For effective self defense and great exercise I highly recommend Aikido. No punches or kicks and it works extremely well and it works just as well for women as well as men. In fact if you attempt to use any strength at all in executing any of the kata is means you're doing it wrong. I have used my Aikido at school more than once successfully. Aikido is, btw, what Steven Seagal uses, at least in his early flicks.
My intention here was to provide a effective quickie that's easy for a woman to use.
Low effort stuff. What else ya got?
Heres a goodie:
Use a tube sock and put either a bar of soap or something else with a little oomph into it. Then beat the snot out of the terrorist. Criminals use this little trick all the time in jails te even scores.
Some of them end up in critical condition from sock/soap attacks.