Self-Defense for Women, Lisbeth Salander Style
January 30, 2011
by Marina DelVecchio
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
This past year, I have fallen in love with Lisbeth Salander, one of the most riveting, exciting, tough, and empowered literary heroines ever created. And what kills me is that a man conjured her up, giving her skills, smarts, and strength with which to defend herself against a misogynistic and
violent society that targets women and their supposed frailty. Lisbeth Salander might be less than five feet tall, but she fights back physically and intellectually, her instincts for survival acute andrelentless. She takes a bat to a school bully that beats her up in school, lights her violent and degenerate father on fire, and withstands abuse from a psychiatrist in an institution when she is only twelve. She fights back with equal fervor when she is beaten up by drunk men in the train station, raped by her guardian, chased by the police, shot by her father, and buried alive by her half-brother… and she is able to do all this alone, without the help of anyone — man or woman.
According to Amnesty International, “in the United States alone 700,000 women are raped annually.” It also cites the following examples for violence towards women:
- In Bangladesh, 50% of all murders are of women by their partners
- In Britain, there is a call for help from victims of domestic violence every minute
- According to the World Bank, at least one in five women and girls has been beaten or sexually abused at some point of the life.
Stieg Larsson was progressive enough to create a heroine that all women could look up to and learn from — especially since his three books are all framed around the subject of female strength, female warriors, and the fact that the world openly castigates and attempts to victimize them. Here are a few tips with which to follow Lisbeth Salander’s style of self-defense — sans the photographic memory and hacking skills that Larsson endowed her with:
Mace or Pepper Spray: Lisbeth carries a bag full of interesting objects, and one of them is Mace — which can temporarily blind your attacker for up to 60 minutes –rendering him powerless and providing you with enough time to get away. Women’s Law is a great site for women that informs you on the difference between Mace and pepper spray as well as your rights when you are being targeted.
Taser Gun: Because she’s so small, Lisbeth needs to first subdue her “victims,” and I place this word inside quotation marks because they are not really victims — they’re often gangsters, rapists, and murderers –although they do cry when they find themselves at her mercy. When aimed at someone, an electrical current disrupts control of his muscles, rendering him yet again – powerless. This enables our heroine to tie them up in very creative and resourceful ways so that she can interrogate or punish them. Not a bad little weapon to place in our bags — just in case.
Boxing: Lisbeth doesn’t only use weapons to render her attackers immobile long enough to get away from them — she has also acquired boxing skills, which is revealed to us in the second book The Girl Who Played with Fire. Of her own volition, she walks into a boxing club full of guys and stubbornly insists that she be taught to fight the boys — and she does. She takes their punches, falls on her face, and gets right back up to fight some more. She is not afraid to get hurt, especially while she is learning important self-defense tactics that she can use to save her life and protect herself against bigger, stronger men.
Trust No One: There are very few people that Lisbeth trusts. She trusts her girlfriend/lover to whom she entrusts her apartment; Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist who rallies in her defense through his writing; and ally hackers whom she knows only by name. With great rigidity, she refuses to trust cops, lawyers, or Doctors — for they have all proven themselves to be hypocritical and shamelessly vile — barring a few exceptions who go out of their way to prove themselves to her through their actions. Truth be told, we should trust sparingly — not everyone has good intentions.
Protect Your Secrets: Because she trusts no one, Lisbeth is a girl of few words — and her secrets — well, they belong only to her. She is a dark, quiet, thoughtful, and suspicious person — and these qualities serve her well. The only time her secrets come out, it is to nail shut the coffin on the men who took advantage of and abused her. Secrets are called secrets because they should not see the light of day — and because we trust too easily, we let them spill from the dark chasms of our lives — our inner yearnings to be understood and seen and recognized by others — but they fare better when they too are nailed shut inside the coffin of our minds.
Poker Face and Outer Shell: Lisbeth hides her real self behind a poker face and an outer shell. Her face, pierced and painted — her body covered with a dragon tattoo — her flesh concealed beneath dark grunge clothing — are all combined to draw a portrait of self-control and detachment. She loves, she feels, she hates and hurts, but no one would know it. She hides everything that she is, believes, and knows beneath an exaggerated and socially unacceptable caricature of a persona that most people would not feel comfortable approaching. Her garb and her outward appearance make her unapproachable, and thus, protect her from intentional attacks that are usually targeted towards women. Her face — stone cold and unyielding to smiles and wiles — offer even more protection from emotional and psychological assaults. She is well-guarded, inside and out, and only the important people in her life — few and far in between — see the real her. This is a bit of an extreme, but those who have poker faces are usually not taken advantage of. If you wear your heart on your sleeve and your feelings all over your face — people tend to know how to get to you and at you. It’s human nature. So protect yourself — your physical self and your emotional self from the harm of others — Lisbeth Salander style.
