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WOMEN FIGHTBACK
is the contraFLOW column dedicated to true stories of personal
heroic 'fightback' experiences by women. Send in your victories
against a misoqynist boss, fucked political comrade or abusive
scumbag for inclusion in a future issue c/o K.M at contraFLOW. You
can be phoned if you'd rather just tell your story rather than
write it out. Keep on fighting back.
Emily's Story
"I was visiting some friends in Los Angeles and decided to go for a
jog. It was getting near dusk and I found my way to a park that my
friends had warned me against, saying it was a dangerous,
gang-banger hell. I totally hate feeling restricted from any place
and especially hate letting fear control me so I went anyway. (I
still hate letting fear control me.) The park was all overgrown and
covered with semingly hundreds of little paths leading to
who-knows-where. I guess a lot of homeless people made their homes
in the bushes and nooks and crannies. At the time I started my jog
though, I didn't really see any peole. It felt prety abandoned.
At some point while running down one of these overgrown trails I got
this creepy sensation about me. ("Trust your instincts" self-defense
classes teach.) I thought, "If I were to ever get raped, here..." I
came to a dead end and swung around to head back and at that moment
a guy jumped out of some brush about 50 meters in front of me, stood
in the narrow path, hands on hips and stared straight at me.
Something inside me clicked and I knew t-h-i-s w-a-s i-t. I had
nowhere else to run so I rean straight toward him hoping when I got
there he'd move and let me pass, all the while my mind was thinking
a hundred things at once. "Stare him in the eyes, don't let him know
you're scared. Fight!"
I got up to him, really terrified but overcome by a survival
instinct and when he reached out and grabbed me I knew I had to
resist. It was beyond frightening, him trying to wrestle me to the
ground and me kicking and hitting him in all the places self-defense
instructors say don't work. (But the main thing self-defence
instructors push is that resisting *at all* is vital, that rapists
look for victims they think will be easy, non-resisting.) He wasn't
saying anything but seemed surprised by my reaction, and he started
hitting me back but seemed confused by it. I wanted to scream but
absolutely could not. At some moment, about the same time I was
finally remembering some flickers of self-defence moves (but still
not being able to enact them) my voice kicked in and I just started
screaming "I'm going to kill you motherfucker!" and things like
that. I think that scared him because it might have attracted
attention if anyone was around to hear it and he finally let me go
and backed off, hands above his head in a show of surrender.
I ran off and was in a completely freaked out state, not believing
that that had just happened to me and not knowing what I should do
about it. In my fucking oh-so-political way, I decided not to call
the cops because *I don't believe in that system of 'justice'*, and
because it might have meant the end of a lot of people's homes in
their shanties or whatever in the park with the guy probably not
getting caught anyway. In the end I felt satisfied that I had fought
him off and thought that might have scared him enough to try
attacking another woman again. He truly looked more terrified by my
response in the end than I think I even felt. I only wish I had got
it together to make warning fliers to other women to post around the
park, but I didn't.
On a final note, as a matter of mental self-preservation, about an
hour later after I had calmed down a bit five of my friends and I
went back to the park and exact spot of the attack (it was dark by
now), me with a baseball bat and a stance that said "I will maim you
bad if you are here." I didn't think he'd be there but I just needed
to be back there to reclaim my space I think. It made me feel
strong. The not-good bit was the reaction I got from so many friends
and family when I told them about it, lots of folks saying "You
shouldn't have been running alone in such a place." (I should do
whatever I want to.) This reaction even came from anarchos and
feminists, people who should have known better. This made me feel
super crap, was the only cause of any of the tears I shed over it. I
wish folks could figure it out."