Self-Defence is not the answer

This post is going to composed of criticism, some towards Marcus and Cahill but mainly towards our society that breeds rape culture as a whole. I found this weeks readings frustrating in a lot of ways, a lot of that frustration stemming from my own struggle to grasp the content but also to work through it in my own head. 

I totally get where Marcus is coming from when she says that language is power laden and inherently structures our reality and our lives. I believe that to be true, no doubt. Our ability to push forward our own confidence via the way we speak/how we choose to articulate what we think into words has a massive effect on how we are heard and viewed in society. What we say can easily be translated into weakness versus power. Alongside that, various forms of body language and eye contact have the same effect and also play into structuring that reality formed by the basis of discourse. When Marcus applies that ideology to the structures of rape, I still follow but it gets fuzzy. For some part, I believe rape is a tool of power and dominance but I will not blanket that belief over every single instance of assault that has ever happened. When she moves on to say that as women we need to be empowered to overcome sexual assault and prevent it from the get-go by interrupting that “script”, that’s when I want to dig in my heels. 

After reading Cahill’s article defending self-defence, I thought of my younger sister. Over the years I’ve watched my sister train and compete in taekwond, and when she was 13 she succeeded in getting her black belt. Now at 18 she’s still the toughest girl I know. After reading Cahill’s chapter I asked her if after years of training, where at times she had to fight men much bigger and stronger than her, if she still fears getting attacked and potentially assaulted. The answer I got was that no matter what, there will always be some kind of fear. Not only the fear of being attacked, but also fear of not being able to do anything about it. While I admit, self defence training could be helpful for some, I don’t think it’s anywhere close to a solution.

The responsibility of assault should never be anywhere close to the survivor, bottom line. I understand that Marcus’s intentions were not to victim blame or shift the responsibility, but even opening the door to the potential of solving this problem of rape culture by stopping it in it’s tracks ourselves is potentially offensive.