It is indeed a very serious issue that has been raised. Women in India, where the safety is abysmally low and the crime rate is extremely high, must be given proper self-defense training. Even the Indian Penal code or IPC has an independent chapter called ‘private defense’. The whole idea of self-defense in law is based on the fact that the administrations or the police cannot be expected to or is not 100% capable to make safe each individual in the society, so in the case where the person feels that their own life is in threat, then he can take necessary required action instead of sacrificing its own life.
So what is stopping the same principle to be applied when it came to women? Especially when in India, a woman gets raped every few seconds. Now the criticizers will complain that self-defense is not for females as it will make the harder or manlike. These archaic notions have no place in the modern world and need to be shed alone. Today when women are participating in defense and combat roles, the boundaries between gender roles are vanishing day by day. Those who are against it are only trying to protect their own pride which they associate with the patriarchal setup.
We must understand that the whole situation is so critical and it needs to be addressed soon. We can not see our women being violated in daylight as a routine. The perpetrators get encouragement because they feel that the opposite gender is tender and can be controlled very easily. We have to break this evil cycle and their false confidence. I feel that self-defense should be included in schools at a very young age itself, it would not harm even if we make it compulsory. With proper self-defense training, we can groom our women to be confident members of our society. Proper self-defense training can solve many problems.