I also quickly wanted to comment on Whitney Walker’s article “Why I Fight Back”. I found what Walker had to offer interesting. Scarred from one of her early experiences as a teenager with a man exposing his private parts to her outside of her school, left her feeling weak and defenseless. As a result, she eventually took it upon herself to prevent those feelings from repeating. Learning martial arts and self-defense changed her confidence and level of comfort being alone in public.
I found this article interesting because I feel like I am also a strong female. Although I am not trained in defensive training, I agree with her when she said that there is a link between “knowing I am strong” and the refusal to “be weak” (130). It is impossible to know if I would ever have the strength to “fight back” in a situation like Walker’s or any one of Emilie Morgans’ three, but I value what Walker said to combat the “cultural ‘wisdom’” that has “always held that women’s bodies were not made to fight, and that we are constantly vulnerable to sexual violence” (130). Specifically, “women’s bodies are perfect for karate: we have more lower-body strength and tend to be more agile than men” (129).
On a similar note, I found this youtube video that talks about women hitting men. I find it relevant because it presents a situation where onlookers have the opportunity to stop the violence of a woman beating a man. However, because no one sees the woman as a threat, almost no one stops to confront the couple. This fact supports the same “cultural wisdom” that women are powerless to men, no matter how hard they try.
*plus this video is great because it features Colgate's very own, Professor Keating :)
I think that this video is really interesting and provides a lot of insight as to how women are viewed in society. One of the bystanders claims that she "didn't feel like the woman could do any real harm," and this shows that people tend to view women as weak and helpless when it comes to the power dynamics of a relationship. Also, I think that the fact that a lot of people remarked with "he probably had it coming to him" indicates that there is this widely accepted notion that men treat women poorly in relationships. I think that when the man was beating the woman it was more about how violent and crazy he was, but when the woman was beating the man it was also about something that the man had done to deserve it. Either way, the man is in control and is dictating the relationship, which poses a huge problem for women in society.
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