Murder, Mr. Boghossian and Why Women's Self-defense Isn't Straightforward

I called the murder a kerfuffle. The older man I was talking to didn’t take me to task for the muted and arguably insensitive language. A young woman was dead. On the other hand, if I admit that out loud I have to think about it. Maybe he didn’t notice my gaffe. I don’t know. But I saw a flash of recognition in his face and he went on to say that he had heard how a body was found in our neighborhood and the suspect was still at large.

The local police issued a BOLO for the man and put his picture up on Facebook. According to reports he had killed his girlfriend. Since her body was just found yesterday there aren’t many details out, but as common as intimate partner femicide is I think I could make a reasonable guess at what his motive was even so.

I wished the older man good day and continued walking my dog while I adjusted the pepper spray in my pocket. It didn’t need adjusting, I just wanted the reassurance that it was there, even though I’m aware that were I to meet the murderer it would likely be useless or worse. 

What are the chances he’s still around after a day’s head start? I needed to walk my dog. In my head, I reassured myself that at least I was a stranger to the killer.

Most women are killed by someone they know well.

It has been several months since I saw Julie Bindel and Peter Boghossian clash over self-defense measures for women. Peter tried to follow the line of logic where women say they feel under threat all the time, yet don’t take what he thinks of as reasonable measures to protect themselves. 

To him this is contradictory. His good friend wrote the book, The Gift of Violence, and he has taken much of that message to heart. Julie likened his statements to victim blaming and putting women on the spot in a personal way.

This exchange stuck with me in part because I like Peter. I admire his courage and how open he is to examining his own opinions. I’ve seen him to be empathic in other interviews and it seemed to me unlike him to not quite connect with what Julie was trying to communicate. 

Her point was basically that it was unrealistic for women to be able to always protect themselves as most threats came from close relations, many women are often unable to utilize violent measures due to age, health, or the presence of children. She also notes that what seem like reasonable measures, learning a martial art, pepper spray, or guns are often cost prohibitive, don’t solve the problem, and can make matters worse.

One of the things Julie hinted at but didn’t directly state was that women on some level are often in a state of denial about their safety.

Peter struggled with the idea that if someone truly believed they were under threat, they wouldn’t take aggressive measures to protect themselves. He found it illogical. Julie pointed out that women did take self-protective action, it just wasn’t in the form of fighting back.

What really got Julie going was how Peter perceived the lack of more outward evidence of women fighting back as a suggestion that the level of fear is overstated. He didn’t explicitly state that, but that’s how she took his comments.

He didn’t appear to see the fawn or freeze response as valid methods of self-protection. He was fixed on women being able to fight with superior force.

What got lost here was at least three things. The significant differences between men and women when it comes to taking physical action, the complications involved for women who would want to arm themselves, and the power of denial.

Years ago I used to teach fencing. It’s a great sport and martial art. When everyone is a beginner cross sex fencing is fun. But as men learn the tight actions of controlling a foil, epee, or sabre, it doesn’t take long before they can easily beat women, even accomplished female fencers. Men just have much faster reaction times than women, and a longer reach.

So even when a woman has a gun, and I think it a good idea that they do, that gun is increasingly less helpful the closer a man is when the woman perceives him to be a threat. Exploring the challenge of defending against knife attacks highlights the difficulty of a close threat even for men. With much faster reaction times, a man can disarm a woman, especially if the woman hesitates to fire. Remember, a woman is much more likely to be confronted by someone they know.

As Julie pointed out, any woman who responded to a threat by fighting may have other hurdles to overcome. She may be holding a baby, handling children, or pregnant. While it might make sense to slip a pistol or pepper spray into a diaper bag for special circumstances, the logistics of keeping a loaded weapon ready for the woman, but not for the children are far from ideal.

If a woman did choose to carry a weapon out and about with her brood, it would also be yet another thing to account for, if some of her destinations prohibited carrying the weapon. It would be a heck of a thing to be arrested in front of your toddlers because you forgot to take your gun out of the diaper bag when you went to pay a bill at city hall.

A woman may also be too young to legally carry a firearm. I was 14 when I first experienced one of my dad’s buddies holding my hand and hitting on me. Since it happened in a restaurant I don’t think a gun or pepper spray would have helped, but being calmly polite did get me out of that situation safely. 

Either way, girls as young as eight may attract such attention due to puberty. Few parents would agree they were ready for their first Hello Kitty Glock.

A woman who is frail, on crutches, or otherwise disabled, probably won’t have the option of using a weapon or a black belt in karate either.

Then there is denial. That I observed, Peter didn’t take into consideration that women may report high levels of fear but fail to take outward defensive action because on some level we must lie to ourselves to get through the day. 

Denial is illogical, but so is a lot of human psychology. It is super common and in the case of abusive relationships, it is often more powerful the greater the danger. He didn’t pick up when Julie tried to point it out either.

It wasn’t until many years later that I told someone about my dad’s buddy. I didn’t even let myself think about it. There have been other similar occurrences in my life where I felt threatened, even some very serious ones. Many other women have shared similar stories with me. If I thought about it too much, I might decide I needed to dress head to toe in Kevlar. 

But if I had to do that every time I needed a gallon of milk or to pick up dry cleaning, I might as well just stay home. My grandmother took that route and didn’t leave her house for years at a time.

I don’t want to be like my grandmother.

I want to walk my dog, live my life, and limit the amount of time I’m covered in Kevlar. I also don’t want my can of pepper spray to accidentally go off in the grocery store or at the library, so I’m careful about that too. 

Still, I must concede Peter has a point, and I do take some measures to aggressively protect myself, when and where I can. God help anyone who tried to break into my home. I consider myself lucky to have choices in how I defend myself.

Julie is also right to point out that focusing heavily on how and when women arm themselves is to overlook the role that men have in making the world safer for everyone.

One of my favorite Robert Sapolsky anecdotes is about how a baboon troop radically changed after disease wiped out all the aggressive alpha males. The surviving males were gentle and established a culture where there was a lot less fighting and females didn’t get the brunt end of male aggression. Twenty or more years later the peaceful culture holds as older males punish incoming males that act out of line.

I heard not more than an hour ago that the murderer was caught. It turned out that he was indeed still hiding nearby and I consider myself very lucky to have avoided him. Had I known for sure that he was still in the area I might have chosen to let today go by without walking the dog. When I think about it, I definitely don’t want to be part of any sort of similar kerfuffle.

Image courtesy of StockSnap at Pixelbay.

About

Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee. What I encountered, however, was a program deeply entrenched in Critical Theories ideology. During my time there, I experienced significant resistance, particularly for my Buddhist practice, which was labeled as invalidating to other identities. After careful reflection, I chose to leave the program, believing the curriculum being taught would ultimately harm clients and lead to unethical practices in the field.

Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to investigating, writing, and speaking out about the troubling direction of psychology, higher education, and other institutions that seem to have lost their way. When I’m not working on these issues, you’ll find me in the garden, creating art, walking my dog, or guiding my kids toward adulthood.

You can also find my work at Minding the Campus

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