Self-Defense Tools for Women, but Make Them Cool

It’s interesting to see women’s self-defense products suddenly explode in popularity on TikTok, because the place of self-defense in the feminist movement is such a longstanding debate. Overemphasizing self-defense can mislead us into believing that assault has to mean strangers and dark alleys. “Most sexual assaults and physical assaults on women are committed by someone they know,” Roman points out. “Protecting yourself from the enemy you know is a higher priority than protecting yourself from the enemy you don't.” 

If you have ever been assaulted, or if someone you love has ever conveyed the details of their assault to you, you know that it is rarely a matter of “If only I’d had a taser or alarm on hand.” More often, it’s about a power imbalance that attackers use to manipulate and paralyze.

How much can self-defense empower women? And how much does it unconsciously teach us to shoulder responsibility for male violence? “I wouldn’t have a business if men would act right,” says Dadson. She compares self-defense to car insurance. “You don’t say, ‘I’m not going to get car insurance because I feel the other driver needs to know how to drive.’ You’re still going to get car insurance because you want to protect yourself in the case of the other driver being stupid.”

For Ferber, an alarm like She’s Birdie is just one tool, far from a solution. But she hopes that it will reunite people with a feeling of freedom. She imagines women using it to go on runs, to walk to their car at night without inhaling thick waves of panic. That panic is something Abdelhamid knows well, and has worked to master. “It’s systems of violence that require us to learn self-defense to begin with,” she says. She dreams of never having to offer a self-defense class again.  

Maybe these conversations are happening so openly on TikTok because its users are so young that TikTok feminism hasn’t really crystalized yet. Instead of second- or third-wave feminism, it’s more of a wave pool, a constant churn, build, and break of new and old ideas. Conversations take the form of makeup tutorials and lip syncs and the sale of glitter tasers and baby pink brass knuckles. But they’re all after the same question: How can we women be safe and free?

What is the cost of my liberation? And is there a way for it to be beautiful?

Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.