Women beating each other up. Blood and spit. Female aggression sold as objectification of women. In fact, women should just go back to being card girls only: holding up those “Round One” signs. At least then there’s nobody freaking out about their place.
What do the women have to say about it?
Well, nobody’s asking, of course.
This guy didn’t seem particularly concerned with why women get interested in boxing, why women would want to know how to fight, or why they continue to fight in a sport that trys to sell many of them on looks before talent (Ah, a League of Their Own, anyone?).
Like most women’s sports, women’s boxing isn’t taken seriously, women aren’t encouraged to do it – much less get good at it – and they’re sold as being freaks or sexual objects before athletes. Anna Kournikova, anyone?
Somebody’s still making women tennis players wear ridiculous little skirts, and it has nothing to do with their ability to play the game… and women boxers aren’t being encouraged to train or taken on by the best of trainers because it’s seen as a sport even more ghettoized than its male counterpart.
Does that mean women shouldn’t be “allowed” to particpate in boxing? I mean, if it’s so scary to see women in sports, out goes the WNBA, women’s soccer, and tennis – short skirts or not.
Cause women being strong is scary.
Of course, his argument here isn’t with women’s sport: he feels women are being cheated into thinking that they can “compete like the boys” when in fact, the sport is incredibly ghettoized for women. What interests me is that he doesn’t seem to grasp just why so many women keep coming back to it. I don’t know that it has as much to do with the Rocky movies as he might think.
The problem with women’s boxing isn’t that women are doing it – it’s that women’s sports aren’t taken seriously, and this one’s no exception. The fact that there’s often more blood involves doesn’t matter a wit.
Brutal women, indeed.
What the fuck was he expecting? Skinny blonds in tutus?
via Jeff
