The Celebration and the Contradiction: When Women’s Day Values Clash with Hiring Practices

Every year on March 8th, corporates across India and the world celebrate International Women’s Day. The speeches are inspiring. The social media posts are beautifully designed. The themes are powerful: Break the Bias. Inspire Inclusion. Accelerate Action. Choose to Challenge.

And then, a few weeks later, someone from the same company sends out an email to a self-defense training provider that says: “Please confirm that the instructor will be female. We prefer a woman trainer for our women employees.”

I want to be very gentle with this observation, because I know the intention is good. But the contradiction is real, and it is worth talking about. Because International Women’s Day is, at its heart, about equality. And specifying that only a person of a particular gender can perform a job is, by definition, not equality.

Why Self-Defence for Women Is Far More Than Learning Physical Tricks

Most people, including many well-meaning corporate HR teams, assume that self-defence training is simply about learning a handful of physical techniques. A wrist release, a palm strike, a knee to the groin. And following that logic, they conclude that a female instructor would naturally teach women better than a male instructor because she “understands the female experience.”

This thinking, while understandable on the surface, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what effective self-defence actually requires.

Why Reaction-Based Self-Defence Techniques Alone Are Not Enough for Women’s Safety

The overwhelming majority of self-defence classes, regardless of the instructor’s gender, focus almost entirely on reaction-based tactics. These are techniques that only activate after a crime has already started. Someone has already grabbed you. Someone has already pushed you against a wall. Someone has already initiated violence. And now you are expected to execute a technique you practised in a calm, well-lit classroom against a person who is bigger, stronger, heavier, fuelled by adrenaline, and fully committed to causing harm.

Consider the physical reality. The average man possesses 40 to 60 percent more upper body strength than the average woman. He is typically taller, heavier, and has significantly greater grip strength. Once a physical confrontation has begun and the attacker holds positional control, relying exclusively on reaction-based tricks becomes an extraordinarily difficult path to survival. This is not a commentary on anyone’s capability. It is a statement about physics and physiology. And any honest self-defence system must account for this reality rather than pretend it does not exist.

How Criminals Plan Attacks and Why Instructor Expertise in Crime Matters More Than Gender

Here is what most self-defence programmes fail to teach: crime is overwhelmingly premeditated. A criminal does not stumble into an attack by accident. He selects a target deliberately. He chooses an environment that gives him advantage. He picks a time when the target is most vulnerable. He may carry weapons. He may have accomplices. He controls the ambience, the method, the tools, and the exit strategy. He has rehearsed the scenario mentally, sometimes even physically, long before the attack begins.

Given this reality, an instructor’s understanding of crime itself must extend far beyond martial arts techniques or self-defence tricks. The instructor must understand criminal psychology, predatory selection patterns, pre-crime indicators, environmental risk factors, and the decision-making processes that criminals use to identify and approach their targets. This is specialised knowledge that has nothing to do with the instructor’s gender and everything to do with their depth of study, field experience, and professional training in the science of crime and human behaviour under threat.

How the Power to Women Corporate Self-Defence Workshop Uses Israeli Krav Maga and 21+ Psychological Skills

This is precisely why the Power to Women Corporate Self-Defence Workshop was designed differently from the ground up. It is not a collection of physical tricks taught by any available martial arts practitioner. It is a scientifically structured programme built by merging two critical disciplines: the Israeli military Krav Maga self-defence system and over 21 psychological skill frameworks drawn from behavioural science, crisis psychology, and criminal profiling.

The programme is engineered around four pillars that extend far beyond physical response: Prevent crime before it takes shape, Avoid dangerous situations through trained awareness and deliberate positioning, Diffuse threats using verbal, psychological, and behavioural tools, and Escape when physical confrontation becomes the last remaining option. Physical technique is only the final layer of defence, not the first or only one.

Here is a look at the psychological and tactical skill systems woven into the workshop:

• Pro-Active Combat Science trains women to take control of an encounter and set the terms, rather than waiting to be acted upon.
• Guerrilla Hit and Run Deception takes the very manipulation strategies that predators depend on and weaponises them for the defender.
• Neuro-Behavioral Crisis Management conditions the brain to operate effectively under extreme threat instead of collapsing into helplessness.
• Warrior Mindset Conditioning builds the internal psychological framework that creates the decisive difference between those who survive and those who do not.
• Fear Counterinsurgency teaches women to channel raw fear and panic into structured, usable tactical energy during a crisis.
• Pro-Failure Conversion Technique ensures that every error made during training becomes a building block for sharper, faster future responses.
• Critical Decision Life Safety Skills develops the capacity to make the correct choice in the exact moment when a pause or wrong decision could mean irreversible harm.
• Psychological Anti-Stress Conditioning proves that composure in the middle of chaos is not a personality trait but a trainable, repeatable skill.
• Dynamic Scenario Analysis Strategy builds the ability to interpret rapidly shifting threats and recalibrate responses in real time.
• Pre-Conflict Situational Awareness trains women to recognise and respond to danger long before it fully takes form.
• Threat Perception Development sharpens the instinct to detect hostile intent and predatory focus even when no weapon is yet visible.
• Post-Battle Quick Response prepares women for the critical thirty seconds that follow a violent encounter, the window that most often determines whether someone survives or suffers further harm.
• Stealth and Evasive Tactics teaches the discipline of winning confrontations by ensuring they never need to take place.
• Active Warfare Emotional Balance trains sustained mental clarity and decision-making even when adrenaline floods the system.
• Verbal Modulation Instructions develops the human voice as a precise instrument for commanding authority and de-escalating aggression.
• Violence De-Escalation Techniques provides tested frameworks for neutralising threats before any physical contact occurs.
• Crime Radar Deterrence Manoeuvre teaches women to project behavioural signals that cause predators to bypass them entirely and select a different target.
• Criminal Profiling and Crime Psychology equips women with a working understanding of how attackers evaluate, decide, and act.
• Pain Compliance and Pressure Methodology uses knowledge of human anatomy to generate maximum defensive effect in situations where physical strength alone is insufficient.
• Emergency Risk Analysis and Management builds the neural pathways for accurate, life-preserving decisions made in fractions of a second.
• Decrypting Pre-Crime Sequence teaches women to read the subtle behavioural cues and environmental shifts that occur in the one to three seconds before every attack begins.

