“I think if she was wearing a short skirt, she was asking for it,” the teen girl sitting next to me blurted out. I glanced at my adult co-teacher across the circle as an angry look made its way across her face. Turning to the student, I repeated the words that have become second nature: “The victim never deserved it.”

Then my co-teacher added: “Regardless of how a woman dresses, and what message her appearance seems to give off, she is never to blame for any kind of harassment or assault she receives.”

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This is just a peek into the self-defense classes that I co-taught for four years. As part of these classes, we’d have group discussions at the end of each session, with topics ranging from abusive relationships to community projects. Since our students came from various backgrounds and cultures, their opinions on such topics usually differed. In general we taught tolerance for differing opinions, but certain statements—like “she was asking for it”—were unacceptable.

Making Statistics Real

I first got involved with the Center for Antiviolence Education (CAE) when I joined a karate class at 12 years old because my mom made me. For the first year, I saw going to karate as just another after-school activity, and it didn’t have much significance in my life.

Then, when I was 13, I was moved into the teen karate class and asked to be a peer educator who would help teach self-defense classes and workshops. That’s when CAE started to become one of the biggest influences in my life.

CAE—which has been teaching karate, general self-defense, and tai chi to kids, teens, women, and transgender people for over 30 years—differs from many other karate schools because it emphasizes the fundamental principle of nonviolence. This might seem like a paradox, but it just means that, while we train our students in martial arts, we stress that physical violence should be used only as a last resort.

When I first started training at CAE, domestic violence cases and sexual harassment stories were nothing but statistics in my mind, and therefore I never looked at them as things that could happen to me. But in our group discussions, I heard real stories from real girls about abuse in their own lives. This demolished the imaginary wall that had always separated me from such incidents.

These teens were my classmates and my friends. I was shocked to discover that they were also the faces behind the statistics I had grown up hearing about on the news. The reality of their situations opened my eyes like an obnoxious alarm clock, making me realize that any one of those stories could be my own.

image by Amanda Zahr

No More Doormat

As I continued training at CAE, I began to realize that while I had never experienced abuse, I had allowed myself to be a doormat for a long time. I remembered many instances when people had taken my kindness for weakness, and I resented them for it, but never did anything about it.

I remember telling my karate class about a guy I dated who often made me pay for him as well as myself when we went out. Though it bothered me that I was usually stuck with the bill, I never said anything about it, assuming he would eventually change his ways.

“He’s never going to stop taking advantage of you until you tell him he can’t,” one of the girls said to me. Others echoed her comments. Their feedback made me realize the power of standing up for yourself.

The supportive community of girls at CAE taught me that respect is a two-way street, and that there is never any shame in demanding it. The confidence that breaking boards at the end of each class gave me helped me confront those people who hadn’t been treating me with respect. Training in martial arts, and especially teaching it, helped me muster a strength that I wasn’t aware I had.

Looking Out for Each Other

“None of us is safe until all of us are safe,” I recall a co-teacher saying during one of the first self-defense classes I taught. At the time, I dismissed these words as nothing more than a lame cliché. However, over the course of my years at CAE, I have realized that this statement alludes to a sense of responsibility and the important idea that women should look out for one another.

Unfortunately, this sense of community among young women is rare, for reasons I don’t comprehend. Hearing how frequently “she deserved it” comments were thrown around in our classes, and how often women blame themselves and each other for the violence they experience, makes me realize how much support and reassurance are missing from young women’s lives.

If women were more compassionate toward one another, violence would not be tolerated half as much as it is now. Women who had the support of other women might have the courage to stand up for themselves at the first signs of abuse. Fighting back, standing up for yourself, speaking out—it would all feel a lot less intimidating if we had the confidence that comes from mutual encouragement and support.