I'm in the interesting position of agreeing with both Cord and Shusha.

Re Shusha, true that "women are often confronting opponents who are larger and stronger than they are, they are often attacked in isolation from others, they are often attacked by predators whose intent is to punish them, they are usually less experienced than men, they are usually less likely to want to hurt someone, they are more likely to use verbal and emotional strategies"...

Re Cord, "Any social hierarchy is based on a balance of dominance and submission. That is not a gender based balance, its social conditioning and personal psychological make up. "

Combining the two, "That is not NECESSARILY a gender based balance, it's social conditioning and personal psychological make up, combined with the physiological differences in size and strength which make women much more convenient victims, as are smaller and less aggressive men in prison."

Similar to comparing male and female eating habits -- both eat, but social conditioning helps determine food choice, table manners, belching etc., and physiology determines the amount consumed. Eating is eating; to me the differences are more trivial than the similarities in method and function.

That is not what I said. Physical domestic violence is one possible symptom, or tactic, used within a relationship, by an individual to assert control over their partner as an expression of their psychological issues.

An 'abusive' woman may use jealousy, rage, manipulation, and prey on the percieved insecurities of her male partner in order to gain psychological control and dominance in the relationship. In short, its a form of bullying that seeks to create a situation where the male 'treads on egshells' is not allowed female friends, not allowed to spend extended social periods away from the partnership, and is 'programmed' to behave in a way that every action he takes is in an effort to appease his partner.

Many, many men end up in this situation, and many men have been attacked by partners wielding weapons of opportunity in a rage when such behaviour reaches critical mass.

The pyschological 'breaking' and undermining of a person in an abusive relationship follows a smilar psychological pattern, and timeframe, be the victim the man, or the woman - any unequal relationship defined by fear is abusive.



Its the general held 'wisdom' that a woman will, by default, be inferior to any given random male in a physical confrontation. What interests me is the contradictory mysoginy on Martial arts logic. Run a straw man argument on any given forum in which a big strong man fights a skilled trained smaller man, and due mention of physical advantage will be made, but inevitably, the wisdom 'training will out' will prevail.
Then run the same scenario with a bigger stronger man against a comaparative physicaly weaker female, and suddenly she is helpless, and requires weapons, help, an act of god and a rabbits foot to survive.

My point was not about the lack of ability of women, it was the lack of ability, and taste for violence in the vast majority of 'ordinary' men.

The idea that by virtue of being a male alone, you will be able to deal with violence better than a female, is utterly, utterly ridiculous. Most men live in fear of violence just as much as women. A guy walking home alone in the dead of night on a dark street is every bit as wary as a woman in the same situation. Some may use bravado and body language to try and convince otherwise, but you see it every weekend - the guy on his own, walking in the street (not on the pavement), with imaginary water bottles under both arms, swaggering up the street to his home. He is not 'owning' the road, he is avoiding hedges and blind spots. He is not posturing out of hubris, he is trying to make himself look bigger/stronger to warn off atack.

At the end of the day, any reasonable human being of any gender, is terrified of conflict.

Does this not assume that any attack against a woman is automatically sexually/gender based? If an attack is robbery based, is it necessarily different for a man or a woman? Likewise, as domestic violence also takes place against males (with both male and female perpetrators) may not the defence tactics be simlar?

I imagine that for many women the idea that an attack will automatically result in a sexually based attack is perhaps the basis of much SD. Assume any attack is sexually motivated and use this as your defence motivation.

No one said anything like that.

In fact, I would argue the opposite is true.

The few women i've known who get involved with the "self defense" aspect of MA have a much easier time with it because they already are operating from a mindset of survival rather than confrontation or dominance.

Whereas many men I have known (including probably 80% of male martial artists i've met) literally have trouble understanding the clear difference between an escalated pissing match in front of a bar, trying to teach someone a lesson, and trying to get away from or having to subdue someone who is trying to really do harm to you. that's not to say the pissing match can't turn into one of those..

Self defense with men often becomes about a 'game'where you beat the other guy, whereas it seems like women, by virtue of having to view violence from a different point are easily able to just think about survival and safety.

