Carl Levitian
member
Okay, I know most of you found out the difference between the boys and girls a very long time ago. For better of worse, and found out there's a really big difference in thinking process. As totally different creatures, they think with the opposite hemisphere of their brains. I read that someplace a long time ago. I've been known to read a book now and then.
When it comes down to non firearm weapons for us, the girls need a whole different set of tools than us men. I do believe it all goes back to the hunter-gatherers. We, the men, were the hunters, and the women folk stayed close to the cave waiting for us to bring back that haunch of mastodon or warthog to eat. Just in case the hunt was a bust, they gathered what roots and berries and fruit that grew not to far from the cave. They became the gatherers.
I am sitting her looking out my window, watching a bunch of the little boys in the neighborhood playing. They have a couple of plastic bats, a plastic whiffle ball, and they swing real good for 6 to 9 year olds. When Karen and I go for a hike in the woods, and take the trails in Black Hill Regional park, I see little boys with their families hiking the trails and most of them, by some ancient instinct, have picked up a stick to use as a hiking stick, but once in a while they take a good swing at a offending bush or tree limb.
Instinct.
Like Lorne Green said in the old Alpo commercials, you can't breed it out of an animal. It's there in a DNA level in our genes. I see little boys swinging a variety of sticks, but the little girls stay close to mom or dad.
The hunter-gatherers, and instinct.
I have read all these posts where some guy wants to pick a weapon for his wife/girlfriend/mother/ and people recommend all kinds of things. Aside from a gun, which levels the playing field like no other tool, not all non-firearm tools are equal. While I love the stick, and think it the uncrowned king of non- firearm weapons, I have to take into account I'm a hunter. For my better half, who's a gatherer, I have to admit a stick may not do. Women in general, are smaller than us, weaker than us, and more hesitant to use force than us. They are not going to swing a stick/club as soon and with enough force. Mostly. Yes, I know there are exceptions, I wouldn't want to face Martina Navratilova with a cane in her hand. The way she swung a tennis racket in her day, she'd still probably take my head off. Steffie Graf would be wicked with a blackthorn stick in her hand. But I'm talking in general.
In some parts of the world, it's common to have women armed with a blade of some type. In view of man's evolution this makes sense. Women have been meal fixers, gatherers, harvesters, and have been well acquainted with sharp tools. John Wayne Bobbitt learned the hard way not to P.O. a little lady from South America. From Latin America to the far east, a female may well have been taught by a family member on what to do with a sharp knife. For almost 20 years I had a co-worker, Dep Li, from the former Republic Of South Viet Nam. Dep was an attractive lady, with very long black hair and dark almond shaped eyes that had a twinkle in them when she smiled, which was most of the time. But one winter, when it got dark early, a lady in the next building had an attempted assault on her. News was spread by our security people and women were asked not to leave the building after dark without male escort. Dep told us she wasn't worried, and showed us (her co-workers) the razor sharp boning knife in her purse. She'd made a nice little sheath for it out of cardboard and duct tape, and secured it in her purse standing up so the handle was just an inch below the opening. Her comment was that maybe if the guy attacked her, she'd maybe fix him so he was not a threat to women anymore. She wasn't smiling when she said it.
My own better half was the offspring of a blond haired Georgia cracker boy and a Mexican gal when he was getting his PBY training on the Texas gulf coast in WW2. My Karen grew up on the Texas/Mexican border, and after the war, her father had become a meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Service, and specialized in the study of hurricanes in the gulf. He found himself stationed back in the gulf coast of Texas in Brownsville, and Karen grew up knowing her family on the other side of the border. It was her Uncle Enriche who showed the girls how to protect themselves with a utility knife or hawkbill. The Brownsville/Harlingen area was known as 'the Valley', and was a huge producer of citrus. Everybody carried a knife, and a great deal of them were hawkbills. Assaults on women were almost unheard of. When Karen had a would-be predator try her, he ended up with his arm opened up from the back of his wrist to the elbow. Uncle Enriche would have been proud. He'd taught the girls well.
