The Hamlet Project

I want to send Ophelia to a model mugging class.
I’d like for her to practice shouting, “No!” then kneeing someone in the groin and poking him in the eyes. I want her to know that she can move when a creepy guy sits down next to her. I want her to understand that if someone is staring at her, for longer than makes her comfortable, that she can walk away.
The self-defense movement took a great leap forward when it began to investigate why even highly trained martial artists lost their defenses in real life attacks. In the workshop I took, they told us that politeness, ladylike behavior and conciliatory gestures were the biggest open door to attackers. What got us into trouble was not going down dark alleys but not responding to our instincts when someone creepy showed up.
Women often do not move when a creepy man sits down next to us. (We don’t want to make the creepy man feel bad. So we stay.) We choose politeness over safety. We try to avoid conflict by agreeing with an aggressor. We try to nicely decline invitations rather than sharply turning them down. We smile when we say no. Even experts in self defense are liable to do these things and they are already sunk. This was a revelation to me when I learned it. Since I did, I get away from creepy people very quickly. And I will not stay and nod and smile at a person who might be dangerous. I have yet to NEED to shout “NO!” And gratefully, have not needed to knee someone in the groin or poke him in the eyes. But I’ve done it now, in practice, to a man in a giant suit that made him look like a Michelin man Beekeeper and having done it a few times in practice, I’m confident I could do it for real if I had to. I want this for Ophelia. If ever a girl needed some practice saying, “No!” It would be her. This play would have ended a whole lot differently for her if she had been able to say it, shout it or poke someone’s eyes with it.