings that tell us to avoid a certain route home or cut off a conversation with a stranger. In The Gift of Fear, Gavin DeBecker interviews dozens of victims, each of whom dismissed an instinct that told her something was wrong. Our first lesson in self-defense, then, is to trust our instincts. Our own body would not lie.
According to the Department of Justice, one in four women report having been the victim of sexual assault while in college. In 85% of sexual assaults against women, predators use verbal threats of violence alone to frighten victims into compliance. We are taught not to fight back because we will make the predator angry. Society tells us we cannot win.
The good news is that just as women have been taught to be victims through generations of social conditioning, we can, in a matter of hours, be reconditioned to be warriors. We can win. We can learn awareness skills, putting down our cell phones to pay attention to our surroundings. We can make ourselves unappealing victims by projecting confidence. We can learn to speak assertively, to use the power of our voices to keep us safe. And we can learn how to tap into the natural fear-induced adrenalin response to wield incredible power should we need to protect ourselves physically.
Being safe is not about size or strength. It is about will and spirit. You have to believe you are worth protecting. The mother you just read about heard her daughter’s voice, found that spirit, and lifted a 240-pound man off his feet with a knee to the groin. At the end of the class, when we all sat in a circle talking about our experiences, the daughter spoke of how proud she was of her mother. She said she felt more confident going away to college knowing her mother was strong and could take care of herself. The mother was pleased and surprised as she heard her daughter’s words—the very words she had planned to say herself.