It's a fact of science that women have faster reflexes than us, and greater dexterity, offsetting the smaller weaker thing. With a sharp cutter in hand, a woman becomes a much more dangerous prey to try to take down. They know they are smaller and weaker, and they will defend from a standpoint of fear. Fear will dump great amounts of adrenaline and they can be very quick. Give your better half a magic marker and tell her to 'cut you with it' as you try to take her down. Take a count of how many marks you'll have on you. You may take her down, but you're gonna get cut really good. For a would be rapist, that makes a difference. Karen's friend that she's mentored from the agency that helps down and out women, Kate, is a prime example of a small female surviving in a very dangerous environment.
Kate is all of about 5 foot three inches and is she's more than 115 pounds, it's soaking wet with a couple rolls of coins in her purse. Yet she's survived working in some of the sleaziest strip clubs in Washington D.C. by way of her box cutter. She told Karen of her first job as a dancer in this one place, where the head bouncer was this biker guy, and he taught the new girls how to defend themselves. He and his wife (one of the other dancers) showed Kate how to conceal a box cutter, and how to use it, getting it into action with a bump against the base. Short fast cuts to he hands were first on the list. Cripple the hands and escape is more possible. Kate survived almost 20 years in some of the worst places in the city. She's used her box cutter once, and threatened with it many times. Apparently after being warned with the "I'll cut you!" her attempted assailants backed off and she got out of Dodge. They just were not willing to get cut for a piece of her. The street guys knew a box cutter makes a nasty gash, and backed away from a little blond.
A guy on the other hand, is like the little boys I see playing. They grew up swinging a stick, or bat, and had their share of after school "Oh Yeah?" kind of scuffles. Fist fights, wrestling, shoving matches. No shortage of brute force on force for little boys being boys. Physical contact was accepted and even encouraged by watching their heroes duke it out on TV or the movie screen. The would be hunters watching the grown up hunters. The right brain thinking. Give a guy a stick for hiking in the woods, and it's only a matter of time till he takes a swing at a bush. It's the instinct kicking in. Lorne Green was right. I guess the genes from 50,000 years ago are still there. Gronk has club. Gronk brains warthog. Gronk brings haunch of warthog back to cave to the gatherers for cooking. Gatherer take obsidian flake and cuts up haunch of warthog.
I do know that with my own experience with my daughter and granddaughter, they seemed to take to a small cutter way better than a club like tool. My own sister was taught by dad down the basement of our home after an incident when she was walking home from junior high school. Dad hung up an old pair of pants stuffed with rags, and showed Anne what to do with a little Christy knife. Years later, in her early 20's, Anne used the Christy knife on a would be attacker. She had walked out in that parking lot at night with her hand in her purse like dad had taught her, and her thumb right on the slide button of the little knife in her hand. She had been taught to be ready, and she was. But there's no way she'd have been served as well with a blunt force tool like a stick. For the close range of a sexual assault, a stick can be blocked too easy and wrested away from the would be victim. Awfully hard to block a fast upward slash of a small razor sharp cutter without getting cut badly.
On the other hand, a street guy using a throw-away kitchen paring knife as a mugging tool, getting close to a victim carrying a stout stick, is in a bad spot if the would be victim starts swing away with no warning, trying for that deep left field homer with the muggers head. Or knife arm. A man is going to swing with everything he's got, right from the get go.
It seems to me, a stick works best for a normal run of the mill guy, while a box cutter or such works best for the regular woman on the street. At least that's the way it seems to work out for the people I know who live and work on the street of Washington D.C. I think it was this forum that I told of the people in my group session at the V.A. hospital. The V.A. hospital is on Irving street, which is not a real great section of D.C. The people I got to know were from D.C.'s less than well to do neighborhoods. All the men carried some sort of walking stick. I was informed by them that most of the time, muggings are done with a disposable kitchen knife, and guns were saved for more serious robberies of convenience stores and drive-bys on the gang in another neighborhood. Seems like the run of the mill homie wants something that fits up his hoodie sleeve, can be ditched fast with no loss, and easy to replace. The cheap kitchen knife fits the bill. It's pointy, shiny, scares the target person in the suit, and he hands over his wallet and cell phone. The wallet is emptied of cash, the cell phone ditched and they are gone. They only want your cell phone to slow you down from calling the cops. Every minute escape helps.
Or so it goes in life on the street in our nation's capital.
