Best "Self Defense for Women" stuff on TV was the old "Beauty and the Beast" series with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. In the pilot Linda gets mugged and left for dead. The Beast finds her and nurses her back to health in his underground pad: dropping her off anonymously at an emergency ward when she starts to regain consciousness. She decides never again to be as helpless as she was whilst being mugged and seeks out a sensei who is notoriously demanding and choosey about who he takes on as students. He reluctantly agrees to a try-out which he starts off by grabbing and immobilising her.

Linda: Wait! NO! I'm not ready...
Sensei: Ha! You going to just beg and put yourself at my, possibly non-existent, mercy? I thought you didn't want to be that helpless little girl who almost died doing that.
Linda: No, NO!