True Equality in Corporate Training: Evaluating Skills Over the Instructor’s Gender
True Equality in Corporate Training: Evaluating Skills Over the Instructor’s Gender By Specialist Franklin Joseph | Power to Women Corporate Self-Defense Workshop The Three Decades of Misdirection in Women’s Safety Training Over the last couple of decades, the conversation around women’s safety has gone through several phases. Each phase had good intentions. But looking back honestly, each phase also had a common problem: we kept focusing on the wrong thing. First, the focus was on the victim. What was she wearing? Where was she going? What time was it? The entire conversation revolved around what the woman did or did not do, as if crime was somehow her responsibility. Thankfully, society has largely moved past that narrative. We recognise now that blaming the victim helps no one. Then the focus shifted to physical techniques. Suddenly, every self-defense program became about karate chops, kickboxing combos, and martial arts demonstrations. Women were taught to punch bags and kick pads, and somewhere along the way, everyone started equating “self-defense” with “martial arts.” The problem? Martial arts and self-defense are not the same thing. Martial arts is a sport, a discipline, a lifestyle. Self-defense is about surviving a crime. These are fundamentally different objectives.…
