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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-07-10 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 7
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DAY YOU MAY MEET CASTRATING FEMALE [unreadable] LES [unreadable] [unreadable] EFENSE [unreadable] te of the traditional crimes [unreadable] ed women's magazines and news- [unreadable] and offer advice to their fe- [unreadable] ned not to go out unaccompanied [unreadable] t venture out alone, we are [unreadable] mace, nailfiles, to avoid [unreadable] course if attacked--scream, [unreadable] come to our rescue. [unreadable] en are the most blantant ex- [unreadable] attitude of men towards [unreadable] have not experienced the ex- [unreadable] subjected to the more [unreadable] andled, whistled at, pinched, [unreadable] at an equal human being like [unreadable] er the "protection" of a male [unreadable] not private property, then [unreadable] les to "protect" us too long. [unreadable] also the right to oppress. It [unreadable] learn to defend themselves. [unreadable] take care of themselves [unreadable] are systematically denied [unreadable] does not allow women to de- [unreadable] not supposed to do physical [unreadable] at women are pitifully weak. [unreadable] ences are of even greater [unreadable] they should be weak, that [unreadable] them. [unreadable] ess and its psychological [unreadable] overcome through developing [unreadable] ous forms of self-defense, [unreadable] e consciously aware of your [unreadable] have gained the self-confidence [unreadable] ing our physical potential and [unreadable] able to gain any individual [unreadable]. [unreadable] iate necessity that all women [unreadable] self-defense instruction. In- [unreadable] have to pay to learn how to [unreadable] not an individual problem. [unreadable] free self-defense instruction [unreadable] ols, businesses, welfare [unreadable] which have direct control [unreadable] [unreadable] ll stop only when it becomes [unreadable] woman as it is to attack. [unreadable[ lligan [unreadable] ne Welch [unreadable] ore Fun and Games, issue 3) [photo] THE SISTERS REACT: Taking karate seemed to dramatize a certain recurring situation I find myself in. I often feel in the position of powerlessness. Enraged at being in that position but feeling it so strongly I generally cry, In karate, I felt this really intensely when we had to spar (free fight) --completely weak and powerless. There was no way that I could win. The only choices I seemed to have were in just what manner I would take my defeat. This was just too super a symbolic inaction of what I have too often felt in my lifetime. I also am very small(height & bone structure) and no mater how much better I got at blocking I felt battered & because of a physical factor over which I had no choice. I spent many classes trying merely to get thru the class without crying. Then one night I felt really brutalized & weak & all that crap & I was about to cry when I got really mad and wanted to hurt back. I realize that is not the answer but it felt a lot healthier than wanting to cry. It seemed like a beginning & I really started to dig karate. When the shit started to fall I felt pretty disappointed at the thought of no longer being able to take karate, but my other reactions were much stronger. I felt, despite all the terrific, mystical, martial arts reasons that our instructor had, under all that it was a plain old political act. Political women scare people, especially men, & he wasn't so different from most men. I also had that feeling I always have when someone is giving all these logical reasons for controlling, confining & dominating someone. There are no acceptable reasons for doing that to anyone. I often let someone do it to me but not because it is sensible to do it, but I give in because I am weak. Each time I do, I hate a little more--hate the person in authority, the situation, & myself. I didn't want any of that this time. I've been through that before. Very soon after I joined Women's Liberation, I joined the karate class. I wondered if an all-women group could get together in their heads enough about doing these violent actions which all our lives we learned were not really socially acceptable for a woman to do . At first most of us were a little uneasy about the potential roughness, but very soon, I think, we began learning that we can train our minds & bodies to make use of the anger that is in all of us. Considering the very legitimate reasons for that anger, I found it easy to understand when a sister who had always been gently & sensitive around her sisters came at me with the ferocity of an unleashed panther. I felt proud of my sisters & myself for being able to show& use the anger & aggressiveness that we as females had for so long but kept tucked away somewhere because society called it "unfeminine". Karate teaches us to feel good & confident about our own ability to use our anger in self-defense. Sometime during karate (when I was beginning to get really bruised every night I guess), I began to get very uptight about the male structure of the class. The whole thing was reminding me of what I've always imagined boot camp to be like. The structure was very stratified & authoritarian. The instructors were all male (the only female green belt quit coming after the first week). The students were mostly female. A combination of being most severely hurt by the men in the class & being in an authoritarian structure which forced me to be subservient to the male instructor made me think that an all womens' class must be much better. While in Boston I visited one of Jayne West's womens' classes to try to find a difference in atmosphere. I