Wen-Do is a form of self-defence art for women developed by Ned and Ann Paige, a married couple from Toronto, Ontario. [1] Dr. Paige, an optometrist, dedicated himself to creating a program to teach women to protect themselves after hearing of the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York on March 13, 1964.
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. Toronto is the anchor of an urban agglomeration, known as the Golden Horseshoe in Southern Ontario, located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A global city, Toronto is a centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
In the early hours of March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was stabbed outside the apartment building where she lived in Kew Gardens, Queens, a borough of New York City. Two weeks after the murder, The New York Times published an article claiming that 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack, but none of them called the police or came to her aid.
Contents
Ned and Anne were practitioners of jujutsu, karate and judo. [2] However, through the years as many more women took up Wen-Do, various techniques were shared and added to the system. [3]
Jujutsu, also known as Jujitsu or Jiu-jitsu, is a Japanese martial art and a method of close combat for defeating an opponent in which one uses either a short weapon or none.
Karate (空手) is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts under the influence of Chinese Kung Fu, particularly Fujian White Crane. Karate is now predominantly a striking art using punching, kicking, knee strikes, elbow strikes and open-hand techniques such as knife-hands, spear-hands and palm-heel strikes. Historically, and in some modern styles, grappling, throws, joint locks, restraints and vital-point strikes are also taught. A karate practitioner is called a karateka (空手家).
Judo was originally created in 1882 by Jigoro Kano (嘉納治五郎) as a physical, mental, and moral pedagogy in Japan. It is generally categorized as a modern martial art, which later evolved into a combat and Olympic sport. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the objective is to either throw or takedown an opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue an opponent with a pin, or force an opponent to submit with a joint lock or a choke. Strikes and thrusts by hands and feet as well as weapons defenses are a part of judo, but only in pre-arranged forms and are not allowed in judo competition or free practice. A judo practitioner is called a judoka.
The name combines a contraction of the word women with the Japanese word Dō , meaning "way". [4] Though the base and concepts of Wen-Do come from martial arts, Wen-Do is not considered one by its adherents.
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense, military and law enforcement applications, physical, mental and spiritual development; as well as entertainment and the preservation of a nation's intangible cultural heritage.
Wen-Do classes focus on scenarios that often confront women, such as rape and domestic attacks. Classes do not involve any physical contact unless a student is ready and wants to. The system also encompasses feminist and empowering discussion about issues that face women and violence in contemporary society.
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability or is below the legal age of consent. The term rape is sometimes used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.
After WenDo was invented in the 1960s and afterwards spread within the western countries, mainly America, Canada, Europe, it was introduced to Egypt in 2013, by Schirin Salem, to tackle the growing phenomena of sexual harassment in public spaces (such as streets, transportation means, work places etc.). WenDo as a practice equips women with practical and easy to apply tools for prevention and protection from different forms of sexual harassment. The set of tools address different types of awareness including psychological awareness, body posture, physical techniques and gender knowledge. The aim is to avoid threatening situations but being able to react if they happen, by taking the appropriate actions. In July 2014 the 1st generation of 14 female Egyptian WenDo trainers was certified. In December 2014, the 2nd generation of WenDo trainers was born, 11 female Egyptian trainers were certified.
