Women and the logic, cost of self-defence

SELF PRESERVATION, we are told, is one of the first laws in nature. Every living thing and organism strives to preserve itself and to ensure its continuous living. In which case, it would be legitimate for any living organism to strive to preserve itself, such that self defence, in order to attain self preservation, becomes something worthwhile to do. Only that this would not be the case for girls and women in a patriarchal world where the females are treated as less than human or even as less than a living thing. Or we should ask Ruiz in Mexico as she sits in a prison, awaiting trial for murder, in the death of her rapist who was bent on killing her in the course of the sexual assault, but got killed when Ruiz choked and suffocated him while defending herself from his onslaught. The government’s position is that  no forensic evidence was collected from the scene and that it was difficult to believe Ruiz as the only evidence available was the corpse of the alleged sexual attacker. Yet, it was more a result of government’s failure as it was its duty, and not Ruiz’s, to ensure that forensic evidence and other important ingredients are collected after the case was reported.

Maybe the government would have done the needful and necessary things if the case was not that of a female engaging in self defence to thwart the sexual assault of a predator, leading to the death of the predator. For, in truth, the whole essence of sexual assault and violence against girls and women is more a reflection of the dynamic of power in which boys and men think of and treat girls and women as less human as themselves and therefore deserving of whatever the powerful and self-righteous boys and men are to do with them. Indeed, there is a sense in which boys and men believe that girls and women are in existence to attend to them and their idiosyncracies, such that girls and women should simply respond positively to anything boys and men want from them, even if that includes wanting their bodies. When girls and women react negatively to this tendency and seek to claim the right to have power over their own bodies, including the right not to cede their bodies to any without consent, the expectation would be that girls and women are acting against the natural order of male superiority here. We should, therefore, expect that this same reasoning would colour the perception of girls and women claiming to be acting in self defence against male sexual assaulters and killing the assaulters in the process. That would be against the natural order of things and should not be ordinarily condoned or tolerated.

Which would be why Ana Suarez, lawyer to another Mexican, Yakiri Rubio, who was locked up for more than 18 months for the murder of the person who sexually assaulted her until it was proved that she acted in self defence, would say: ‘the authorities”dislike knowing that women can defend ourselves, so they don’t want to do their job.’ The world runs on the order of patriarchy such that most governments and authorities work within the structures and inclinations put in place by patriarchy and would not be necessarily concerned with working to promote the interests of girls and women, even where the interest relates to the widely-held belief in self defence naturally and ordinarily regarded as an attribute of all humans. Rather, obstacles would still be put in the path of girls and women toward realising what should ordinarily be available to them as humans. The world and its societies and the authorities are simply not interested in girls and women as bonafide humans deserving of all human dignity. No wonder Ruiz, after reflecting on her stay in the prison for the ill-conceived murder charge for the death of her sexual attacker, would say: ‘I’ve started to think that the laws and society are unjust … Maybe I should have let my attacker have his way and perhaps leave me dead or injured.’

Indeed, why should girls and women be afraid of taking advantage of the natural refuge of self defence? Or, as asked by Abigail Escalante, lawyer to Ruiz: ‘why does a woman who suffered a crime have to prove that she’s actually a victim?’ The truth is that gender-based violence and sexual assault on girls and women are not regarded as something to be combated in the patriarchal world, such that girls and women equipping themselves to fight and combat it including through self defence is considered a step beyond the ordinary. We must get girls and women to actively internalise the fact that self-defence is and cannot be a crime and that they have a responsibility to defend themselves against sexual assaulters and attackers. This is especially the case as we know and realise that most governments in the world, including the government here in Nigeria, are essentially patriarchal at heart and that they support and are not against femicide – the routine killing of girls and women by boys and men on account of superiority complex carried out through sexual assault and violence.

We, therefore, have a situation in which girls and women all over the world must hearken to the reality of rising up to defend their right to self defence, especially in the face of persisting gender-based violence and sexual assault against the girls and women everywhere in the world.

• Yakubu is of the Department of Communication and Language Arts, University of Ibadan.

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