Women's Self Defense - Start your girls young

[Joseph Bronson]

Womens Self Defense:  The following is a note written by a woman who is frustrated with how the officials do not do their jobs to protect  women of rape and violent abuse.  

We can't always count on legal authorities to protect us!

Let’s face it, in some ways we are on our own! We are well aware that there are a lot of perverted perpetrators in the world today. Apparently they could even be our neighbors- whether we know it or not! 

Anthony Sowell’s neighbors in Cleveland could smell the stench of death. He was a convicted rapist so; he had even been visited regularly by the authorities. They found nothing wrong- at least not enough to warrant further investigation. 

Jaycee Dugard was abducted by Phillip Garrido and his wife and imprisoned in his back yard, subjected to unthinkable horrors for 18 years. He was also visited regularly by the authorities; they found nothing wrong- at least not enough to warrant further investigation. 

Now Chelsea King has been brutally murdered by another know convicted sex offender, John Albert Gardner. His court appointed psychiatrist had recommend the maximum sentence and was frustrated when his recommendation was ignored. 

Now it’s one thing when a “new” criminal starts his rampage of terror, but when these are known offenders that have been “watched” by “authorities” you’ve got to wonder if these people are taking their jobs seriously. You will hear that they are over-worked and understaffed. Is that justification? Do they suffer any personal remorse for something that could have been prevented? 

My heart goes out to those girls who actually survive, losing their innocence and childhood to these monsters, as well as those family members who lose their loved ones and must live with the horror, anger and unbearable sadness of their loss. It is in no way the fault of the victim or their families. It should be the sole fault of the perpetrator, but, it seems that some fault should be shared by those whose job it is to protect us!

Mr. Bronson's Reply

• Problem #1 is that we do not teach our females at an early stage that physical self defense is important. How many of you have had the Mom come into your school and sign up her son with her daughter standing right there? I do not know what the response is that you get when you ask about the little girl attending your classes also. The response that I get is usually "Oh, she's in dance" or some other thing that the parent has deemed as more important than the gaining of confidence to deal with a physical attack. I had a 12 year old girl start my classes several years ago. She stuck with it even though her mother was not very supportive of her participation. The girl went off to college before I was able to get her to black belt. While in college she took a trip to mexico for some studies that she was involved in. There she was attacked one night. She fought the assailant off and actually chased him. ( I do not advocate chasing the attacker ) She immediately contacted her mother who in turn immediately contacted me to thank me for her daughter being alive and unharmed. Now her mother raves about our program. How many other young girls would we save if parents only took the initiative to make martial arts training a requirement for their daughters. So far we are not seeing that parents believe that their daughters be more fully prepared. 

Problem #2 is a continuation of problem #1 Our society has not put the safety of our women (young or old) as a priority. If a man robs the local convenience store at the same time that another man 2 blocks away rapes a woman The man that held up the store will get more jail time than the man that committed the rape. It seems, as a society, we put more value on our corporate profits than the safety of our women. My wife was an advocate for rape victim's at one time and the horror stories about the abuse of the police after a woman was raped are horrific. Through our police actions and the actions of our courts, we have definitely told the women of our society that we really do not have a great deal of concern for their wellbeing. 

Until parents, police, the courts and the voters make a significant change in how we prepare for the possible abuse of the women in our society we will continue to have this problem plague us. 

PARENTS: Must see the teaching of self defense skills as being as vital as good eating habits or passing their next math test. Until parents take this initiative we will have weaker women. What does every predator look for? The seemingly weak. 

POLICE: Their training needs to be more complete in the handling of a victim after an attack. Those officers that perform poorly in this task must be removed from their position and compensation given to the victim for mental/emotional abuse. 

COURTS: Must seek the highest level of punishment that the society will tolerate for the abuse of our female population. No quarter should be given as none was given to their victim. 

VOTERS: Must vote in officials that see the safe guarding of our female population as a priority.