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The Summer of 2014 brought fear to the women of North Park, a community of San Diego. You see there was an attacker on the loose apparently trying to sexually assault women in the neighborhoods. Here is the story: STORY.
The interesting thing to me about this story and many more like it is the normal advice for women to not walk alone at night, walk in a well lighted area, or avoid walking the streets at night seem like the normal advice parents have told their children ever since they were little – seems to have been ignored. So now that this suspected has been caught, are women now going to walk on dark alleys at night and feel safe?
This post is going to speak about common sense and yes I realize that everyone knows how to stay safe. I will speak about social norms that have changed and how it is not affecting the safety of women and what can be done about it. Oh yes – I will also cover self defense from a martial arts point of view.
Reading that story it looks like there were six attacks. I am happy they have a suspect arrested and I hope he turned out to be the one, but is it now ok for women to go back to previous behaviors? I mean women walking to the store at night or leaving work alone at night? Ever since women took on more responsibility in the work place and work night shifts or socially go out at night by themselves – they (women have been more at risk as men are in the same situation). One could argue that men getting mugged should avoid doing dumb stuff but they are tough right? If they want to fight off a mugger – society does not care that much.
But our wives, mothers, daughters, girl-friends and such? NO. Because women do not simply get robbed but can be molested too. They have more at risk. So while I have always taught all students to be aware at night – I have always told women to go out in pairs at night, get walked to the car after work or just do not go out at night.
This is not because I believe women don’t have equal rights to men but because I think women (the physically weaker sex), are not as able to defend themselves if attacked!
Nowadays we have women in police, fire, even our military that are put in harms way. Utopian society being preached at us in the media, schools, socially seem to be pointing out the world as they wish it was – not as it is.
So do I think women can defend themselves if attacked? Some can – it depends on the attacker and the women and the circumstances. So if you are a woman and have taking a martial art and are a good fighter (you also enjoy fighting and will react to violence in kind), why push the issue?
What I mean is common sense dictates to NOT put yourself in harms way if you can avoid it. So if you (a woman) wants to drive to the store at night – take along a friend, go to a well lighted parking lot, pay attention and just adopt awareness as your normal mode of operation. Even though it is not fair that women have to take more precautions than men do. Even though young men today do not treat women with the respect they deserve often (they don’t hold doors open for women or walk them to their cars).
Life is not fair sometimes. You (women) do not want to be one of the few that do get attacked.
So every women knows how to stay safe (many do not employ though). I think women should learn how to fight from martial arts training and not simply a self-defense class. But even those women have to be realistic and try to employ common sense in their safety strategy.
So do I have sage wisdom today or am I merely another male chauvinist? 
September 15th, 2014 at 11:52 am
Worrying about people and trying to help them be safer makes you a good man, John!
Harm is out their whether we like it or not, and taking every reasonable precaution as you suggest is the best defense we have.
I certainly agree with training to increase our self-confidence, but skills only give us a better chance in a bad situation. There is no reason to invite trouble.
October 21st, 2014 at 4:25 pm
Great post. I Have always told people that incedents can happen anytime especially when they least expect it. I always recommend Pepper Spray
as the first line of Defense