This level of depth requires an instructor who has invested decades in the study of crime, psychology, military combat systems, and human behaviour under extreme duress. It is not a curriculum that any martial artist, regardless of gender, can deliver simply because they hold a belt ranking. The question for any corporate should never be “Is the instructor male or female?” The question should be “Does this instructor possess the tactical knowledge, the psychological expertise, and the scientifically validated framework to genuinely prepare women for the realities of crime?”

Which Laws Are Violated When Corporates Demand Female-Only Self-Defence Instructors

Let me walk through this carefully. Not to accuse, but to educate. Because I believe that most corporates would correct this immediately if they realised the full picture.

What the POSH Act Actually Says About Self-Defence Trainer Gender Requirements

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act mandates awareness and training programs. But it does not mandate the gender of the person delivering those programs. The Act focuses on content, quality, and outcomes. More importantly, the POSH Act exists to dismantle gender-based stereotypes and biases in the workplace. Ironically, insisting on a female trainer because of assumptions about what women are comfortable with reinforces gender stereotyping, which goes against the spirit of the very law being complied with.

Why BFOQ Does Not Apply to Self-Defence Instructor Selection

This legal concept allows gender to be a job requirement only when it is genuinely essential. A female washroom attendant, yes. An actor for a specific gender role, yes. A self-defense instructor? No. Self-defense instruction is a knowledge-based and skill-based profession. The ability to teach crime awareness, threat response, personal safety strategies, and the full range of tactical and psychological preparedness has nothing to do with the instructor’s gender.

How DEI Policies Contradict Gender-Based Trainer Selection in Corporate Workshops

Most corporates with DEI policies explicitly state that they do not discriminate based on gender in hiring, procurement, or service engagement. Specifying a gender requirement for a trainer directly contradicts these policies. If the DEI policy applies to hiring a marketing manager, it should also apply to engaging a training facilitator.

Constitutional and Legal Frameworks That Prohibit Gender-Based Vendor Discrimination

• Article 14: Equality before law.
• Article 15(1): Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex.
• Article 16(1) and 16(2): Equality of opportunity in employment, with specific prohibition of sex-based discrimination.

Equal Remuneration Act, Code on Wages, and Corporate Governance Standards

Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 (Section 5) and Code on Wages, 2019 (Section 3) both prohibit gender-based discrimination in recruitment and engagement for the same or similar work.

Companies Act, 2013 and SEBI Corporate Governance Guidelines require companies to uphold fairness, transparency, and non-discrimination. Gender-based vendor selection, when gender is not a genuine occupational requirement, is inconsistent with these governance standards.

International Frameworks Including ILO, CEDAW, UN SDG 5, and ESG Compliance

• ILO Convention No. 111: Prohibits discrimination based on sex in employment and occupation. Ratified by India.
• CEDAW: Aims to eliminate gender stereotyping. Requiring a female instructor based on gendered assumptions about comfort is a form of stereotyping. Also ratified by India.
• UN SDG 5 (Gender Equality): Calls for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls, and the empowerment of all women through equal opportunity.
• ESG Standards: The “S” in ESG covers social factors including non-discrimination and equal opportunity. Gender-based exclusion in procurement can affect ESG compliance and reporting.

“International Women’s Day is about equality. Not about selectively deciding which jobs a man can and cannot do. If we flip this around and imagine a company saying ‘we only want a male instructor,’ every DEI committee in the country would raise a flag. Discrimination does not change its nature based on which gender it targets.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

How the Self-Defence Conversation Has Been Misdirected for Decades

This is part of a larger pattern that I have observed over the years, and I think it is worth sharing.

Phase one: The focus was on the victim. Her clothes, her behaviour, her choices. As if crime was a consequence of wardrobe decisions.

Phase two: The focus shifted to martial arts techniques. Karate, kickboxing, Krav Maga. The assumption was that learning to throw a punch would solve everything. But martial arts is a sport. Self-defense is about surviving a crime. They are not the same.

