WOMEN FIGHTBACK

is the contraFLOW column dedicated to true stories of personal 
heroic 'fightback' experiences by women. Send in your victories 
against a misoqynist boss, fucked political comrade or abusive 
scumbag for inclusion in a future issue c/o K.M at contraFLOW. You 
can be phoned if you'd rather just tell your story rather than  
write it out. Keep on fighting back.

Emily's Story

"I was visiting some friends in Los Angeles and decided to go for a 
jog. It was getting near dusk and I found my way to a park that my 
friends had warned me against, saying it was a dangerous, 
gang-banger hell. I totally hate feeling restricted from any place 
and especially hate letting fear control me so I went anyway. (I 
still hate letting fear control me.) The park was all overgrown and 
covered with  semingly hundreds of little paths leading to 
who-knows-where. I guess a lot of homeless people made their homes 
in the bushes and nooks and crannies. At the time I started my jog 
though, I didn't really see any peole. It felt prety abandoned.

At some point while running down one of these overgrown trails I got 
this creepy sensation about me. ("Trust your instincts" self-defense 
classes teach.) I thought, "If I were to ever get raped, here..." I 
came to a dead end and swung around to head back and at that moment 
a guy jumped out of some brush about 50 meters in front of me, stood 
in the narrow path, hands on hips and stared straight at me. 
Something inside me clicked and I knew t-h-i-s w-a-s i-t. I had 
nowhere else to run so I rean straight toward him hoping when I got 
there he'd move and let me pass, all the while my mind was thinking 
a hundred things at once. "Stare him in the eyes, don't let him know 
you're scared. Fight!"

I got up to him, really terrified but overcome by a survival 
instinct and when he reached out and grabbed me I knew I had to 
resist. It was beyond frightening, him trying to wrestle me to the 
ground and me kicking and hitting him in all the places self-defense 
instructors say don't work. (But the main thing self-defence 
instructors push is that resisting *at all* is vital, that rapists 
look for victims they  think will be easy, non-resisting.) He wasn't 
saying anything but seemed surprised by my reaction, and he started 
hitting me back but seemed confused by it. I wanted to scream but 
absolutely could not. At some moment, about the same time I was 
finally remembering some flickers of self-defence moves (but still 
not being able to enact them) my voice kicked in and I just started 
screaming "I'm going to kill you motherfucker!" and things like 
that. I think that scared him because it might have attracted 
attention if anyone was around to hear it and he finally let me go 
and backed off, hands above his head in a show of surrender.

I ran off and was in a completely freaked out state, not believing 
that that had just happened to me and not knowing what I should do 
about it. In my fucking oh-so-political way, I decided not to call 
the cops because *I don't believe in that system of 'justice'*, and 
because it might have meant the end of a lot of people's homes in 
their shanties or whatever in the park with the guy probably not 
getting caught anyway. In the end I felt satisfied that I had fought 
him off and thought that might have scared him enough to try 
attacking another woman again. He truly looked more terrified by my 
response in the end than I think I even felt. I only wish I had got 
it together to make warning fliers to other women to post around the 
park, but I didn't.

On a final note, as a matter of mental self-preservation, about an 
hour later after I had calmed down a bit five of my friends and I 
went back to the park and exact spot of the attack (it was dark by 
now), me with a baseball bat and a stance that said "I will maim you 
bad if you are here." I didn't think he'd be there but I just needed 
to be back there to reclaim my space I think. It made me feel 
strong. The not-good bit was the reaction I got from so many friends 
and family when I told them about it, lots of folks saying "You 
shouldn't have been running alone in such a place." (I should do 
whatever I want to.) This reaction even came from anarchos and 
feminists, people who should have known better. This made me feel 
super crap, was the only cause of any of the tears I shed over it. I 
wish folks could figure it out."
