The Self Defense bookstore feature books on learning to defend yourself. Books are listed in alphabetical order by title. Click the title to read more about each book. Are we missing your favorite book? Click here to send us your recommendations.
- Back Off!: How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers
- Beauty Bites Beast: The Missing Conversation about Ending Violence
- Domestic Violence for Beginners
- Exploding the Myth of Self-Defense: A Survival Guide for Every Woman
- Fear Into Anger
- The Gift of Fear
- Girls Fight Back! The College Girl’s Guide to Protecting Herself
- Her Wits About Her: Self-Defense Success Stories by Women
- In Defense of Ourselves:A Rape Prevention Handbook for Women
- Lifelines: Women, Male Violence, and Personal Safety
- Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense
- Self-Defense: Steps to Success
- Self-Defense: Steps to Survival
- Self-Defense: The Womanly Art of Self Care, Intuition, and Choice
- Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly
- Street Smarts: A Personal Safety Guide for Women
- Training Women in the Martial Arts: A Special Journey
Back Off!: How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers
by Martha Langelan
Back Off! is filled with real-life success stories from women who have stopped harassers cold: - Sharon, who succeeded in stopping a whole crew of habitual harassers in a city park . . . - Stephanie, a ten-year-old who confronted and escaped a child molester . . . - Catharine and Molly, who stood up to their landlord and stopped him from harassing the tenants . . . and dozens more. From an eight-year-old who successfully challenged two young harassers on the playground to an organized group of fifty women who confronted a dockworker in response to an attempted rape on the job, here’s what they did, how they did it - and how you can do it, too. Back Off! is the first book to focus on the direct-action tactics that work and the first to deal with harassment everywhere it takes place, in both blue-collar and white-collar jobs, at school, on the street, on the bus or subway, in the park, even in church. Back Off! examines the dynamics of sex and power in sexual harassment, the motives behind harassers’ actions, and why traditional responses such as appeasement or aggression don’t work, and describes the successful resistance strategies that you really can use - including nonviolent personal confrontation techniques, group confrontations, administrative remedies, and formal lawsuits.
Beauty Bites Beast: The Missing Conversation about Ending Violence
by Ellen Snortland
Beauty Bites Beast is not a “how-to” book, it is a “how-come” book.
As in, “how-come” every woman and girl needs to know how to defend themselves. They, like all females of other species in the world, are capable of defending themselves and their loved ones -- if they learn how. It is not the female’s size, it is her culturally induced ignorance that makes her think she is helpless. Beauty Bites Beast is a clarion call to “sleeping beauties,” so they can wake up and take charge of their own self-defense -- emotional, verbal and physical. The book also celebrates women (and kids) who fought back and won. Funny and provocative, this is both an irreverent and deadly serious look at how family, religion, history, news, and entertainment keep women thinking they are defenseless.
Beauty Bites Beast transforms and saves lives. As in, “how-come” every woman and girl needs to know how to defend themselves. They, like all females of other species in the world, are capable of defending themselves and their loved ones -- if they learn how. It is not the female’s size, it is her culturally induced ignorance that makes her think she is helpless. Beauty Bites Beast is a clarion call to “sleeping beauties,” so they can wake up and take charge of their own self-defense -- emotional, verbal and physical. The book also celebrates women (and kids) who fought back and won. Funny and provocative, this is both an irreverent and deadly serious look at how family, religion, history, news, and entertainment keep women thinking they are defenseless. Beauty Bites Beast transforms and saves lives.
Domestic Violence for Beginners
by Alisa del Tufo
Throughout history, men have found ways to justify mistreatment and violence toward women. Despite differences of language, religion, and custom, women are beaten by their male partners throughout most of the world. This book traces the causes of domestic violence, beginning with the astonishing revelation that spousal abuse has been condoned - if not recommended - by each of the major world religions and including the impact of “the nuclear family” and “Big Daddy” Sigmund Freud. The book also examines the traumatic effect that Domestic Violence has on children and the monumental public indifference to spousal abuse, both issues horrifically exemplified in recent headlines. Domestic Violence for Beginners tries to take a constructive approach by not only criticizing the existing institutions by suggesting realistic alternatives, that is, the best treatments currently available and...most importantly...where to go for HELP!
