Today the International Olympic Committee added women’s boxing which will debut at the 2012 games. It was the only sport that excluded women in the summer games (as you may recall, women are also excluded from ski jumping in the winter games). So woohoo, right?
Some aren’t as excited about the thought that two women will be punching each other to a gold medal in London:
“Introducing women’s boxing at the Olympics will simply serve to glamorise a dangerous and irresponsible sport to a new audience and lead to more young women putting their health at risk.”
I listened to a debate on the BBC about this decision and the audio and transcript aren’t up yet. I so wish they were because it was good. At one point a woman defending women’s boxing called a man aghast at the thought of women boxing a bigot. Yeah, it was that good.
So here’s the yay part of the story:
Sue Tibballs, chief executive of the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, welcomed the shift towards equality at the Olympics.
“In Beijing, 165 medals were available to men versus 127 to women,” she said. “Women were first allowed to compete in the Olympic stadium in 1922 – 90 years on, we hope London 2012 will show real progress for sportswomen.”
What do you think readers? Is women’s boxing something that feminists should support? Is it too violent?
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Unless we’re talking about really individual sports like running or golf, all competitive sports have elements of masochistic self-destruction by opponent.
It’s not as if it’s the only sport to mash the head to mush. Soccer does that as well.
Complaining about the violence in boxing is kinda silly, in my mind. You’d have to ban all martial arts competition (even fencing), and maybe cooler would be martial stuff like capoeira to be consistent. At the end of the day, I think westling, judo, and their like to be really cool sports to watch. If boxing isn’t your flavor, then don’t watch it.
I think boxing, like football, is very beautiful activity when it is stripped of the gladitorial aspects.
The naysayers are concern trolls.
IMO, the ladies that now have the choice to be Olympian boxers should decide whether the sport is too violent. I ain’t gonna tsk-tsk anybody’s choice of sports. (though mine may be a biased answer, as I’m a boxing fan) As long as it’s not billed as “foxy boxing” I’m all for it. I would even venture that saying boxing is “too violent” for women is the same as saying any sport or physical activity is too strenuous on women.
This quote in the article especially bothered me:
British boxer Amir Khan, an Olympic silver medallist in 2004, said: “Deep down I think women shouldn’t fight. That’s my opinion….When you get hit it’s very painful. Women can get knocked out.”
That to me is the same as when men argue that women shouldn’t lift weights because “oh noes, their delicate uterus!!!”
And even running at the competitive level is not good for your health in the long term. I love boxing: I love watching it, I love training for it, and if I was any good at it, I would have done it competitively. But I’m definitely more of a geek than a fighter, sadly. I’m thrilled to see women’s boxing taken to the Olympic level.
I might support the removal of boxing from the roster full stop, but if there is going to be boxing then I cannot think of any rationale against allowing women to compete.
I’m not a fan of boxing, period. I am creeped out by the idea of putting two men (up until recently, it’s been men) into a ring and watch them beat each other up and knock each other out. Given the long-term damage that occurs from repeated concussions and blows to the head (a hazard of boxing), I think the sport is dangerous in more ways than one.
That said, sure, yeah, if there is boxing for men, there should be boxing for women. But the idea of boxing itself makes me twitch. I think of the long-term damage done by knockouts and repeated blows to the head, and. . .ugh.
I agree with nentuaby. I don’t like boxing at all, but I don’t see any reason for there not to be women’s boxing if there’s men’s boxing. I don’t like combat either, but I think women soldiers should be allowed to fight in combat. If women are going to be shut out of something, feminists have to support including women, even if we don’t agree with the particular activity. Otherwise, we’d only be supporting the free expression of some women, and that’s not what we’re about.
I can’t stomach watching violent sports and worry about the long term health effects on boxers & other fighters.
But some women seem to love the sport, train hard and are passionate about what they do – good luck to them, they shouldn’t be excluded because of their gender.
I’d just like to see better preventative health care of these athletes- both male & female in this sport. Too many end up busted up old cripples.
My sport is crosscountry equestrian and being badly injured or dying in a fall is one of the risks you take –my choice.
Frankly I don’t understand watching fighting if you don’t do it either, but I must say that after two years of training six days a week at Muay Thai, the only way I hurt myself was when I started running… running has seriously screwed my ankles and thusly knees. *bitterness*
Having said that, Muay Thai is 5 rounds, not 12. *shudder* And if you’re a professional… or an Olympic athlete perhaps… you don’t have the luxury of being as nice on your body as when it’s recreational.
Yeah, you get concussions, it’s not ideal, but it’s not every fight or sparring session and beyond that maybe broken ribs or nose. I’d much rather have that than stuffed joints from long distance running or rugby.
Re: the actual point, concern troll is a great way of putting it. I call bullshit – and I’ll hand in my feminist badge if it means I have to be a staunch pacifist.
