I see Lua’s responses as an example of the original point of the article; women being conditioned to live in fear. I personally think self defense training is a good tool to have if you find a need for it, and if you never do, well, you’re lucky.

And yet, her story was about being assaulted by a stranger. Weird.

Yeah, I can’t with you anymore. Name-calling, finger-pointing and victim blaming do not a coherent argument make.

Exactly. WORDS. MEAN. THINGS.

In response to the crime, a Republican legislator has been pushing to introduce a new law making “fetal homicide” a crime in Colorado.

LOL forever, are you kidding with this? Hitting an attacker so you can escape with your life is “beating someone up”? And saying “but he deserved it” so we won’t think you’re engaging in victim blaming? Should she have lain there and let him kill her so you would think she was a good little feminist?

Psssht, they already went there. Never mind that you can’t whip out *self defense training* and spray it everywhere like bullets. Maybe there are people who use such training as an excuse to pick fights but that’s NOT WHAT THE GODDAMNED STORY HERE IS ABOUT, and at this point I think it’s just willful, deliberate…

It’s like “self-defense” means something TOTALLY different than “to DEFEND oneSELF”, isn’t it? Ludicrous.

A. it’s not “perfectly clear”, and b. you don’t seem understand what I’m saying. Which, it’s becoming increasingly apparent, is typical of you.

For the last time. “Violence” and “self-defense” are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

Hey, just because lots of other feminists think “violence” and “self-defense” are the same thing, doesn’t mean I have to agree. That’s the beauty of critical thinking skills; I understand that words mean things. If you read benjaminallover’s OP and understood it to be the story of how she demonstrated her mad karate…

I’m not “attacking” anybody, I’m criticizing. Learn the difference.

Doesn’t have to be rude to be reactionary and wrong-headed.

but it sounds like rape advice given to girls “don’t dress like a slut” “don’t drink in public” etc

“Self-defense” is not the same thing as “beat people up”.

You lectured her on the evils of “beating people up” in response to her story about how she saved her own life by defending herself against an attacker. And SHE’S the asshole? Nah brah.

Well, a. It makes the Senate look like ginormous obstructionist assholes having a pissy-pants tantrum because they hate Obama

She knows what it means, she was asking why someone was offended by it.

That’s what I said.

Try telling this to the idiots in my town. They seem convinced that there are hordes of people just slavering to defraud the vote. And when the Democrat handily beat the TeaPartier in the local district election, bemoaned the “ghetto” town next door for somehow gaming the system.