I don't think I actually said that, so I'm not sure where the hostility comes from, but... maybe?

Sure, she shouldn't have to be competent at self-defense just to leave the house and meet-up with some fellow Bitcoiners (or any other hobbyists), but I think that if you don't have some sort of backup plan, you're basically at the will of whatever you meet along the way.

It seems that you disagree. Care to talk about it (civilly)?

Other people came to a similar conusion to me. So, being charitable, your post wasn't as clear as it could be. That's me being civil. If you agree that I misread your post you can stop reading here because the rest of this post is less civil and not relevant.

On the other hand maybe you really do think that women should learn self defence or somesuch because they could be the victims of violent crime.

Except this wasn't some mugger trying to rob her. The appropriate response is not to say "that sucks, but it would have sucked less if you learnt self defence". The appropriate response is to say "that sucked, and it sucked that noone steps up to tell him he was wrong".

People blame the victims of crime all the time and it fucking sucks.

"Contributory Negligence" (Attila the Stockbroker) was written in 1985. It's baffling why people still think that when a woman is groped in public it's somehow up to her to have a backup plan, with everyone else there getting a pass to just ignore it.

The really fucking baffling thing is that these abhorant views ("she deserved it") aren't going away.

http://www.newstatesman.com/glosswitch/2013/09/there-no-grea...

Well, people love a good disagreement, don't they?

Do I think that people should learn self-defense because they could be victims of violent crime? That's one reason to do so, yes. As women tend to be a particularly vulnerable subset of "people", this applies to them in particular.

What does it matter if this scenario was not that of a particular type of violent crime? I don't see where you're going with the mugging comparison. Violent crime is violent crime.

That I didn't immediately chastise the aggressor doesn't mean that I don't blame the aggressor, but the fact is (and I've said this in another comment) if you cannot defend yourself, you are at the mercy of forces beyond your control. This is not a life philosophy or a political position, but a piece of advice based on fact of reality. Call it "victim blaming" if you want to (and I know that you do), I call it living in the real world.

If I'm caught in a mugging, it isn't necessarily my fault (even if I could have taken steps to prevent such a situation) and I probably didn't choose to get mugged, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have some sort of self-defense plan in-place to mitigate risk.

This isn't about right and wrong. This is about surviving in a world that many of us forget is still very often hostile to our existence.

Some people, and I'm obviously one of them, think that a flag is raised when someone mentions things like self defence or other victim behaviours before condemning the attacker.

Whether you like that or not you need to be aware of it because you will meet people who are very much less civil than I am if you discuss this.

You don't need to warn me that people can be unkind when they get riled up in argumentation. I'm well aware of that (and in fact you've already demonstrated it).

And frankly, I don't really care if you think there is something wrong with me because I've focused on precaution and mitigation strategies on the part of the victim. I see no purpose in condemnation here. I'd rather focus on giving advice to the (hopefully) more rational of the parties involved in the situation.