was surprised to see that the women were tougher in her class without men than in ours with men. Jayne's class structure was just as authoritarian & the women obeyed her orders much more quickly. They used each other as targets for kicks & actually made contact just ilke we did (which ws bruising me so much). I think her atmosphere was less jovial, more hard work together than our class was. Jayne said that she believed karate could be taught best & safest in an authoritarian way, with belt ranks, etc. My personal conclusions were that I was probably getting more upset about men filling the top places of the structure than I was about the structure itself which I still haven't been able to admit is necessary. One thing really bugs me about karate--the mentality that seems to prevail among the male teachers. To wit: karate is an end in itself, an entire lifestyle, a total mind-rearrangement, a secret, sacred martial Art. Puke! I don't want to turn into a goddamn cold-blooded vicious killer. Yet the conversation with our former karate teacher after the rip-off convinced me that that's his view of the people who will ever be any good at it--i.e., if you can't develop this mentality you might as well not bother taking karate & if you do throw yourself into learning the Art, you'll inevitable develop the authoritarian, emotionless personality to go along with it. You need to be able to think of the most expedient means of achieving a goal and then do it, in cold blood. Group action is a farce; the way to get rid of corporate power,e.g., is systematically to wipe out the corporate exec.s in their beds--ground glass in their tapioca, no less. Kill a person in a crowd with a quick invisible punch to his/her vulnerables, & walk away blithely, secure in your competence. Rip out your opponents eyeballs, groove on his/her writhing. Never never let yourself get angry, because emotions blind you to the most effective way of wiping out an opponent in any given instance. This is the path to the Good Life??".". Is the urge to become strong, self-sufficient, competent women able to defend ourselves from the attacks of The Enemy compatible with karate as institutionalized in this country? I wonder. today is thursday evening and we, my brother and i, got turned away from our karate class by the goon at u of i athletic building because we had no ID cards like the students coming to see the game...then we suggested they go ask the instructors NO YOU NEED AN ID so we should have run up the stairs to our sisters screaming here come the pigs GET THEM which would have been beautiful (& which we will do at the next game) but instead we screamed obscenities and retreated ungracefully EXTREMELY UNGRACEFULLY and waited for a friend to walk in the door who never did so we came over here & you're not home. love to our sisters death to the establishment & pig cops sincerely, ginna a Woman? [hand drawn arm] July 10, 1970 7
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DAY YOU MAY MEET CASTRATING FEMALE [unreadable] LES [unreadable] [unreadable] EFENSE [unreadable] te of the traditional crimes [unreadable] ed women's magazines and news- [unreadable] and offer advice to their fe- [unreadable] ned not to go out unaccompanied [unreadable] t venture out alone, we are [unreadable] mace, nailfiles, to avoid [unreadable] course if attacked--scream, [unreadable] come to our rescue. [unreadable] en are the most blantant ex- [unreadable] attitude of men towards [unreadable] have not experienced the ex- [unreadable] subjected to the more [unreadable] andled, whistled at, pinched, [unreadable] at an equal human being like [unreadable] er the "protection" of a male [unreadable] not private property, then [unreadable] les to "protect" us too long. [unreadable] also the right to oppress. It [unreadable] learn to defend themselves. [unreadable] take care of themselves [unreadable] are systematically denied [unreadable] does not allow women to de- [unreadable] not supposed to do physical [unreadable] at women are pitifully weak. [unreadable] ences are of even greater [unreadable] they should be weak, that [unreadable] them. [unreadable] ess and its psychological [unreadable] overcome through developing [unreadable] ous forms of self-defense, [unreadable] e consciously aware of your [unreadable] have gained the self-confidence [unreadable] ing our physical potential and [unreadable] able to gain any individual [unreadable]. [unreadable] iate necessity that all women [unreadable] self-defense instruction. In- [unreadable] have to pay to learn how to [unreadable] not an individual problem. [unreadable] free self-defense instruction [unreadable] ols, businesses, welfare [unreadable] which have direct control [unreadable] [unreadable] ll stop only when it becomes [unreadable] woman as it is to attack. [unreadable[ lligan [unreadable] ne Welch [unreadable] ore Fun and Games, issue 3) [photo] THE SISTERS REACT: Taking karate seemed to dramatize a certain recurring situation I find myself in. I often feel in the position of powerlessness. Enraged at being in that position but feeling it so strongly I generally cry, In karate, I felt this really intensely when we had to spar (free fight) --completely weak and powerless. There was no way that I could win. The only choices I seemed to have were in just what manner I would take my defeat. This was just too super a symbolic inaction of what I have too often felt in my lifetime. I also am very small(height & bone structure) and no mater how much better I got at blocking I felt battered & because of a physical factor over which I had no choice. I spent many classes trying merely to get thru the class without crying. Then one night I felt really brutalized & weak & all that