WOMEN FIGHTBACK is the contraFLOW column dedicated to true stories of personal heroic 'fightback' experiences by women. Send in your victories against a misoqynist boss, fucked political comrade or abusive scumbag for inclusion in a future issue c/o K.M at contraFLOW. You can be phoned if you'd rather just tell your story rather than write it out. Keep on fighting back. Emily's Story "I was visiting some friends in Los Angeles and decided to go for a jog. It was getting near dusk and I found my way to a park that my friends had warned me against, saying it was a dangerous, gang-banger hell. I totally hate feeling restricted from any place and especially hate letting fear control me so I went anyway. (I still hate letting fear control me.) The park was all overgrown and covered with semingly hundreds of little paths leading to who-knows-where. I guess a lot of homeless people made their homes in the bushes and nooks and crannies. At the time I started my jog though, I didn't really see any peole. It felt prety abandoned. At some point while running down one of these overgrown trails I got this creepy sensation about me. ("Trust your instincts" self-defense classes teach.) I thought, "If I were to ever get raped, here..." I came to a dead end and swung around to head back and at that moment a guy jumped out of some brush about 50 meters in front of me, stood in the narrow path, hands on hips and stared straight at me. Something inside me clicked and I knew t-h-i-s w-a-s i-t. I had nowhere else to run so I rean straight toward him hoping when I got there he'd move and let me pass, all the while my mind was thinking a hundred things at once. "Stare him in the eyes, don't let him know you're scared. Fight!" I got up to him, really terrified but overcome by a survival instinct and when he reached out and grabbed me I knew I had to resist. It was beyond frightening, him trying to wrestle me to the ground and me kicking and hitting him in all the places self-defense instructors say don't work. (But the main thing self-defence instructors push is that resisting *at all* is vital, that rapists look for victims they think will be easy, non-resisting.) He wasn't saying anything but seemed surprised by my reaction, and he started hitting me back but seemed confused by it. I wanted to scream but absolutely could not. At some moment, about the same time I was finally remembering some flickers of self-defence moves (but still not being able to enact them) my voice kicked in and I just started screaming "I'm going to kill you motherfucker!" and things like that. I think that scared him because it might have attracted attention if anyone was around to hear it and he finally let me go and backed off, hands above his head in a show of surrender. I ran off and was in a completely freaked out state, not believing that that had just happened to me and not knowing what I should do about it. In my fucking oh-so-political way, I decided not to call the cops because *I don't believe in that system of 'justice'*, and because it might have meant the end of a lot of people's homes in their shanties or whatever in the park with the guy probably not getting caught anyway. In the end I felt satisfied that I had fought him off and thought that might have scared him enough to try attacking another woman again. He truly looked more terrified by my response in the end than I think I even felt. I only wish I had got it together to make warning fliers to other women to post around the park, but I didn't. On a final note, as a matter of mental self-preservation, about an hour later after I had calmed down a bit five of my friends and I went back to the park and exact spot of the attack (it was dark by now), me with a baseball bat and a stance that said "I will maim you bad if you are here." I didn't think he'd be there but I just needed to be back there to reclaim my space I think. It made me feel strong. The not-good bit was the reaction I got from so many friends and family when I told them about it, lots of folks saying "You shouldn't have been running alone in such a place." (I should do whatever I want to.) This reaction even came from anarchos and feminists, people who should have known better. This made me feel super crap, was the only cause of any of the tears I shed over it. I wish folks could figure it out."