Exploding the Myth of Self-Defense: A Survival Guide for Every Woman
by Judith Fein
Discusses how to avoid being a target for rape, to recognize the signals of a potential attack, to become more assertive, and to interpret and respond to feelings of forboding danger.
A traditional well-rounded program of karate especially designed for women presents simple and direct techniques for warding off attacks and defending against such form of assaults as rape and mugging.
The Gift of Fear
by Gavin de Becker
True fear is a gift. Unwarranted fear is a curse. Learn how to tell the difference.
A date won’t take “no” for an answer. The new nanny gives a mother an uneasy feeling. A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers unsolicited help. The threat of violence surrounds us every day. But we can protect ourselves, by learning to trust—and act on—our gut instincts.
In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the man Oprah Winfrey calls the nation’s leading expert on violent behavior, shows you how to spot even subtle signs of danger—before it’s too late. Shattering the myth that most violent acts are unpredictable, de Becker, whose clients include top Hollywood stars and government agencies, offers specific ways to protect yourself and those you love, including...how to act when approached by a stranger...when you should fear someone close to you...what to do if you are being stalked...how to uncover the source of anonymous threats or phone calls...the biggest mistake you can make with a threatening person...and more. Learn to spot the danger signals others miss. It might just save your life.
Girls Fight Back!: The College Girl’s Guide to Protecting Herself
by Erin Weed
You’re leaving for college and the family minivan is packed to the gills with your stuff. On the brain are good times, parties, new friends - and oh yeah, classes too. College is a blast, but it’s a good idea to get informed on how to stay safe and strong while on campus. Girls Fight Back will show you how to trust your intuition, avoid bad situations, and if necessary, defend yourself. You will learn practical and empowering strategies for walking on campus at night, dating, partying, traveling and living on your own.
- How to secure your dorm, apartment or house from break-ins.
- Everything you need to know about date rape drugs, cyberstalking and how to have a safe spring break.
- How to recognize and escape from violent confrontations using your voice and if necessary, self-defense.
Her Wits About Her: Self-Defense Success Stories by Women
Edited by Denise Caignon and Gail Groves
Tells the stories of women who have successfully defended themselves against would be rapists and attackers, and shares tips on self-defense.
In Defense of Ourselves: A Rape Prevention Handbook for Women
by Linda Tschirhart Sanford and Ann Fetter
Practical guide to coping with and avoiding victimization by learning to evaluate situations and to respond intelligently through emotional, physical and verbal self-defense methods that can be practiced and internalized.
Lifelines: Women, Male Violence, and Personal Safety
by Marcia Hall
This book provides a “lifeline” of information and skills for the most basic of human needs-personal safety. Male violence against women in all its forms remains a leading cause of death, disability, and injury to women of all ages in the United States. Lifelines offers a comprehensive, holistic approach to being safe and staying safe. From the psychological impact of trauma and how it destroys self-protective capacity, to the who, what, where, and how of violence against women, this book promotes hope, knowledge, skill building and competency as counteractions to fear and violence. Lifelines advances personal safety by weaving the personal, the political, and the pragmatic on a subject often ignored and systematically distorted. This book articulates the necessity and means for women to strengthen individual resources to care for themselves, to embrace safety, to learn defensive skills and behaviors, and ultimately promotes a social permission to do so.
Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self-Defense
by Martha McCaughey
An examination of women’s self-defense culture and its relationship to feminism. I was once a frightened feminist. So begins Martha McCaughey’s odyssey into the dynamic world of women’s self- defense, a culture which transforms women involved with it and which has equally profound implications for feminist theory and activism. Unprecedented numbers of American women are learning how to knock out, maim, even kill men who assault them. Sales of mace and pepper spray have skyrocketed. Some 14 million women own handguns. From behind the scenes at gun ranges, martial arts dojos, fitness centers offering Cardio Combat, and in padded attacker courses like Model Mugging, Real Knockouts demonstrates how self-defense trains women out of the femininity that makes them easy targets for men’s abuse. And yet much feminist thought, like the broader American culture, seems deeply ambivalent about women’s embrace of violence, even in self-defense. Investigating the connection between feminist theory and women physically fighting back, McCaughey found self-defense culture to embody, literally, a new brand of feminism.