crap & I was about to cry when I got really mad and wanted to hurt back. I realize that is not the answer but it felt a lot healthier than wanting to cry. It seemed like a beginning & I really started to dig karate. When the shit started to fall I felt pretty disappointed at the thought of no longer being able to take karate, but my other reactions were much stronger. I felt, despite all the terrific, mystical, martial arts reasons that our instructor had, under all that it was a plain old political act. Political women scare people, especially men, & he wasn't so different from most men. I also had that feeling I always have when someone is giving all these logical reasons for controlling, confining & dominating someone. There are no acceptable reasons for doing that to anyone. I often let someone do it to me but not because it is sensible to do it, but I give in because I am weak. Each time I do, I hate a little more--hate the person in authority, the situation, & myself. I didn't want any of that this time. I've been through that before. Very soon after I joined Women's Liberation, I joined the karate class. I wondered if an all-women group could get together in their heads enough about doing these violent actions which all our lives we learned were not really socially acceptable for a woman to do . At first most of us were a little uneasy about the potential roughness, but very soon, I think, we began learning that we can train our minds & bodies to make use of the anger that is in all of us. Considering the very legitimate reasons for that anger, I found it easy to understand when a sister who had always been gently & sensitive around her sisters came at me with the ferocity of an unleashed panther. I felt proud of my sisters & myself for being able to show& use the anger & aggressiveness that we as females had for so long but kept tucked away somewhere because society called it "unfeminine". Karate teaches us to feel good & confident about our own ability to use our anger in self-defense. Sometime during karate (when I was beginning to get really bruised every night I guess), I began to get very uptight about the male structure of the class. The whole thing was reminding me of what I've always imagined boot camp to be like. The structure was very stratified & authoritarian. The instructors were all male (the only female green belt quit coming after the first week). The students were mostly female. A combination of being most severely hurt by the men in the class & being in an authoritarian structure which forced me to be subservient to the male instructor made me think that an all womens' class must be much better. While in Boston I visited one of Jayne West's womens' classes to try to find a difference in atmosphere. I was surprised to see that the women were tougher in her class without men than in ours with men. Jayne's class structure was just as authoritarian & the women obeyed her orders much more quickly. They used each other as targets for kicks & actually made contact just ilke we did (which ws bruising me so much). I think her atmosphere was less jovial, more hard work together than our class was. Jayne said that she believed karate could be taught best & safest in an authoritarian way, with belt ranks, etc. My personal conclusions were that I was probably getting more upset about men filling the top places of the structure than I was about the structure itself which I still haven't been able to admit is necessary. One thing really bugs me about karate--the mentality that seems to prevail among the male teachers. To wit: karate is an end in itself, an entire lifestyle, a total mind-rearrangement, a secret, sacred martial Art. Puke! I don't want to turn into a goddamn cold-blooded vicious killer. Yet the conversation with our former karate teacher after the rip-off convinced me that that's his view of the people who will ever be any good at it--i.e., if you can't develop this mentality you might as well not bother taking karate & if you do throw yourself into learning the Art, you'll inevitable develop the authoritarian, emotionless personality to go along with it. You need to be able to think of the most expedient means of achieving a goal and then do it, in cold blood. Group action is a farce; the way to get rid of corporate power,e.g., is systematically to wipe out the corporate exec.s in their beds--ground glass in their tapioca, no less. Kill a person in a crowd with a quick invisible punch to his/her vulnerables, & walk away blithely, secure in your competence. Rip out your opponents eyeballs, groove on his/her writhing. Never never let yourself get angry, because emotions blind you to the most effective way of wiping out an opponent in any given instance. This is the path to the Good Life??".". Is the urge to become strong, self-sufficient, competent women able to defend ourselves from the attacks of The Enemy compatible with karate as institutionalized in this country? I wonder. today is thursday evening and we, my brother and i, got turned away from our karate class by the goon at u of i athletic building because we had no ID cards like the students coming to see the game...then we suggested they go ask the instructors NO YOU NEED AN ID so we should have run up the stairs to our sisters screaming here come the pigs GET THEM which would have been beautiful (& which we will do at the next game) but instead we screamed obscenities and retreated ungracefully EXTREMELY UNGRACEFULLY and waited for a friend to walk in the door who never did so we came over here & you're not home. love to our sisters death to the establishment & pig cops sincerely, ginna a Woman? [hand drawn arm] July 10, 1970 7
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