Real Self Defense for Women

Posted by Mostly Genius – April 2, 2009

I have been reading quite a bit lately about women’s self defense. For some reason this quickly turns into a gender politics debate and some kind of vehicle for feminist ideology. I thought that any discussion of self defense would revolve around protecting oneself and the people that one cared about. I keep seeing a number of the same themes popping up.

Empowerment: True empowerment is the power to change the outcome. Empowerment isn’t an emotion, it is the power to do something. Owning a firearm isn’t empowerment, it is a ‘capability’ only if you are up to the task of it’s operation under the circumstances. This is the will to do what is necessary and the ability to get it done. Without will and ability you simply have a “possibility.” Maybe brandishing the gun (like a cross to ward off vampires) will frighten away the assailants or maybe jerking the trigger in a cardinal compass direction will provide you with a lucky, fight-stopping, shot.

Confidence. Any training can give you confidence, even the worthless kind. If you sit in a room of true-believers you will begin agreeing on cue. A charismatic instructor can sell a lot of techniques that just plain don’t work. If you are miming a groin-kick against a compliant training partner then what happens to that confidence when the full-force/full-power version doesn’t produce the desired result? I am not disputing that confidence is a good thing, and having a suboptimal plan is better than having none at all. I argue for spending some time training under stress and using realistic levels of force if you really want to build confidence.

Girl Power Boosterism. There is a whole lot of “go girl” cheerleading in many women’s self defense classes. It’s important to remember that when everyone is sitting in a circle and chanting, there is a criminal lifting weights and waiting for his next release from prison. Violent assaults are frequently bloody, terrible, and most of all: lonely. Real empowerment and confidence is grounded in truly recognizing what one might actually face and having a realistic plan for dealing with that. If the starting place has to be a women’s only group that cheers each other on then so be it. Don’t let that be the stopping place.

Pseudo-pacifism and nonsense ideologies. I meet a lot of women in classes that cringe when I start talking about how bad things can get and what might be necessary in order to prevail. Everyone wants a simple tool or technique that is guaranteed to work and isn’t really going to injure anyone, but that doesn’t exist. I am a huge proponent of less lethal tools, deescalation, and avoidance but there always has to be a backup in case those things fail. At the worst extreme it is “combat” with all of the snot, blood, spit, sweat, and grime associated with it.

I read far too much “we must change society so there are no assailants/abusers/rapists/criminal” type ideas. This has never occurred in human history, despite a lot of people wishing for it. If this is an education issue, it is a matter of training people to resist with effective violence rather than handing out pamphlets about how being a violent criminal is bad. I don’t control public policy, law, or even public opinion. I do have a large measure of control over what happens to me.

You can’t blame the victim. Nobody is going to argue that the victim is responsible for the criminals actions. Peoples actions and decisions can make them vulnerable to predators. Blaming the assailant is both easy and just, but it is also useless. Yes, the assailant is completely morally culpable, but that doesn’t make anyone safer – the predators know they are predators and they are OK with it. “Blame” isn’t really the issue, dangerous actions and decisions are. Remove the front door from your house before you leave for a long weekend: it’s not your “fault” that all your stuff is gone, but it can’t be too much of a surprise.

Emotion. There is a lot of ‘feeling’ about self defense. Feeling intimidated, threatened, afraid, powerful, confident, etc. are generally present when women write about the topic. I do not see nearly as much emotion expressed by men writing on similar topics. I don’t know that this is positive or negative, but I do know that most of it is probably irrelevant on a practical level. I think that “feeling” rather than knowing, sensing, thinking, or proving should be guarded against. There is a big difference between being intimidated and recognizing that someone is trying to intimidate you.

Equality. In the physical sense there is no such thing. As a rule there is no physical parity between men and women, just like there isn’t physical parity between two women or two men. I don’t expect to be as large or a strong as my assailant. Generally, women tend to be smaller than men (this is called “sexual dimorphism”), so when I get asked “What is a good gun for a woman?” I say one that fits her hand, has sights she can see through, a trigger she can reach, and she is strong enough to operate. This is the same advice I give to men, but the gun usually needs to a little bit smaller for women. Saying “she can’t handle that gun” isn’t a sexist statement any more than “he can’t handle that gun.” If making your gear work takes effort, then you are diverting your energy from fighting the bad guy.

I care about people making their own decisions and fighting back. This requires that people take personal responsibility for their choices and their actions. Those choices should have a basis in reality, not in fiction or an idealized philosophy. Self defense is not gender specific, but the the tactics and techniques might be – because the genders face a different set of threats.

  • pax:

    So now we have gone from answering a question to teaching a class. There is nothing wrong with that, but it's a solution with different resource requirements. I am certainly not assuming that ignorance is incurable.

