Teaching Women Self-Defense Is Not “Victim-Blaming”

Recently, comedienne Eurydice Dixon was walking home after a performance in Melbourne, Australia when she was raped and murdered. Her alleged killer is a disturbed 19-year-old. Her death has become something of a club with which to bludgeon all men. This is because whenever a crime can be used to further progressive politics, the criminal is the responsibility of everyone in his demographic.

By contrast, when a crime is committed by, say, Muslim terrorists, the progressives insist we are never to assign blame to the group for a long litany of “lone wolf” murder sprees. If it isn’t hand-wringing editorials like this one, it’s protestations about giving self-defense advice to women. Instead of teaching women to defend themselves, the progressives whine, we should be “teaching men not to rape.” The problem, when women are the victims, is not the attackers. No, the problem is all men, or the problem is guns, or the problem is knives, or the problem is that too few men hate themselves enough to describe themselves as feminists.

We’ll set aside, for the moment, the absurdity of the notion that there are men actively raping because they just don’t know it’s wrong. “Wait, what? I wasn’t supposed to force people to have sex? I… I had no idea.” The problem here is not that crime exists, for it always has, but the bizarre lens through which progressives insist on viewing it.

Even the Guardian article admits that two-thirds of victims are men — yet somehow manages to spin this to women being the more victimized victims of victimhood. It reminds me of the old joke about leftist politics: “EARTH EXPLODES — WOMEN, MINORITIES MOST AFFECTED.”

More importantly, and the reason I chose this issue for The Martialist rather than one of my politically oriented websites, is that women — specifically, progressive women — seem determined to work at cross-purposes to their own well-being when it comes to self-protection. I’ve been aware of the issue in “social justice” circles for a time.

The basic premise is the same as the attitude of “teach men not to rape.” Progressives believe that they have a right to do whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of reality. Now, while I would agree in principle, reality also says that you can’t whine about your right not to fall when you walk off a cliff. Perhaps more accurately, you also can’t complain if you walked off the cliff accidentally after ignoring a sign warning you of the drop.

I was confronted with this attitude recently when a predictably anonymous commenter left a remark on this article.  The piece outlines what’s wrong with the marketing of various women’s self-defense implements. Women are particularly susceptible to this type of marketing because, on the whole, they take far less interest in self-defense than do men.

I want every woman who is attacked — by a stranger, by an abusive boyfriend, by an acquaintance, by a deranged spouse — to be successful. Gadgets such as “Go Guarded” and “Tiger Lady” give women a false sense of security that will lead to their injury or death, in my opinion.

Well, some social justice whiner (SJW) wrote, “Ha. Let me guess. You’re a white, middle aged privileged man telling women what we should be doing. What a joke!”

Now, I cannot imagine being so obsessed with social justice that you think self-defense advice is gendered, but be that as it may: My race has nothing to do with the validity of the self-defense advice I impart. If you are so stupid as to believe you cannot learn self-defense from someone with twenty-five years of experience in the field because that person is white, you are destined to be robbed, beaten, raped, or killed through your own willful ignorance.

It goes beyond who teaches, however. There are some SJW idiots who believe self-defense training in any form is somehow a moral crime.

The social justice types believe that if you teach a woman to defend herself, if you give her the tools to fight off an attacker, if you believe a woman has a responsibility to take ownership of her defense, you are “victim blaming.” Presumably this is because she has an inalienable right not-to-be-raped (which she does, but which criminals don’t care about) and therefore her feelings are all that is required to insulate her from the bad people of the world.

If only we browbeat more males with the inevitable self-hate of feminism, if only we blamed all men for the crimes of a minority within their ranks, we could so cow them as to rearrange reality in women’s favor. So the progressives believe — and thus they actively discourage women from learning to protect themselves. They claim they should not have to take measures to safeguard themselves when out and about, on the grounds that this is morally wrong. Why, it’s the men doing the attacking who should change their behavior. Women shouldn’t have to change their behaviors because it’s scary, makes them unhappy, and can even be confusing.

This is as ridiculous as the thinking of those who demand gun control. The principle is the same: If we simply ban enough objects, if we simply vilify enough people for the crimes of a few repeat offenders, if we simply treat all citizens as criminals who have not yet offended, then the bad people in the world will still want to do violence, but will be prevented from doing so because they lack the necessary means. This is quite impossible, does not work, and has never worked for all of recorded human history… but when have progressives ever gauged their wishful thinking against objective results?

I will acknowledge that some editorials on Eurydice Dixon did rightly point out that much of the advice on women’s self-defense is conflicting. By the time you cross-reference all the things women are and are not supposed to do to stay safe, there’s little they dare attempt save hiding under a blanket at home with the lights off. Part of the problem is that so much of the self-defense advice peddled to women is of the type my Tiger Lady article underscored: unworkable quick fixes that impart a false sense of security.

The other part of the problem, though, is that too many women still believe their feelings trump the reality of a dangerous world. Criminals don’t care what you think. They could not care less what you believe you deserve or to what you think you are entitled. Your fantasies are your own. Intelligent men will refuse to participate in them. The stupid ones (yes, male “feminists,” I’m looking at you) are only encouraging your delusions… and many of them are the very predators they tell you should be taught not to rape and murder.

Men — those who aren’t angst-ridden progressives, anyway — long ago came to terms with the reality that is self-defense training. Women complain they must be ever vigilant for attack. They believe men traipse blithely along through life, skipping and humming, thanking God for the “privilege” that keeps them safe in the darkest of alleys at the latest of hours. But as the statistics show, men are much more likely to be attacked than women. The smart ones take active responsibility for protecting themselves. They do it out of habit every day; they just don’t bitch about it all the time.

Women, stop complaining that your feelings should overwrite reality. Stop whining that you shouldn’t have to defend yourself. Stop demanding that everyone else change. And for pity’s sake, stop accusing everyone who gives you decent self-defense advice of somehow “mansplaining” to you from a place of “privilege.” We’re trying to help you to help yourself. We’re trying to prevent you from being raped and murdered.

Race and gender are irrelevant. We’re all on the same side — or we should be.