When I studied Taekwondo many years ago, one of my instructors was a woman, a few years my senior and tiny. She was on the short side of 5'3". She handed me my ass on a regular basis. She was cat-quick with amazing balance, and could combo kicks until she found a hole in my defense. I never had a problem training with women, but even the other guys who didn't share my feminist views got the message and learned to respect her, and I think by extension started to question some of the gender roles they had been raised with. There were other women in the class with me, and the ones who stayed trained hard, and everyone sparred hard with them.

Based on my experiences, I'm surprised that there are places where experienced male martial artists treat their female colleagues as less than equal. The instructor should fix that.

Martial arts helped me turn my life around at a very low point in my teens. I've started my kids very early and we'll see what sticks, but it is important to me that my daughter has a solid grounding, because I think the physical confidence is important in a world that works to constantly erode and deny women's physical boundaries. (I'm soft-pedaling that. A lot. My spouse and I refer to my plans for my daughter, not entirely toungue-in-cheek, as "project killing machine.")

I know exactly how you feel. I've been in Tae Kwon Do since I was 12, and I've noticed how different the instructors tend to treat female students. It's extremely frustrating that they don't expect the same level of performance from girls, so in turn they decide to go easy on us as if we're too fragile to do anything.

Once, during a sparring drill my partner and I were ready to begin when the instructor stopped my partner, who was male, and said to him "Go easy on her". Looking back at this incident years later, I'm now able to realize how outright sexist his remark was.

However, in that same year another instructor had told my male partner to "fight her like she's your brother. Do NOT go easy on her because she's a girl", and it was the most empowering thing someone has ever said to me. Ever.

These attitudes are all too common in the martial arts world because they're so deeply ingrained in the culture surrounding it. For instance, my mother is Korean and all of her family still lives in Korea and they hold very traditional values. Traditionally, women aren't encouraged to practice Tae Kwon Do because they believe that it's too rigorous for them. That's definitely a load of crap, because Korea's two best demonstration teams have many strong women representing them.

Dear Nettle Syrup,

I enjoyed your post, and I definitely find it interesting to hear women's perspective of martial arts and the sexist stuff that they have to put up with as well as how they cope and think about these behaviours.

I myself grew up in Asia, spending more than 20 years there since I was a kid. Got involved in martial arts since the age of 12 or 13. I first got involved in Shotokan Karate, but as I grew older, I took up many other martial arts as well. And from all of these martial arts that I have learnt and trained for, I have managed to make some observations in regards to women warriors.

Firstly, the participation of women is vastly more towards parity in certain types of martial arts. For instance, the number of women is almost the same as the number of men (or at worse, a healthier level) is seen in the more popular "sport"-type martial arts like Karate, Judo and Taekwondo. Women also account for a large percentage of students in "fighting" arts that require a weapon, ie. Kendo, Wu Shu and Fencing. I notice many women in these classes, at least at the recreational level (1 to 3 or so times a week). I was only briefly involved with a capoeira outfit, but I also noticed a healthy amount of women in that group as well.

It is only with the less popular and more "brutal" martial arts where I see an incredibly steep decline in women, sometimes even no women students at all. For example, muay thai, jujitsu, ninjitsu, various forms of boxing as well as more..."street" combat classes. In most of these classes, there were no women at all.

Therefore, I guess you could say that those martial arts with more women in them are more welcoming to women, more friendly and more about togetherness and sport and fitness, and they also are usually done with padded armour and helmets. The less popular ones that I have just mentioned, could perhaps be less popular with women because they are seen as too "macho", ie.. too manly, in nature.

Another reason that these less popular martial arts could appeal to women less is because in almost all cases, there is a lot of body contact, grapples, and holds. As a man, I am unlikely to truly empathise or understand but at least I can comprehend why women might feel uncomfortable being touched by men (Nettle Syrup has also mentioned this and referenced another thread in which women complain about not liking to be touched, which I assume in most societies, a man touching a woman is seen as violating her space, while the opposite is less true).

For example, my first ninjutsu class, the master taught us all about pressure points and how to use them effectively. Most of that one hour was extremely painful as my face, and other parts of my body was used as a teaching board (as were all the other new students as well)....imagine two very strong male hands pressing all your pressure points, causing incredible pain and leaving you helpless...and those were just pressure points. Then there were the locks and grapples as well, where they seem to just be about to snap your arms off, and then only release. With the abuse that women face in our society, I can certainly comprehend why some women might not be comfortable in such situations...some of them really make you feel powerless.

In my opinion, I don't think women lack for much in martial arts. For instance, I dont agree with those men that Lindsey mentioned in her post, who said women cant really do TKD because it is too rigorous...that's a load of crap. While I do observe that on average, the women are shorter and lighter, which gives less reach and punching power, but it also, generally helps them by being better balanced and quicker (not in all cases, mind you). The only one thing that I, and I stress again that this is just my observation : while women certainly have no trouble hitting and unleashing attacks and defending and dodging and all that, the only one stark difference that I find is that, on average, women's ability to take hits from a man is less than a man's ability to take hits from a man.

So yeah, maybe I'm a sexist pig for noticing that, but I stress that this is just my observation. A girl and guy that are similar in height and weight, receiving a punch from the same man, in most cases, the guy will be able to take more hits and still fight on. Of course, a well-placed blow will be able to take down anybody, but this is applied to your normal fight (without KO).

