Trilogy Books, 1998
Reviewed by Kym Lambert (copyright © 2004 Kym Lambert, all rights reserved do not republish anywhere)
Like McCaughey (see review for Real Knockouts), Snortland is a feminist self-defender. A significant difference in her approach is that while McCaughey studied the rift she found between feminists and self-defenders and searched for ways to bridge it, Snortland speaks as if feminists as a whole accepted and promoted women's self-defense. This itself is an interesting point to me. Is this because McCaughey is on the East Coast and Snortland the West, as there has long been some realized differences among feminists on the coasts, even within the various factions. Or is it that McCaughey is in academia, a college instructor, while Snortland is in business, a non-practicing lawyer who has worked in various capacities in the entertainment business. In other words, do academic feminists tend to be less likely to accept the need and importance of self-defense than those who are in other working worlds?
Snortland is a full-force self-defense instructor, who uses the classic Fairy Tale images of women to reclaim stronger images throughout her book and examines how these images, reflected in other media and daily life, have been used to keep women living in fear. She discusses men's reactions to women's self-defense, both the "good, the bad and the ugly" and describes how even pro-feminist men often seem invested in the myth that women are natural victims, even if their intentions are good (she does sometimes come across as a bit apologistic in this regard). She notes the use of media, both entertainment and news, to perpetuate the myth and as an "insider" in that world recounts some of her own battles to get women's self-defense depicted as well as simply representations of strong females.
Her weakest point is in some of her "history" where she readily accepts the "9 million Witches" myth of the Inquisition and Gimbutus' "peaceful matriarchy" myth. This latter is a bit jarring following her brief mention of a "male" warrior bodies being finally identified as being female, let alone in a book that is so strongly promoting women being able to fight back and not being naturally passive! (for more on those bodies you might want to read Dr. Davis-Kimball's Warrior Women). She is not a historian and should not have tried to be here, her accounts are in no way critically thought out, including her brief one of Boadicea (Boudicca). She is right, we MUST reclaim our warrior history and myths, but I do believe we should also do so with as much accuracy as we can.
I am also, personally, put off by her dismissal of Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor depiction as being a bad role model because of her "access to weapons only available in fiction." Um...like mop handles? (I do feel that the character was not the role model she SHOULD have been and that she lags by the end of the movie, needing to be saved by the man-machine, but she cannot be dismissed even if only because of the number of women who have become strong, learned self-defense and shooting because they were inspired by her.)
Her strong points are such stories as being in an airport in Japan and backing off a drunk man who she could not speak to due to language, he went on to paw some teenage girls who simply looked down and giggled, she called his attention back to her and when he approached backed him off by putting up her hands again. He returned to bother the girls, this time one of them mimicked Snortland's posture and he backed off. Without being able to speak, her actions showed this girl what could be done. This story gives us an idea of how pervasive the messages we get are, how women learn helplessness mostly because it is what we see and how important seeing an alternative is.
While she pushes the importance of full-contact self-defense, she also offers accounts of women and children (along with the promotion of women's self-defense here, she also strives to promote self-defense for children) who have successfully fought back without such training, as well as those who have had training. She notes stories where the confrontation ended with verbal defense as well as those that "went to the mat." She describes women's feelings about their training and includes an account of a male instructor which notes that these men are not faking it during class, they know these women would have them out if they weren't wearing the padding. These stories are inspiring and remind us that women and even small children do succeed when we fight back.
One of the things I liked a lot is that she noted that human women are the only females who seem to be expected to be defenseless. She goes into detail about how canine bitches are not separated from the dogs, that they equal the males in fight-play, that bitches are fierce defenders of themselves and their young never waiting for a male to protect them. She brings to question the idea that "feminine" must mean weak and challenges those who say they "prefer being feminine" to instead redefine what "feminine" means.
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