First, you are stretching the person suggesting people should learn how to defend themselves to mean that they have to be one of the best fighters in the world. Most people on the street who are going to attack you actually suck at it and have no idea what they’re doing. Having even a minor idea of how to defend yourself (even just a few classes) can be enough to stop a random street attacker.

But, let’s completely ignore that. The person is suggesting that people should learn how to defend themselves to minimize their risks of getting hurt in a situation they didn’t ask for. He isn’t suggesting that by not knowing this, they are inviting attackers. For anyone to make that assertion would be idiotic. You are making the false assumption that not only is there some magical force that prevents women from being safe, ignores men, and can be completely taken away by people agreeing with you (It is not illogical for me to infer this because of your use of the word “granted”, which implies someone holds the power to end this but just isn’t doing it), but also that only (or mostly) women get attacked. Let me show you some statistics since you people tend to love those so much.

Let’s just look at the US, since I’m assuming that’s where you are (Correct me if I’m wrong). And by the way, since I’m actually researching stuff instead of parroting random bullshit that someone made up to agree with me (You haven’t really done that in this post, but based on what you said, I wouldn’t put it past you), I’ll actually give you my sources (The data comes from here and is from a study conducted from 1980- 2008: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf).

Males made up 77% of homicide victims and were 3 times more likely to be the victim of a homicide than a female. Hold it! I have a feeling I know what you are going to say (assuming you actually opened the link). You are going to try to point out that males were 9 times as likely as females to be the murderer as well. While that may be true, it is entirely irrelevant to this argument. We are talking about people becoming victims at all and who should be scared to walk home at night, not who gets harmed by specifically a man or woman (a crime is a crime no matter who does it).

Females made up an astonishingly high 81.7% of sex-related homicides. Holy crap! That’s bad! I completely agree, but probably not for the same reason as you. I think it’s horrible that sex-related (or any, for that matter) homicides happen at all. This statistic could actually be misleading though. If you recall, the 77% male statistic for homicides describes all homicides. That means that the 81.7% female figure for sex-related homicides actually falls under the umbrella of the total homicide victims percentage. This shows that women are far less likely to get murdered than men, but [a significantly higher percentages of their murders were sex-related]*. Someone with an impulsive mind ridden with conformation bias might take that to be evidence for rape culture or the patriarchy or something, but once again, the finding can be misleading when taken at face value. If you think about what * means in relation to the 77% and 81.7% statistics, it shows that female sex-related homicides are still significantly less prevalent than what one would think at first glance. Actually, since we are talking about gender differences in crime here, why don’t I tell you something else pointed out by this other source I have (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/tables/33tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_33_ten_year_arrest_trends_by_sex_2003-2012.xls#overview)? It shows that crime from 2003-2012 has decreased overall, but women as a sex are committing more crimes. That means that the sexual division of perpetrators is leveling out (albeit slowly). I cannot honestly say I know where it will go in the next 10 or so years, but the demographics are slightly changing.

All of this only talks about homicides though. What about crimes where nobody dies? You could make the case for nonfatal rape, and I could make the case for nonfatal beatings. I don’t have statistics for these, but you haven’t presented any either. With that, we are at a standstill, as simply stating I haven’t won an argument in that regard does not automatically declare your side the victor. I could probably go find some statistics and talk about them, but I think hope that you see my overall point by now. Crime happens whether you want it to or not, and whether or not you know how to deal with it when it does.

What does all this show? It shows that the world is scary and unpredictable. There are people who rape, beat, and kill others-men and women- for seemingly no reason whatsoever. It’s not a gendered issue. It’s a human issue. It’s something that no amount of angrily shaking your fist at people on the internet and demanding justice for women and only women is going to fix. Women get hurt, but so do men, and you never know when it’s going to happen to you regardless of sex. All you can do is everything in YOUR power to prevent it. Learn how to defend yourself if you’re a man. Learn how to defend yourself if you’re a woman. Learn how to defend yourself if you’re nonbinary. Learn how to defend yourself if your gender is 3 chocolate penises who are all Nickolas Cage living in your head. Just take some responsibility for your personal safety. I think harry-potter-on-meth would agree. You know what though? You could become the ultimate UFC/Martial Arts/Mortal Kombat/Kung-Fu Movie fighter- capable of punching through someone’s chest effortlessly- and still get gunned down in a dark alley. It’s not victim blaming. It’s not misogyny. It’s not rape culture. It’s just the harsh reality of the world we live in that no amount of keyboard-crusading can fix.