*Trigger warning: Sexual assault, rape, physical violence

Earlier this week, I was at an event that aimed to raise awareness about violence against women and how it can be stopped, or at the very least thwarted, I guess.

The event began with a dude giving instructions on how a woman can physically defend herself when being attacked.

Now don’t get me wrong, every woman, every human being for that matter, should know how to defend themselves. But let me tell you a little something about “trying to defend yourself” in situations in which rape seems imminent; fighting back, if an option at all, is sometimes the worst option. If you have never been assaulted or raped, you may not understand this statement and may even want to argue with me. Please, feel free to argue your viewpoint in the comments section, as I value any and all input. But hear me out first… As a survivor of rape and sexual assault, I have been in situations in which my options have been: be raped or be killed.

The idea that a woman has to know how to defend herself against rape and assault disregards the fact that the majority of rapes are perpetrated by a friend or relative of the survivor. Meaning that, no, it’s not some random attack on the street. The majority of the time, it’s a spouse, a date, or a relative. Situations in which women know their attacker are often coupled with much emotional and mental manipulation. Will “knowing how to push your attacker off of you with your left pinky” be really helpful when a woman is manipulated into thinking she deserved it, or she wanted it, or that it’s natural? Fuck off, no.

Furthermore, the assumption that women’s self-defense is the answer the ending rape and assault is completely ignorant of the effects of drugging and date-rape. Date-rape drugs are used precisely so that a woman cannot fight back. It’s sick, I know, and this is triggering for me as I write this, but I feel that the conversation has to focus more on how we as a culture can change so that men don’t rape, rather than focus our time, money and energy into teaching women combat skills that they will not be able to use because they will be outnumbered and/or drugged (as was the case when I was raped at 19).

The problem with self-defense is that it creates an imaginary illusion in which women are thought to be responsible for defending themselves in extremely dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations; It teaches women that if you didn’t fight back, perhaps it’s kind of your fault. It puts the onus on the survivor that “they should have defended themselves.” No one can ever judge, no one can ever guess or can ever imagine what it’s like in a moment of sheer guttural survival instinct for a woman to make the choice between assault or death. And it’s a fucking shame that we have to make this choice at all.

Maybe self-defence needs to be re-invented as something else; self-defence can mean healing, recovery, community involvement, creating safe spaces with other women, creative endeavors, working and sharing stories with other survivors, and perhaps most of all, calling bullshit on the rhetoric surrounding sexual assault. Because let’s face it, women are defending themselves daily to a hetero-masculinist culture at large. My best defence is finding a space for women, made by women and calling it our own, and in this space speaking honestly about my survival, my flight, my fight and my will to heal. My defence against this culture is to survive and be sound of mind while doing so.