So, I guess one of the reasons why some men might want to hold back from hitting a woman is because that, in our society, a man hitting a woman is an abuser and using his "advantage" to dominate women. Whereas no one has any problems or feel uncomfortable seeing a woman beat up a man (it is after all, empowering, and shouts of "You go Girl!" might make the rounds). True, I agree with Nettle and the other commenters that said that some men do this because they arrogantly believe they are much better than any women, but I mean, there are some guys/humans out there who truly don't know what is the proper level to go.

I think this is comparable with higher "ranks" vs. lower "ranks". I mean, as a battle hardened kick-boxer/Karateka/whatever, when you go up against a new student who is pretty new to the sport and you don't know their capabilities, do you really want to go full "I will win at all costs" mode? With an equal, someone you know very well and is about your level of experience, then you can go all fighter like and beat them, pummel them, kick them,...whatever...because you know their capabilities.

That is why perhaps, these men might apply it to women. For a guy fighting a woman, should he not hold back and use just as much force as he was trying to KO a man? How does he judge? With another guy perhaps he can go ruthless and win the fight at all costs, but faced with a woman, the levels of societal conditioning might confuse him (never never hit a woman, etc).

Obviously, if the woman is far superior to him, then to win, he would have to pull out all tricks in his arsenal, and not care so much about hurting her as worry about her hurting him! But what if the man is more skilled, or they are about the same level of skill?

I have seen these in a lot of men, but relatively less in women...this ability to go in for the kill and just beat the crap out of your opponent. Admittedly, this happens more in the less popular sports, like Muay thai, any other sort of kickboxing or boxing or other more extreme sports like cage fighting, pit-fighting, bare-knuckles fighting, etc. There is a kind of shift, from Normal guy to Guy in the ring who must come out of the ring the winner at all costs, even if that means beating the crap out of the other person (which you have to admit, in real fights, people will want to beat the crap out of you).

I do apologize if my comment seem very sexist. I am just making an observation of my time spent in martial arts. I am all for both men and women joining martial arts. IF combined with the philosophy behind martial arts, it is both good for the body, as well as the spirit, and when the student learns wisely, it really humbles the self and ego as well.

At the end of the day, the ring, or life doesn't care what you have between your legs. As long as you love what you're doing, and give it your best shot, that's all that anyone could ever ask for.

I used to do Tae Kwan Do, and I had the same problem. But now I do kickboxing and Tai Chi with a local all women feminist group for teens and young women, and I feel so lucky for it. I liked the people and instructor and everything in my other class, it's just that most of them were male, and they would never seriously spar with me. :/ And I like the all female environment better too.

Timothy, I've noticed quite the opposite - all the dedicated females at my dojo are totally ruthless, and most of the guys are either easygoing or less competent. :) This might have to do with the fact that the less ruthless women just stop going at all. Or that we feel we have to be better to prove we're equal.

I didn't get the same impression as you. You said that you thought Nettle Syrup believed that guys think that no woman could be better, but I thought she was saying just what you were - that it's this ingrained prejudice that won't let them hit the "weaker" sex. Even if the woman outranks them.

I find that knocking men down and sitting on them when they're going easy during self-defense practice helps a little to get them to take me seriously. :D

(Oh, and I don't know how it works in your dojo, but at mine, I would expect two people of equal rank sparring to pull out all the stops. Within rules, of course.)

Dear Rebecca,

It would really have to depend on what sort of dojo and style of martial arts that you do. For myself, I do a few different ones, so I felt that I could share a bit regarding my observations in the various martial arts.

Regarding the sparring thing...it would really depend as well on which martial art you are talking about. I think most people who are commenting on this thread are talking about more "sports" oriented martials arts, where the sparring sessions are supposed to be of the utmost safety, where instructors will actually stop the match if they think one party is getting too hammered. Helmets, padding on the gloves and body armor also protect most parts of the body. In this case, I would expect that men have more incentive to actually not go soft on their women sparring partners, because there are very strict rules in place.

I was actually thinking more about the "other" sort of sparring...well, we don't actually call it sparring. It's just two guys (or two girls) at it going in the ring. OFten times, there is no armour, and in some occasions, there are also no gloves. I am saying that, in such sports, where there is no armour, no gloves, and the "teachers" don't stop the match for every dirty handed trick, how willing are women to want to participate in these more (some people call them barbaric, but if you are involved in martial arts, you know its not) brutal matches, and can we really, for instance, let's say muay thai (the real one) or even any-style fights, pit women and men against each other?

Are we ready to do away with sex in martial arts, and have everybody compete based merely on weight? I have some doubts on whether this can be carried through to the higher levels....if you were talking about, for instance, classes at the recreational level, then I would say it could work. But how about if we carry it to a higher level, like the Olympics...how do you think the rest of the world will accept men and women going against one another? It is a really intriguing possibility, I have to say.

Also, regarding the ruthless women part....that would be self selection, since only ruthless women will be left behind. But I also have a problem with this....imagine all the other women who decided to leave because they were discouraged by the attitude of said men? Martial arts should be welcome for all, for all age and sexes, and I know that many, many women actually prefer women-only classes, because there are some elements of a mixed-sex class which can make themn feel uncomfortable, and sadly, I think women can add quite a bit to any martial arts.