[quote]Alpha F wrote:
Miss Parker wrote:
Yes. I have actually pulled a gun on a man who was trying to break into my house. There was a freaked out thought line running through my head as I was telling him to get the hell out of there. It went something like, “OH SHIT! CanIdothis?CanIdothis?CanIdothis?CanIdothis?”
I realized that I could indeed, and was enormously relieved when he took off & I didn’t have to.
Good on you and thank you for sharing this. I find it interesting that one major factor in this discussion and it has been touched on is the mind set of a female. Not only are we the weaker ‘vessel’ being physically weaker than men but an unnecessary addition to that is that we are conditioned to be not only ‘nice’ but ‘sweet’, ‘delicate’, incapable in matters and /or tasks in the requisition and the acquisition of ‘force’ ( weight lifting/Olympic lifts, gun sports for instance ).
Also someone compared a man to a lion and a woman to a sheep - that implies submission, passivity, follower not leader, not in control of her own destiny, waiting to be slaughtered as it were.
I have had people say to me: “You lift weights like a man”…“You play tennis like a man”…“you hit like a man”…and just about any display of physical power I am accused of masculinity. What is expected of me? Lift the barbell as if it were a fork? Run like a ballerina?!? Not the right scenario in my opinion.
Strength is a neutral quality. So is power. Also COURAGE - a heavily associated quality with masculinity. The fact that women are discouraged to express these qualities and to CLAIM THEIR COURAGE as their human right contributes to the “victim mentality”.
I observed that you had to check with yourself that you had the capacity, the ability and the PERMISSION, the right to prevent someone from violating your boundaries which should be a natural instinctual response shows how castrated we are as females in our natural gut responses.
Gutsy women are often accused of being brutes, butch, tom boys, bitches, dragon ladies.
There is a girl in my martial arts class who feels Guilty about hitting. She recoils every single time the coach throws a blow at her- every single time. She has been doing this for years and still looks like a marshmallow when attacked.
You also mentioned ‘the relief’ you felt when you didn’t have to use the gun on the violator. Should we feel guilty about defending what is rightfully our right? Should we as women feel compassion 24/7 when the scales of justice clearly dictate vindication?
I am not talking about blind vengeance but there is a principle behind the law of an eye for an eye.
These are just things that are going through my mind as I read this thread.
My view is that the main battle for women is being fought on the psychological ground. We are taken down not because we are physically weaker but because we are psychological victims.
Gentleness and compliance are the qualities associated with femininity. That at the exchange and the expense of strength, prowess and courage is the basis of the victim mentality.
What do you think?
EDIT: As it is evident by this thread, men seem to have no problem expressing their fighting spirit. It is like RELENTLESS…lol. Imagine two or three women engaging in this behavior - what would we think of them?
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I’d say your observations are true. A big part of females’ inability to protect ourselves is due to the fact that we’re (often) psychologically unprepared for violence.
As the guys have pointed out many times, there’s a reason there are weight classes in sport fighting, and I absolutely believe myself to be at a physical disadvantage in a fight with a man because I’m smaller/weaker. But as they say, its not always the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog that matters. And one of the cops I train with recently compared me to a pit bull on the mat, so I’ve got that going for me. 
That comment comparing men to lions & women to sheep rubbed me the wrong way, too.
And, regarding the man who tried to break into my house, my hesitation was not that I doubted I had the right to defend what was mine. I wasn’t thinking in those terms. I simply preferred not to kill another human being if I could avoid it.
