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‘It’s about making women feel more confident’
Soon after midday on a sunny afternoon in Bristol, 15 women screamed into an otherwise peaceful Queen Square: “Fuck off mate, I don’t know you!”
While the lunch-breaking general public were unsurprisingly bemused, this lesson was far from trivial. The free self-defence classes, offered by Bristol City Centre Business Improvement District (BID), could potentially save a woman’s life.
The free lunchtime class is being run in conjunction with Bristol Nights as part of its new campaign against harassment towards women.
is needed now More than ever
Vicky Lee, head of the Bristol City Centre BID, said: “We organised the self-defence class today because it’s obviously another great initiative for businesses, but also it’s a continuation of the work that we’ve been delivering in the city centre around safety.”
Attendees practise their stances – photo: Kate Bowie
Ran by Imogen Thomas, a self-defence trainer with over 20 year’s experience at Sister Courage, the class grounded itself in feminist theory.
Before delving into the physical side of self-defence, Thomas spoke about verbal de-escalation and discussed the root-causes of male violence, including male-entitlement and victim-blaming.
While practising hand-to-hand combat and simultaneously dodging excitable puppies lead to some giggles, the exercises could prove to be vital – self-defence has been shown to result in an 81 per cent decrease in the likelihood of rape.
Imogen said: ‘‘Women make hundreds of safety decisions every day. What I seek to do is empower women by making them understand how very, very good they are at that”.
She continued: “It’s about making women feel more confident in what they’re doing already and then giving them some more skills that they can pull out in those situations.”
Local attendees expressed hopes that self-defence classes would help them feel safer.
One participant said: “Recently on the news there’s been so many incidents – you hear about women going through parks and getting sexually assaulted. It’s nice to just know that you’ve got some kind of defensive moves.”
“Today was a really popular session’’ said Vicky.
‘’We’d love to be able to keep facilitating the option out for our levy payers. We share all our events out on our newsletters on a regular basis, as well as on the Bristol City Centre BID website.”
Main photo: Kate Bowie
Read more: Anti-sexual harassment march lights up Bristol
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