Choose Your Battles

Self defense is not about fighting back.

It’s really heartening to see that, in the world of helping women learn self-defense tools, it has become a much more accepted view that self defense is not about fighting back: it’s about making space and getting away.

But if it’s not a fight, and not about fighting back, then what exactly are we talking about?

A lot of self defense marketing encourages women to fight back and often self defense courses will encourage women to tap into our feminine rage. Putting the marketing question aside — because I honestly think traditional women’s self defense marketing appeals far more to male fantasy than it does to women’s actual need — I do think there is some subconscious understanding that women do carry an anger or a rage at constantly being targeted and picked on simply because we’re women.

But tapping into that rage as a fuel for self defense is not as simple as people seem to think.

As my friend Andrew Juárez points out, a fight is also an agreement. If you’re a guy hanging around in a bar, and some other guy is screaming in your face telling you to put up your dukes, the…