Jackie Danicki needs a little help

Jackie Danicki lives in London, and, while on public transportation, was assaulted by two brutes. She describes the circumstances without unnecessary ugly detail:

Don’t be fooled into thinking that, just because you’re minding your own business, some punk isn’t going to decide you need messing with. Sadly, scumbags like this have no problem with launching unprovoked attacks on women. If you dare to wear something as revealing as a pair of Levi’s and a long winter coat, you may not only be physically assaulted but have names like “slut” and “whore” screamed at you on a crowded Tube platform.

She has posted a photograph of one of her assailants, and if you are in the London area and know this person, Jackie could use your help in catching the scum and putting him and his pal behind bars.

Jackie also points out that the law in Great Britain does not allow for self-defense in such cases -- at least, not traditional tools for defense. In her comments section, she points out that one woman, was arrested and jailed for carrying a knife she used to defend herself against an attempted rape, and she had been carrying it since a previous rape...

When I first enrolled in art school at Pratt, in Brooklyn, NY, before Giuliani cleaned up Times Square, the first order of business for all new female student on campus was a self-defense seminar. New York's public transportation also barred carrying knives, guns, hat pins(!), etc., but our instructors taught us to sharpen our pencils to a fare-thee-well and carry them with intent. They also suggested that, since mace and pepper spray were uncontrollable, we girls should invest in a spray bottle of cheap perfume -- heavy on the alcohol content -- or one of those plastic lemons filled with lemon juice, to use instead of mace. It is a lesson I have not forgotten. I couldn't carry the perfume due to allergies, and the lemon juice proved too much of a temptation to me (yum!), so it was pointed sticks, for me. When I lived in the city, I grew my hair long and used sharpened chopsticks to hold it up in a topknot or a bun. Lucky for me, I only had to use the sticks once outside my hairstyle, and only to fish something out of a small space.

Regardless of all that, though, the real question is, will you come to help a woman you don't know? Or, is chivalry truly dead?


(HT: LauraW at Ace of Spades HQ)