    Personally I see nothing wrong with issuing huge blanket statements: Normal size hands = Glock 19, Smaller size hands = Khar P9 (notice I didn't say anything about gender.) If either of those two options don't perfectly fit their special niche application then they can sort it out later, once they have a basis for making a decision.

  • pax

    The only problem with new shooters (of either gender) making up their own minds is that they have little or no basis for that decision.

    Well, yes. And no.

    Even a beginner who has been given no other instruction can tell you whether or not they find a specific gun pleasant to shoot when given a chance to do so. If you give them a pile of guns and some time on the range, they can tell you which ones they enjoyed shooting and which ones they did not enjoy shooting. This takes no specific instruction at all (apart from the general safety basics required before walking onto the range), and is as good a place to start as any. The resulting targets give another narrowing down clue that takes little or no advance instruction to figure out.

    In the absence of a range trip, even a beginner can easily be shown how to assess gun fit with an unloaded handgun at the sales counter. It takes about two minutes to run down the basics, and thereafter, they will know whether or not a gun fits them when they pick it up. It's not rocket science.

    With five minutes, you can explain your favorite defensive caliber choice and why it's a good choice.

    With ten minutes, most can intellectually understand the dynamics between heavy triggers, ease of shooting, and safety. Similarly, and with roughly the same amount of time, most can understand the dynamic between gun weight and perceived recoil. Not quite the same as going to the range with a pile of different guns and feeling the difference for yourself, but understanding that a heavier gun is generally more pleasant to shoot is not an intellectually challenging task.

    What I'm getting at here is that it's almost always better to educate someone than it is to simply assume their ignorance is a permanent fixture. But far too often when someone recommends "a good gun for a woman" that's what they're doing: assuming that her beginnerly ignorance is an incurable permanent feature of her personality, rather than a minor, easily cured, and temporary condition.

  • pax

    When someone says "she can't handle that gun" before she's even tried it on, and the comment is based solely on her sex and (presumed) timidity rather than her hand size, then yes, it is in fact a sexist statement.

    People are individuals...

    That said, you know I agree with you very strongly that the gun should fit the shooter. Gun fit is very often the missing part of the puzzle when it comes to defensive handgun. It's not all that hard to check and it's fairly major once you begin working dynamically rather than on a static range.

    Related, sometimes I do grow weary of talking to women who show up at the range with ridiculous, unshootable, teensytiny guns that kick like a mule and are chambered in impractical calibers. It's particularly heartbreaking when a woman shows up with a totally stupid gun and notes that she bought it because Sumdood told her that it was "a good gun for a woman." Wouldn't it be better if, instead of recommending guns based solely on one's genital arrangement, people would encourage new shooters to sample as many guns in as many different calibers and action types as possible before making up her own mind about which one matched her best?

  • pax:


    When someone says “she can’t handle that gun” before she’s even tried it on, and the comment is based solely on her sex and (presumed) timidity rather than her hand size, then yes, it is in fact a sexist statement.

    What I said was: Saying "she can't handle that gun" isn't a sexist statement any more than "he can't handle that gun." The point is that small people and big guns makes for a very poor shooting experience.

    ...encourage new shooters to sample as many guns in as many different calibers and action types as possible before making up her own mind about which one matched her best?

    The only problem with new shooters (of either gender) making up their own minds is that they have little or no basis for that decision. If the gun magazine fiction of "stopping power" is your sole criteria you will buy the wrong gun. The gun a new shooter shoots the most accurately with on the square range isn't necessarily the best choice for a carry gun. There is a laundry list of these sorts of problems.

  • Punishment and detention happen after the fact. They may or may not create a deterrence, but ultimately the criminal will weigh the risks and rewards of their crimes. We as individuals can increase their risks to point where they are unlikely to attempt it.

    I am not really interested in the way things "should" be, but rather how they are. If you make yourself a target then someone of evil intent will take you up on it, I am certainly not saying it is "right", but I am saying it will happen.

    Anticipating the bad actions of others isn't a moral requirement, but it is certainly a prudent one in the practical sense. I don't think that recognizing that bad people might exploit the risks that I take makes me a sheep, rather I think it perpetuates the opposite.

  • Since we both just touched on the concept of "blame" today, I will focus on just that aspect, and point this out... within our parents' lifetimes (assuming you are as old, if not older than me - a fair assumption, given my age), people were accustomed to leaving their vehicles, houses, and business unlocked when they went out, and no one thought anything of it. Furthermore, all of their personal effects were somehow still there when they returned.

    Blaming may not be useful, but adequately punishing and detaining criminals, and our society rightfully acknowledging who was the victim and who was the agressor would go a long ways to at least moving us back to the above-mentioned historical situation. With the "blame the victim" mindset so many people seem willing to adopt, we are becoming more and more a society of timid sheep, who are unwilling to push even the slightest of boundaries lest we become victimized by a stronger foe, and then blamed for that event.

    Do we really want to perpetuate that? Do we know where the end result of that is?

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