THE FIGHTING SPIRIT - WOMENS SELF-DEFENSE TRAINING AND THE DISCOURSE OF SEXED EMBODIMENT

This article presents ethnographic research on women's self-defense tr aining and suggests that women's self-defense culture prompts feminist s to refigure our understanding of the body and violence. The body in feminist discourse is often construed as the object of patriarchal vio lence (actual or symbolic), and violence has been construed as somethi ng that is variously oppressive, diminishing, inappropriate, and mascu linist. Hence, many feminists have been apathetic to women's self-defe nse. As a practice that rehearses, and even celebrates women's potenti al for violence, women's self-defense illustrates how and why feminism can frame the body as both a social construction and as politically s ignificant for theory and activism.