Self-Defense: Steps to Success
by Joan Nelson
You have taken your first step to success in self-defense with the purchase of this book. Self-Defense: Steps to Success combines the knowledge and experience of master teacher Joan Nelson with the latest research on how to learn self-defense.
Self-Defense: Steps to Success is a breakthrough in sport skill instruction through its development of complete learning progressions the steps to success. You will climb 14 critical steps on your way to increasing your personal safety. Each step (chapter)
- explains why the concept or skill is important,
- identifies the keys to correct technique,
- helps you correct common errors,
- explains how to practice each skill in realistic ways,
- lists specific performance goals for each drill,
- gives you a summary checklist for evaluating proper technique, and
- lets you proceed at your own pace.
Each of the steps you will take is an easy transition from the one before. Your first few steps provide a solid foundation of basic skills and concepts. As you progress, you will learn how to apply these basic skills to defending against common unarmed attacks. As you approach the top of your climb to success, you will gain confidence in your ability to think clearly and strategically in a variety of potentially dangerous situations and to implement effective and appropriate strategies for maintaining your safety.
Self-Defense: Steps to Survival
by Katy Mattingly
Hone your senses, increase awareness, and learn the techniques that could save your life. Self-Defense: Steps to Survival will teach you to identify danger, avoid assault, and defend yourself and others against attackers in a variety of situations.
Based on the proven strategies and techniques taught on campuses and in metropolitan areas worldwide, Self-Defense: Steps to Survival is both practical and immediately applicable for men, women, and teens regardless of previous experience. You’ll learn these skills:
- Assess your surroundings, notice warning signs, and remove yourself from potential harm.
- Use the power of your own voice to thwart an attack.
- Recognize warning signs of violence in an intimate relationship.
- Resist and escape physical and sexual violence by strangers and acquaintances.
- Free yourself from an assailant’s grasp.
- Develop an arsenal of strikes, kicks, and defense techniques for countering physical attacks.
- Defend yourself against weapon attacks and multiple attackers.
Don’t live in fear! Self-Defense: Steps to Survival will change the way you approach everyday life, giving you the assurance that you’ll be prepared for the unexpected.
Self-Defense: The Womanly Art of Self Care, Intuition, and Choice
by Debbie Leung
A multi-layered view of self-defense, including tools for awareness, avoidance, de-escalation, confrontation, physical responses, and survival.
Smile at Strangers: And Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly
by Susan Schorn
Susan Schorn led an anxious life. For no clear reason, she had become progressively paralyzed by fear. Fed up with feeling powerless, she took up karate.
She learned how to say no and how to fight when you have to (even in the dark). Karate taught her how to persuade her husband to wear a helmet, best one bossy Girl Scout troop leader, and set boundaries with an over-sharing boss. Here this double black belt recounts a fighting, biting, laughing woman’s journey on the road to living fearlessly—where enlightenment is as much about embracing absurdity and landing a punch as about finding that perfect method of meditation.
Full of hilarious hijinks and tactical wisdom, Schorn’s quest for a more satisfying life features practical—and often counterintuitive—lessons about safety and self defense. Smile at strangers, she says. Question your habits, your fears, your self-criticism: Self-criticism is easy. Self-improvement is hard. And don’t forget this essential gem: Everybody wants to have adventures. Whether they know it or not. Join the adventure in these pages, and come through it poised to have more of your own.
Street Smarts: A Personal Safety Guide for Women
by Louise Rafkin
A noted self-defense expert offers safety tips for runners and athletes, as well as advice on reporting date rape, handling sexual harassment, living and traveling alone, and other safety issues.
Training Women in the Martial Arts: A Special Journey
by Jennifer Lawler and Laura Kamienski
Training Women in the Martial Arts is for male and female martial arts instructors, female martial arts students, and supporters of women in the martial arts. The book is designed to help people involved in the martial arts understand the challenges women face when training and help them create and provide appropriate martial arts and self defense instruction.
The obstacles female students face, both in and out of the training hall often go unrecognized. By educating themselves, students become better prepared to overcome these hurdles. Instructors can offer more appropriate and effective instructions- thereby retaining students and helping women achieve their martial arts goals.
There is no direct competition, since this is the only book that directly targets training women in the martial arts. Most how-to martial arts books are written primarily with men in mind and women’s experiences differ dramatically from men’s.