Phase three, the current one: The focus is now on the gender of the instructor. Once again, we are looking at everything except the actual issue: the crime itself.

At every stage, the conversation has drifted away from what truly matters. How do criminals think? How do they select targets? What psychological tactics do they use? What are the pre-crime warning signs? How do you overcome the freeze response? What do you do during an attack? What do you do after? These are the questions that save lives. And none of them have anything to do with the instructor’s gender. They require an instructor who understands pre-crime behavioural decoding, who can train the brain to function under extreme stress rather than shut down in terror, and who can teach women to project the kind of situational command that makes predators abandon their plans entirely.

TEDx Talk: Specialist Franklin Joseph on the Science of Women’s Self-Defence and Crime Prevention

Specialist Franklin Joseph is also a TEDx Speaker who has addressed the critical gaps in how society, corporates, and training providers approach women’s safety. In his TEDx talk, he broke down why conventional self-defence approaches consistently fail women and how a system built on the fusion of Israeli military Krav Maga and over 21 psychological skill frameworks can transform women from potential targets into individuals who prevent, avoid, diffuse, and escape crime before it escalates into physical violence. The principles he articulated on that TEDx stage form the scientific and philosophical foundation of the Power to Women Corporate Self-Defence Workshop, demonstrating that genuine women’s safety is a disciplined science rooted in tactical expertise and psychological conditioning, not a set of rehearsed physical tricks.

Watch the TEDx Talk here: Specialist Franklin Joseph TEDx Talk on Women’s Self-Defence

What Criminal Psychology Reveals About Choosing the Right Self-Defence Training

Here is something that I wish more people understood about crime. Criminals do not care about any of the things we keep focusing on.

A criminal targeting a woman does not care what she is wearing. He does not care if she took a kickboxing class last month. And he certainly does not care whether her self-defense instructor was male or female.

What a criminal does care about is this: Does she look aware? Does she appear confident? Will she resist? Will she freeze? Does she seem like someone who knows what to do, or someone who will be paralysed by fear and confusion?

These are the factors that determine outcomes in real crime situations. And the training that addresses these factors requires mastery over the entire spectrum of tactical and psychological preparedness. It demands an instructor who can teach women to seize control of an encounter and dictate its terms. It requires someone who understands how to reprogram the brain’s threat response so it activates with precision rather than panic. It requires frameworks for identifying hostile intent before any weapon is revealed, for interpreting the micro-signals that environments broadcast before danger solidifies, and for executing accurate, life-saving decisions in the sliver of time before hesitation becomes catastrophe.

This expertise is not a function of the instructor’s gender. It is a function of the instructor’s knowledge, experience, tactical depth, and ability to communicate complex survival science in ways that women can internalise and deploy under pressure.

What International Women’s Day Should Actually Inspire in Corporate Self-Defence Programs

If we genuinely want to honour the spirit of International Women’s Day, here is what I believe self-defense training for women should look like.

It should be chosen based on the instructor’s expertise in crime psychology, tactical systems, and psychological conditioning, not based on chromosomes.

It should cover the full spectrum of personal safety: pre-crime awareness, during-crime response, and post-crime recovery.

It should challenge women to step out of their comfort zones, because that is where growth happens and that is where survival skills are built.

It should treat women as strong, capable adults who can handle learning from the most qualified person available, regardless of gender.

It should not reinforce the idea that women need to be protected from the mere presence of a male professional in a safe, controlled environment.

It should be built on the science of preventing, avoiding, diffusing, and escaping crime, integrating military-grade tactical systems with psychological frameworks that train composure, perception, decision-making, and resilience under extreme threat.

“The greatest gift you can give a woman on Women’s Day is not a comfortable workshop. It is the confidence that she can handle the uncomfortable. That is empowerment. Everything else is decoration.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph

Questions Every HR Team Should Ask Before Booking a Women’s Self-Defence Workshop

To every corporate celebrating International Women’s Day this year: your commitment to women’s safety is commendable. Your investment in self-defense workshops is admirable. Your care for your employees is genuine, and I see that clearly.

I am simply asking you to take that commitment one step further. Apply the same principles of equality, fairness, and non-discrimination that you celebrate on Women’s Day to the way you select your trainers. Choose based on skill. Choose based on knowledge. Choose based on outcomes.

Before you send out that next email, ask yourself these questions:

Would I specify the gender of a trainer for any other subject? Leadership? Communication? First aid?

Does my company’s DEI policy allow me to exclude someone from a job based on gender?

Am I choosing based on what will genuinely help my employees, or based on an assumption I have not tested?

Am I empowering the women in my company, or am I, with the best of intentions, placing limits on what I think they can handle?

Does the instructor understand criminal psychology, pre-crime indicators, threat perception, crisis decision-making, and the full spectrum of tactical and psychological preparedness?

Is the programme scientifically designed to help women prevent, avoid, diffuse, and escape crime, or does it only activate after violence has already started?

That is how you truly honour the day. Not just with words, but with actions that match.

“Equality is not a theme for one day a year. It is a standard for every decision, every day. Including the decision of who teaches your women’s self-defense workshop.”

– Specialist Franklin Joseph