Copyright© 2011 by Marina Delvecchio. All Rights Reserved.
This is a delightful character and great fun. I don’t mean to detract from that or to imply that women should not embrace self defense. The problem is that in the real world, women are punished for defending themselves. There is a huge double standard about what is acceptable for men and women to do in the process of self defense. Our prisons are full of women who fought back in domestic violence situations. We even have women on trial and in prison for fighting back against sexual assault. There is still debate in our society over whether or not a woman even has the right to defend herself from getting pregnant.
So yes, defend yourself, protect yourself emotionally, just keep in mind that there’s a reason why more women don’t. There’s a huge system in charge of enforcing womens behavior, that perceives us as incredibly dangerous and feels as if we must be monitored at all times for any signs of potential violence.
Hillary Clinton was blamed for making JFK references, accused of inciting violence. Sarah Palin was just blamed for inciting the Arizona tragedy. Those are but two small examples of how women are perceived as so dangerous, we can even instigate violence from afar. There was a concerted effort to punish those two women for their mere words, you can imagine what happens to a woman who hasn’t got their power and resources.
Yttik, excellent points that reinforce the unjust treatment of women in all arenas of society. Stieg Larsson wrote these books, created Salander, with this in mind — that we are victimized. And as much heat as we get for fighting back, I’d rather fight back every time — no matter what is said of me — it’s the only way to change a system that already functions to silence me. If we lie down and say nothing, not fight back, then they win — And I want to teach my daughter by example that if she goes down for defending herself, her body, and her rights, then she should go down fighting hard — hard core like Lisbeth Salander. And of course, I’m a realist, like you. I don’t think it’s easy or fair — it is what it has become, but we cannot accept it as our reality.
I must agree with your assessment of the character. I’ve enjoyed reading about a woman who has her own strength and courage…it’s a shame that Steig Larsson died with her adventures still incomplete. (I don’t mean to sound cold, it’s a shame he died so young, period)
I’m really sorry, but I’m missing how this works as a feminist text in the way it is suggested.
Now, I’ll freely admit that I’m working off of plot-summaries and reviews, but… how does it show that she has the smarts to defend herself when, repeatedly, the rape HAPPENS, and then she gets revenge? It works as revenge fantasy, I guess, but if the idea is that fortressing yourself up protects you from sexual violence, than it seems pretty clear that this isn’t being conveyed – Lisbeth doesn’t protect herself, she gets vengeance – and often vengeance that is clearly something that would get her locked up in real life.
Also, while self-defense is an important thing for anyone to learn, especially smaller people, the options pursued by Lisbeth fall into either ineffective or illegal methods in many areas.
Tasers are illegal for civilian carry in most areas, and low-availability elsewhere.
Mace, particularly stronger varieties, is generally restricted, and often outright banned.
Boxing is a spectacularly ineffective method for self-defense for people with smaller body mass. There’s a reason that there are weight-classes. This is only partially ameliorated for kickboxing.
Finally, the whole “Protect your secrets, tell no one, trust no one” – is there a worse message to send to rape survivors? This is an example of the PROBLEM, not a solution; it’s the kind of attitude that leads to disconnection from friends and family groups, under-reporting of rape, etc, etc. It’s directly counter what actually helps a rape survivor heal from the emotional wounds that are the deadliest result of sexual violence.
Again, I’m basing this off plot summaries and reviews – if there’s something I’m missing that makes what I’m objecting to nonsense, let me know – but from here, it seems pretty problematic as a guide to self-defense.
Agree. Really, she’s an amazing character that we need, or else he wouldn’t have sold 45 million books or whatever.
I’ve never read thrillers before, but the fact that this heroine got to be so smart (freakily) and win against her adversaries (although unlikey), are just so enticing. She’s so smart she can’t be a sex object..
I read the first of the series, got halfway through the second, and then put it down. Is Salander an interesting character? Yes. But are the books popular because they have a feisty heroine or because people enjoy reading all of the violent gory details of her life? Like Law and Order SVU. Somewhere along the way it switched from being a show that brought sexual violence to our attention and became a show that exploited violence against women and children for profit.
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