" I welcome a female to protect me. Some are pretty skilled with martial arts, and I lack the moves. "
There are very few women even those with skills that can hold there own against the average male. They just don't have the strength stamina or body mass. But a gun in her hands could be a great equalizer.
"...but a female bodybuilder or martial artist will take down an average male easily "
Actually there many random videos on the internet that show the opposite.
In fact just yesterday I watched a video where 2 teenage farm boys competed against 2 professional female body builders in several strength type competitions including lifting weights, and the boys beat them every time. And these women were very muscular compared to the boys.
Martial artist although can be well trained. They're still at at disadvantage when it comes to someone much larger and stronger then them. If they're not able to take the person by surprise and take him out early then the stronger person will likely overpower him or her and prevail. And lets be honest, women can't hit as hard as men nor can they take a punch like men. An average size man can easily wreck a woman's face with one punch.
And to be fair I'm not saying that in all cases a man will prevail over a woman. It's just something that's few and far between.
That said I did see a video of an average size woman that was able to take down several average size men one right after the other. I belief they were all amateur MMA fighters and they were just wrestling for fun and not actually competing. The woman had developed a technique where if she got a hold of a wrist or an arm she could work her way around behind the person and get him in a choke hold.
The problem with though is it would only work on someone of similar size and only if you were wrestling because it's not good defense against punches being but thrown but it could very well work against a would be rapist.