I don't think that a sexist statement at all, if anything it just points out how stupid and boneheaded most 'self defense' is in martial arts culture, where people have a hard tiome distinguishing between the grown up equivalent of a schoolyard brawl, and an actual assault.

So no one said males can deal with violence better, in fact if you read was written you could easily extrapolate it in the opposite direction - Men can have a tendency to make it worse because they like to get involved in the dominance game.

A good point. I remember when I was living in Belfast, I had visited a female friend and was heading home. She suggested that my friend and I cut across a pitch black park area. I commented that there was no way in hell i was going across the park... it was dark and I couldn't see who was there (and I have a lovely british accent). She, being an ardent feminist, asked, "So you're scared? Ha! Now you know how every woman feels!" Then she asked, a little incredulous... "Really, are you scared to go across there?" I pointed out that there were many reasons, good and bad, for someone to decide to attack a person walking in a dark place at night 9especially in that town) and to me, it wasn't just a matter of being 'scared', it was a matter of common sense and I'd be practically 'asking for it' if i walked somewhere like that at midnight, whether I was male or female.

Precisely. And many 'self defence' classes rely on propogating that fear.



Not at all. I would go further though, and say that the core tenets of self defence run across not only genders, but also motivation of the attacker.

As an example, a victim's primary goals in their situation are:

1. Avoidance (ideal) through sound personal choices in regards to travel arrangements and environments frequented.
2. To prevent/limit physical contact and injury with/from their attacker.
3. To maintain an escape path, remain on their feet, and to flee as soon as possible
4. To do everything possible to alert others to their plight.
5. To maintain awareness and take in details of the attacker to pass on to law enforcement.

Now, as a basic framework, is that any more, or less relevant to a male being stalked on a footpath and attacked for his new 'smart phone', or a woman accosted by a sexual predator?



In both cases, the only answer is the cessation of the relationship, and distance between victim and abuser, with intervention by authorities where necessary.



Yep, and for men, it is never factored into their scenarios, yet it happens. I had to deal with a guy who had been beaten and gang-raped in the toilet of the pub I was working in at the time. He needed hospital treatment, the men responsible were held at the scene, but released when the victim refused to press charges due to the stigma of the event. He just went ahead with not sexual assault charges. Women are not the only victims of abuse and sexual assault.

Agreed.
My girlfriend holds a second degree black belt in Isshinryu, and even though she has the skills to dominate, her mentality is to get away from confrontation if at all possible.
Guys tend to let their egos get in the way, especially when there's women around.

Cord, you said:

"Jealousy, the undermining of self confidence, and control through behaviour and violence are just as common with women being the perpetrators and their male partners the victims."

I know of no statistical information which supports this statement. I do acknowledge that men also experience relationship abuse. I acknowledge that it is vastly under-reported, significantly more so than for women who experience abuse which is also under-reported. I acknowledge that services for male targets of abuse are very difficult to find. I acknowledge that abuse is abuse and that emotional, social and economic abuse is just as significant as physical violence.

However, you seem to be arguing that female perpetrators\male targets happen with the same frequency as male perpetrators\female targets and I do not believe there is statistical evidence to support this. Also, I believe that male targets experience relationship abuse differently than female targets do. Not that it is less painful, but that there are differences.

Zach: I totally agree with this statement. Exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

"The few women i've known who get involved with the "self defense" aspect of MA have a much easier time with it because they already are operating from a mindset of survival rather than confrontation or dominance."

"Does this not assume that any attack against a woman is automatically sexually/gender based? If an attack is robbery based, is it necessarily different for a man or a woman?"

~80% of physical assaults perpetrated on women are by someone she knows, most often her boyfriend, husband, ex-boyfriend or ex-husband, father or other male relative (in roughly that order). Are these based on sex or gender? I think it would be more correct to say they are based on societal and cultural expectations of male and female roles, but yeah, they are. So, do I automatically assume that any attack against a woman is based on sex or gender? No. But a large majority clearly are.

If we were to take a more gender-neutral situation, such as robbery, I still believe you would find differences in the both the most likely response of male vs. female targets and the best responses of male vs. female targets.