Fighting Back Works

Research has shown that forceful physical and verbal resistance strategies (e.g., biting, hitting, fighting back, yelling, screaming, forcefully fleeing or using a weapon, martial arts or other physical self-defense techniques) are effective in thwarting assaults on women. Moreover, these strategies do not appear to significantly increase the risk of serious injury.

Conversely, non-forceful strategies (e.g., pleading, crying, reasoning) and not resisting (e.g., freezing) are generally not effective. Some evidence suggests that passive strategies can even increase the risk of injury.

So if anyone tells you to not fight back and just go along with an attacker, don’t listen. They used to tell women if being raped to just let the man do what he wanted or it would be worse. That’s a bunch of bull! You fight back with everything you have and then some. Obviously the more you learn, and the more you train, the greater your ability to fight back. But regardless of what you know or your physicality, you fight back with everything you have.

Bite, scratch, claw, gouge, hit, kick, knee, and anything else you can with any weapon or improvised weapon you can get a hold of. Fighting back works!