I don't know how to hit.
This is not the sort of thing I spend a lot of time thinking about, but I started reading Nicola Griffith's Always the other day and her main character Aud spends a portion of the story teaching a self defense class for women. On the first day of class Aud asks her students to make a fist and most of them can't do it right - don't know how to do it right.
I'm not sure that I know how to make one either.
Aud is tough and smart and the book is partly female noir, partly relationship (romance, family, friends), and partly just down and dirty smart. And the more I read about her, the more I am impressed by her fearlessness (except when it comes to her mother, of course). But I wouldn't really be doing anything more than enjoying the book (really enjoying it - I can see why Gwenda raved about it and nominated it for the LBC pick this summer) - if I hadn't read what Terri had to say about Buffy at the Endicott Studio today. Terri's post led me to Joss Whedon and that is where I really and truly began to think about how I do not know how to fight; how I was never taught to fight.
How no one ever thinks that the girls need to know how to fight.
Joss writes about the recent honor killing of Dua Khalil in a way that is both infuriating and full of despair. He reminds us that this is about a girl - a girl who had no chance while she was beaten to death; no chance while they filmed her violent death. Can you imagine how helpless she must have felt? Joss writes:
Because as the girl was on the ground trying to get up, her face nothing but red, the few in the group of more than twenty men who were not busy kicking her and hurling stones at her were filming the event with their camera-phones.
I love Buffy; I love that Joss Whedon created a female character that is not afraid. And all the other female characters: Willow, Tara, Faith, Cordelia - they aren't afraid either. They hit, they all hit. And as a woman, while you watch this, you think how wicked cool is that. Look at the blonde chick kick ass! And then you turn the tv off and go back to your little life and you don't think about it.
Until Dua Khalil. And so I start reading Nicola Griffith's book again and Aud is so careful in the way she teaches her students - so determined to make them willing to hit. And I realize all over again that I can't; that I never have; that I don't even know how.
It really pisses me off.
I'm tough when it comes to the verbal confrontations (don't even get me started on life working for the Company in AK) but this is all about something different. In my YA urban fantasy my main character has a moment where she will hit - a girl who never thought she would finds herself in that position and must and so she does.
I worried that this might make her a cliche; might be violence just for the sake of violence but I don't think so anymore. I think it is a moment that might be more powerful than any other in the book in fact. And when she hits, I imagine she will be hitting for me too; for all the little girls who never learn what it's like to try.
I don't want to hit someone just for the sake of hitting, but I want to know that I could; I want to know that if I was in that crowd I would at least get to hurt a few of them first; I would not be the only one with a face of red.
May 22
2007
05:39 AM
Great post. I've got to read that novel! And I REALLY can't wait to read yours when it's ready!
My own opinion is that the fear of embarrassment is more what stops us from hitting than a technical not-knowing--that's why the kind of self-defense class where they dress the guy up in a huge Michelin-type suit & you kick him as hard as you can in the balls area & get used to how it feels is so useful. We have to know how to hit pretty well, I think, before it's safer to hit back than just to yell like crazy and try and get away. And yelling (or running) before you get hit is the other thing to keep in mind, again even in the face of potential embarrassment...