Hunters and gatherers. Give your gatherer a box cutter and you tote a nice sturdy walking stick, and you're pretty set. At least here in the Washington D.C. and Maryland suburbs. Of course, they may let us carry guns some day, but if pigs had wings they'd be able to fly.
When it comes down to non firearm weapons for us, the girls need a whole different set of tools than us men. I do believe it all goes back to the hunter-gatherers. We, the men, were the hunters, and the women folk stayed close to the cave waiting for us to bring back that haunch of mastodon or warthog to eat. Just in case the hunt was a bust, they gathered what roots and berries and fruit that grew not to far from the cave. They became the gatherers.
I am sitting her looking out my window, watching a bunch of the little boys in the neighborhood playing. They have a couple of plastic bats, a plastic whiffle ball, and they swing real good for 6 to 9 year olds. When Karen and I go for a hike in the woods, and take the trails in Black Hill Regional park, I see little boys with their families hiking the trails and most of them, by some ancient instinct, have picked up a stick to use as a hiking stick, but once in a while they take a good swing at a offending bush or tree limb.
Instinct.
Like Lorne Green said in the old Alpo commercials, you can't breed it out of an animal. It's there in a DNA level in our genes. I see little boys swinging a variety of sticks, but the little girls stay close to mom or dad.
The hunter-gatherers, and instinct.
I have read all these posts where some guy wants to pick a weapon for his wife/girlfriend/mother/ and people recommend all kinds of things. Aside from a gun, which levels the playing field like no other tool, not all non-firearm tools are equal. While I love the stick, and think it the uncrowned king of non- firearm weapons, I have to take into account I'm a hunter. For my better half, who's a gatherer, I have to admit a stick may not do. Women in general, are smaller than us, weaker than us, and more hesitant to use force than us. They are not going to swing a stick/club as soon and with enough force. Mostly. Yes, I know there are exceptions, I wouldn't want to face Martina Navratilova with a cane in her hand. The way she swung a tennis racket in her day, she'd still probably take my head off. Steffie Graf would be wicked with a blackthorn stick in her hand. But I'm talking in general.
In some parts of the world, it's common to have women armed with a blade of some type. In view of man's evolution this makes sense. Women have been meal fixers, gatherers, harvesters, and have been well acquainted with sharp tools. John Wayne Bobbitt learned the hard way not to P.O. a little lady from South America. From Latin America to the far east, a female may well have been taught by a family member on what to do with a sharp knife. For almost 20 years I had a co-worker, Dep Li, from the former Republic Of South Viet Nam. Dep was an attractive lady, with very long black hair and dark almond shaped eyes that had a twinkle in them when she smiled, which was most of the time. But one winter, when it got dark early, a lady in the next building had an attempted assault on her. News was spread by our security people and women were asked not to leave the building after dark without male escort. Dep told us she wasn't worried, and showed us (her co-workers) the razor sharp boning knife in her purse. She'd made a nice little sheath for it out of cardboard and duct tape, and secured it in her purse standing up so the handle was just an inch below the opening. Her comment was that maybe if the guy attacked her, she'd maybe fix him so he was not a threat to women anymore. She wasn't smiling when she said it.
My own better half was the offspring of a blond haired Georgia cracker boy and a Mexican gal when he was getting his PBY training on the Texas gulf coast in WW2. My Karen grew up on the Texas/Mexican border, and after the war, her father had become a meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Service, and specialized in the study of hurricanes in the gulf. He found himself stationed back in the gulf coast of Texas in Brownsville, and Karen grew up knowing her family on the other side of the border. It was her Uncle Enriche who showed the girls how to protect themselves with a utility knife or hawkbill. The Brownsville/Harlingen area was known as 'the Valley', and was a huge producer of citrus. Everybody carried a knife, and a great deal of them were hawkbills. Assaults on women were almost unheard of. When Karen had a would-be predator try her, he ended up with his arm opened up from the back of his wrist to the elbow. Uncle Enriche would have been proud. He'd taught the girls well.
It's a fact of science that women have faster reflexes than us, and greater dexterity, offsetting the smaller weaker thing. With a sharp cutter in hand, a woman becomes a much more dangerous prey to try to take down. They know they are smaller and weaker, and they will defend from a standpoint of fear. Fear will dump great amounts of adrenaline and they can be very quick. Give your better half a magic marker and tell her to 'cut you with it' as you try to take her down. Take a count of how many marks you'll have on you. You may take her down, but you're gonna get cut really good. For a would be rapist, that makes a difference. Karen's friend that she's mentored from the agency that helps down and out women, Kate, is a prime example of a small female surviving in a very dangerous environment.
