I disagree that self-defense is self-defense.

Here's a sample scenario: Your husband comes home from work in a foul mood and you are pretty sure you are in for a rough night. You do everything you can to keep him from blowing up, walking around on eggshells and trying not to upset him or make him angry. Finally, he tells you to put the kids to bed and because he is "in the mood for some love, right now". You have seen him this way before and know you will end up with bruises by the end of the night, he'll probably smack you around a bit, but your experience tells you that once that is over with he will probably fall asleep and leave you alone for the rest of the night. You think if you obey him quickly enough you might even be able to avoid a real beating like the one he gave you last week when you were a little slow to respond to his "request". That beating put you in the hospital for 24 hours and when you came home the children hadn't been fed and were still wearing the same diapers and your husband reminded you that you were responsible for taking care of the kids, not him. And you'd better not slack off again or else you never know what will happen to you or maybe one of the kids."

What should a woman do to defend herself? What would be the ideal response in this situation? Should she put the children safely in their rooms and allow herself to be raped and beaten by her husband? Should she engage in a physical confrontation with him? Should she try to de-escalate the situation? Should she sneak quietly out the back door while he is undressing?

And this is just pointing out difficulties in the actual individual encounter at the moment. This doesn't address the social, emotional, economic abuses she might be experiencing that create additional complications in dealing with a long-term plan for her safety.

Good post dude.

At heart the problem is when people equate "self defense" with a narrow set of physical skills. Self defense involves a pretty broad range of concepts, and the physical stuff is just what happens when it all fails.

To say it's "all the same" is an intellectual cop-out..only the same in a very narrow, purely physical sense..and even then it's a questionable statement because the dichotomy between who people are, and how they fight is a false one.


That's the problem with saying something like a woman woulod fight like a small guy..that's only true in the dojo or gym, in the real world that's impossible because we have to fight from who we are, people can't suddenly ditch a lifetime of social conditioning, experiences, personality and being because they do martial arts.

She shouldnt be home when her husband gets home. Her and her kids should be packed and living in a womens shelter.

Anything else is not adequate self defence.

And lets not get sidetracked by this issue either, because the dynamics of an abusive relationship are NOT gender specific. 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. The big difference is that in such situations, the man is much less likely to come forward and seek help.

The original question was specificaly aimed at the gender differences in tactic and motivation when intervening in violent crime/disorder in a public environment.

Domestic violence is an entirely different ballpark, and as I said, self defence in that situation is a)work on self esteem to not settle for or tolerate a bad partner in the 1st place, and/or b) get the hell out of the relationship by any means necessary if stuck in one.

There is no other answer to that scenario.

I agree Cord. Don't hang about waiting for the next time. I understand that might not be an easy option to make. Love can be blind as far as couples go. But when theres kids involved aswell i think it dosnt count. When he gets back from the pub, whos to say that they wont be the next victims of his wrath? I grew up in that environment. Not very nice!

Whatever the particulars of the situation, a woman has to look at things differently than a man. If a guy who outweighs by 50 lbs you comes up to you on the street and pushes you down..what do you think he's after? I'd wager that for most men such a situation would usually be a pissing match, and nine out of ten guys (rightly or wrongly) would want to engage and teach him a lesson.

Put a woman in that position and you are talking about a precursor to assault, rape, or both. How can things be the same?

Self-defence to my belief starts with awareness and avoidance. Be aware of the threat and do what you can to avoid it. Prevention is better than the cure as they say.

If you miss the signs of being attacked, then forget about all the fancy techniques either get running or go crazy. Thats just my opinion though.

I respect the Krav maga mentality because of its explosiveness and i believe that makes for reality self-defence.

Is 38 years old too late to be learning KM or should i just stick with the styles i do now and just borrow the KM concept?

Again, i disagree. 7 out of 10 guys in a confrontational situation wont say 5h1t if you stuff their mouths full of it.

This accepted wisdom that all men are somehow hardwired to fight is not the case, and most men on the street do not have the self confidence or ability to do diddly squat to an attacker- why do you think there are so many attacks? If muggers/mindless thugs got back what they gave in a high percentage of circumstances, they wouldnt do what they do.

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. The vast majority of men are as scared and useless when under attack as this thread percieves women to be - if this was not the case, then 90% of martial arts classes would vanish overnight. The fear of being powerless, the fear of violence, the fear of domination is far more widespread than the opposite. There is only one alpha male per group- kinda dictated by the name.



Rape is not about sex. Its about power. Men dont turn to male rape in prison for sexual pleasure, its a dominant act. In the open world, again, male rape is far more common than we would like to think, and is considered the worlds most unreported crime.

If you get jumped/mugged by a gang, do not presume that your only injuries will be from fists and feet. Its all about dominance, and the expression of that in all its forms crosses genders suprisingly easily.

Cord, I vehemently disagree with you that there are just as many female perpetrators of domestic violence as there are male. There is absolutely no statistical evidence for such a statement. One of the common tactics of abusers is that they turn tables on their targets and blame the targets as the ones causing the problem. I believe that men have introduced this concept of the huge numbers of male targets on a cultural or communal level as such a tactic. This does not mean that women never perpetrate relationship violence, it does happen. But it is comparatively rare. Further, even in the rare cases of male targets of domestic violence, I believe the dynamics of relationship abuse are different between male perpetrators\female targets and female perpetrators\male targets.

Having said all that, I agree this is heading off-topic and have no particular desire to pursue it. I only used that example because it was extreme enough to show just how different women's self-defense is compared to male.

If we are dealing with generalities and the most common scenarios there are still a number of differences between women's self-defense and men's. As pointed out above, 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; the list goes on.

Cord, where did someone say that women are scared and useless?

There are plenty of cases of domestic violence perpetrated by females.
Not as many as males, but plenty just the same.
Many women know that their male partners won't strike them back, and they take advantage of that situation.