A Review of Real Knockouts by McCaughey

Review of Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense by Martha McCaughey

New York University Press, 1997

I believe that Real Knockouts is one of the most important books any woman on the warrior path, martial artist or anyone else concerned with issues around women's self-defense can read today. McCaughey explores the women's self-defense movement and it's relationship to feminism from the inside of both movements as well as a scholar. She examines how the women's movement and the women's self-defense movement often seem at odds with one another, when they should be part of the same movement.

One of the issues is that some factions of feminism have often invested in the image of women as victims to male violence. feminists continue the myth that men are by nature violent, women by nature nurturing and that we are always in danger of male violent, unable to fight back. Many readily accept the "fact" that men are stronger and can always victimize women, despite all the evidence that this is not true. While helping those who have been victimized and overcoming our issues with having been victims is an important part of healing, it also becomes a self-perpetuating fact when this is ALL we are doing. The more we believe we are natural victims, the more we will be victims. The women's self-defense movement is about not being victims, about teaching women the skills so that they will not be. Nor does it follow with the "anti-feminist feminists" (Roiphe, Paglia) who also accept women's "natural weakness" but downplay how dangerous the world is, speaking of a false power of denial.

Those feminists focused on the idea that women are more peaceful and "better" than men, will say that for women to learn to fight we are becoming like men. Self-defenders believe that fighting does not have to be consigned to one gender, the reality is that fighting is necessary to counter violence that isn't going away by simply asking men to become more like women. The reality is that because most men believe they can victimize women some do and they will continue to unless we fight back.

McCaughey notes that few feminists who are not self-defenders ever really learn much about what self-defense means or how women actually can over come attacks by men. Very few self-defenders who are not already involved in the women's movement have read much feminist theory. There are those, like McCaughey (and many of us interested in this book) who are both. But not yet enough. Through this book women in either movement can learn about the other and the issues that divide and that should bring the two movements together.

An important theme of this book is how we can not truly be considered equal as long as we are seen as incapable of defending ourselves, as physically less than men. The acceptance that men are naturally our physical superiors is accepted not only by most men and non-feminist women, but also by feminists and pro-feminist men. That we must be limited by this is "just a fact" to so many, yet it is a "fact" that is destroyed when we look at what women can accomplish through learning to defend ourselves and testing our physical limits, through becoming Physical Feminists (Dowling further studies this aspect in The Frailty Myth).

McCaughey notes the ways that society maintains the myth that women are natural victims, through media and social "norms." Movies, TV shows, music videos all repeat the message that women are vulnerable and objects to be "gained" while men are natural pursuers and magically invulnerable. She goes on to note that movies like Thelma and Louise and Terminator 2 and Aliens have offered women better role models that we've been handed by most movies, and women she interviews describe these inspirations.

There are many books accounting the success of self-defenders in over coming attacks (Beauty Bites Beast includes some), Real Knockouts does not address such accounts. Instead McCaughey interviewed women who had had full-force self-defense, boxing, martial arts and firearms training about the empowerment they felt as women who have learned to overcome their belief that they were natural victims. These women speak of finding not only their physical strengths, but their voices, their self-worth. They discuss being able to confront not only violent attack but daily disempowering situations, fight for better work conditions, demand more respect from the men in their lives. They speak of how they no longer live in constant fear at all, aware of the dangers of the world, but not cowed by them.

She also speaks of how the legal system is currently geared towards the view that women are helpless and how, as the self-defense movement grows, some of this must change. How laws that protect women who are traumatized and unable to fight back on equal grounds, such as the consideration of Battered Women's Syndrome, will not justly be used to protect women who have our power but go over the line. As we take charge of our power to fight, we must also face the same consequences men should in how we use it. This is a reality that few I have seen have addressed and a very important one. If we wish to be fully equal adults in the world of violence we must be accountable for how we behave.

McCaughey also shares some of her own journey from "frightened feminist" to empowered warrior. She notes that she approaches this study from inside of both, while also studying and interviewing both camps. She notes how both feminists and self-defenders questioned her about her involvement in the other movements. This creates a nicely balanced scholarly yet personal study.

As a feminist who was never comfortable with the Cultural Feminists' concept that we are natural victims and who has been promoting women's self-defense as a feminist act, I am thrilled by the in depth work that McCaughey has done here. I cannot at all recommend this book enough to women who are in one camp feeling at odds with the other or those of us who want to see the two come together to build a strong, safe future. (Please also check out the first of my review on Beauty Bites Beast on the question of feminists embracing self-defense, or not).

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