Kate is all of about 5 foot three inches and is she's more than 115 pounds, it's soaking wet with a couple rolls of coins in her purse. Yet she's survived working in some of the sleaziest strip clubs in Washington D.C. by way of her box cutter. She told Karen of her first job as a dancer in this one place, where the head bouncer was this biker guy, and he taught the new girls how to defend themselves. He and his wife (one of the other dancers) showed Kate how to conceal a box cutter, and how to use it, getting it into action with a bump against the base. Short fast cuts to he hands were first on the list. Cripple the hands and escape is more possible. Kate survived almost 20 years in some of the worst places in the city. She's used her box cutter once, and threatened with it many times. Apparently after being warned with the "I'll cut you!" her attempted assailants backed off and she got out of Dodge. They just were not willing to get cut for a piece of her. The street guys knew a box cutter makes a nasty gash, and backed away from a little blond.
A guy on the other hand, is like the little boys I see playing. They grew up swinging a stick, or bat, and had their share of after school "Oh Yeah?" kind of scuffles. Fist fights, wrestling, shoving matches. No shortage of brute force on force for little boys being boys. Physical contact was accepted and even encouraged by watching their heroes duke it out on TV or the movie screen. The would be hunters watching the grown up hunters. The right brain thinking. Give a guy a stick for hiking in the woods, and it's only a matter of time till he takes a swing at a bush. It's the instinct kicking in. Lorne Green was right. I guess the genes from 50,000 years ago are still there. Gronk has club. Gronk brains warthog. Gronk brings haunch of warthog back to cave to the gatherers for cooking. Gatherer take obsidian flake and cuts up haunch of warthog.
I do know that with my own experience with my daughter and granddaughter, they seemed to take to a small cutter way better than a club like tool. My own sister was taught by dad down the basement of our home after an incident when she was walking home from junior high school. Dad hung up an old pair of pants stuffed with rags, and showed Anne what to do with a little Christy knife. Years later, in her early 20's, Anne used the Christy knife on a would be attacker. She had walked out in that parking lot at night with her hand in her purse like dad had taught her, and her thumb right on the slide button of the little knife in her hand. She had been taught to be ready, and she was. But there's no way she'd have been served as well with a blunt force tool like a stick. For the close range of a sexual assault, a stick can be blocked too easy and wrested away from the would be victim. Awfully hard to block a fast upward slash of a small razor sharp cutter without getting cut badly.
On the other hand, a street guy using a throw-away kitchen paring knife as a mugging tool, getting close to a victim carrying a stout stick, is in a bad spot if the would be victim starts swing away with no warning, trying for that deep left field homer with the muggers head. Or knife arm. A man is going to swing with everything he's got, right from the get go.
It seems to me, a stick works best for a normal run of the mill guy, while a box cutter or such works best for the regular woman on the street. At least that's the way it seems to work out for the people I know who live and work on the street of Washington D.C. I think it was this forum that I told of the people in my group session at the V.A. hospital. The V.A. hospital is on Irving street, which is not a real great section of D.C. The people I got to know were from D.C.'s less than well to do neighborhoods. All the men carried some sort of walking stick. I was informed by them that most of the time, muggings are done with a disposable kitchen knife, and guns were saved for more serious robberies of convenience stores and drive-bys on the gang in another neighborhood. Seems like the run of the mill homie wants something that fits up his hoodie sleeve, can be ditched fast with no loss, and easy to replace. The cheap kitchen knife fits the bill. It's pointy, shiny, scares the target person in the suit, and he hands over his wallet and cell phone. The wallet is emptied of cash, the cell phone ditched and they are gone. They only want your cell phone to slow you down from calling the cops. Every minute escape helps.
Or so it goes in life on the street in our nation's capital.
Hunters and gatherers. Give your gatherer a box cutter and you tote a nice sturdy walking stick, and you're pretty set. At least here in the Washington D.C. and Maryland suburbs. Of course, they may let us carry guns some day, but if pigs had wings they'd be able to fly.
