Victor Blaming? Learning Self-Defense is Not a Moral Judgment.

“We wish to be clear that women are not responsible for rape, no matter their behavior, their attire, or their level of intoxication; promoting self-defense training for women in no way suggests that the onus is now, or should be, on women alone to stop rape.”

Apparently when Miss USA–Nia Sanchez, Miss Nevada–won, she said she has been training in tae kwon do since age 8. Her words:

“I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves. Myself, as a fourth-degree black belt, I learned from a young age that you need to be confident and be able to defend yourself. And I think that’s something that we should start to really implement for a lot of women.”

This was taken as “victim blaming” by some, and that we should “teach men not to rape.” And of course, the answer is we should do both. I don’t want to make an analogy, because they derail conversations and “rape is rape” (and any other number of things that look good on a picket sign but accomplish nothing). Wish in one hand, shit in the other. It will be a long time before women can feel safer, when they won’t clutch their keys like brass knuckles. We’re only spreading the word now, and it will take a generation, at least, before any of this is absorbed.

What can you do now? Stop treating women like de facto victims because of the left’s nonviolence fetishism. Gandhi won. MLK won. But they got the living shit beat out of them for decades, they were imprisoned, they had dogs sicced on them, while society tsk tsked, until it was so egregious that thinking began to shift.

If you want to tell young women to not train to defend themselves out of some sense of moral authority, if you want to shame women who responsibly train with firearms or their fists and refuse to buy the bullshit that men are the only ones with agency, the only ones who can stop rape (how fucking sexist is that?) or that there is a “woman’s way” to stop this with cogent articles and a “we’re not gonna take it” attitude with nothing pragmatic… let me just say this: You Go First.

No one is saying that women should have to be kungfu masters, and if they aren’t, well, they got what they had comin’. That’s YOUR hangup, because YOU don’t want to train in self defense. And that’s fine. No one says you have to.

Ms. Sanchez said self-defense taught her confidence; in a culture where girls are increasingly taught to base their self-worth on how others perceive them, how can you honestly say that teaching them self-respect and confidence based on their own accomplishments is anything but a good thing? You don’t want to see women hit people or be hit? Really? One, check your privilege. Maybe you live in what’s essentially an extended gated community, and violence is uncommon. Two, that’s your hang-up. Is violence inherently masculine? The women fighters I know would disagree.

We can teach boys not to rape. There will still be rape.

You can learn how to fight, or you can choose not to. No one will blame you if you don’t. So stop attacking those who choose a different path.

To hear it better said, from a woman, read See Jane Fight Back‘s open letter to President Biden.

Tagged: Rants, Rape, Rape Culture, Self-Defense