I think feminism isn’t about if women box, it’s about if women have the choice to box.
I’m biased because I love boxing. It’s a great work-out. It’s fun. Yes, it’s violent when it’s competitive, but when done responsibly it really is a wonderful sport. Again, though, I take great joy in doing it (and I don’t do it competitively), so, you know, I’m not a neutral feminist source here.
But as others have said, if the concern is with boxing, then lay the concern on boxing. Don’t just become concerned once women get in the ring.
I don’t like boxing because the very point seems to be to hurt the other person until they can’t fight back. I know there’s a lot of skill involved, but it seems fundamentally different to, say, judo. That said, if men who want to participate can, so should women.
It’s worth pointing out that the form of boxing in the Olympics is much less about the big K.O. and more about making “scoring shots” as assessed by the judges watching the fight. That means it’s much less about causing sufficient damage to the opponent as to render them unable to stand (the “knock-out”, and which as far as I can see must involve damage to the central nervous system) or else to be unable to defend themselves (a technical knock-out). The K.O./technical KO. rules are what I find as marking boxing out from other combat sports as more of a blood-sport; the Olympic scoring system makes that much less of an issue.
But whether it’s the blood-sport version or the Olympic version, to me this is a matter of personal bodily autonomy. If the sportspeople know what risks and damage they are taking on when they step into the ring or onto the field then that is their free choice and I won’t stop them.
Feminists, to my mind, should support the inclusion of women’s boxing because it another facet to the issue of women’s bodily autonomy. When you hear arguments that “women with PMS shouldn’t be allowed to box because they’re too overemotional” (an argument that was stated by a woman, as it happens!) then you know that this is not about rational arguments but about controlling women’s bodies.
I think this is an absolutely fantastic decision by the Olympic Committee, there is absolutely no reason why it should not have been included in the first place. Worrying about women getting knocked out in an organized sport they agreed to participate in is just downright patronizing. And if it ‘comforts’ them, perhaps the vast differences in strength between men and women with respect to the upper body will prevent the same proportion of female competitors suffering brain and spinal damage. Actually, it’ll probably just make some of them complain that it is not bloody enough.
Boxing has a rich tradition in the western world and has a valid cultural position in western martial celebration, and anything that supports like this is a step in the right direction.
Have you guys heard about Alina Shaternikova? She’s a Ukrainian boxer currently participating in an anti-domestic violence campaign around here – and I just wrote about it. I can’t say that I love boxing, but I love Alina. I think we need more women like her out there, representing.
All serious sport is tough on the body. I don’t get to hit anyone when I’m running, but running can do damage to the body as well. Nothing irresponsible about it, as long as you know what you’re getting into, and have weighed the pros and cons yourself.
I read in the paper the other day that apparently women don’t often get knocked out in boxing because they are less powerful and incredibly technical fighters, so it may not be as dangerous as you think.
I’m fully supportive of this, I like fighting, I want to box. I also think the discipline of learning boxing can help young women who are on the margins of society, the same way boxing clubs have often helping young men.
Next, can we get women’s ski jumping?
As recreational fun, I think boxing (particularly kickboxing) is a blast and if the menz get to do, the women should get to do it as well.
BUT (and this is a gynormous but) I think the sport should be banned. Period. It’s barbaric…it’s the Roman Coliseum…it’s the worst part of our culture that we enjoy watching two people bruise and batter each others brains sometimes to death.
This is great. Perhaps with women’s boxing becoming an Olympic sport, it will lead to women’s boxing becoming more accepted in professional sports.
So women can box, but they still can’t do the ski jump thing? Anything men can get a medal for, women should have a shot at it, and vice versa. I’d love to see men twirling those ribbon things.
Presumably the women who’d actually be going to the Olympics as boxers are aware of the fact that it involves face-punching and are pretty down with that as a way to pass the time. If we’re going to have it–and if we’re going to have judo and wrestling and sword-fighting and ribbon-dancing, why not boxing?–it ought to be open to women as well as men.
Fantastic! Women can box! women can be in the army and kill! They can become heads of international corporations that rape and ravage! They can become prime ministers of countries that declare war, bomb, and ravage! Hoorlay! Al the barriers are down! Women can be as big assholes, monsters, and pigs as men! At last! Equality!!!
This might bring more attention to womens boxing, which would definitely be a good thing. But Olympic boxing has become a joke over the last twenty years. No boxing fans pay it much attention. It used to be the place to spot young, upcoming boxers (Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard,etc.), but not so much anymore.
I don’t see how Boxing is any different from Karate, Taekwondo, Judo….etc. It is just a form of “sports” fighting (with rules and referees there to prevent one person from killing the other). If women can take part in the other martial arts, why not boxing?
Well, Olympic boxing is much less violent and taxing; I think it’s only three rounds and the competitors are wearing padded head-gear. It’s more about scoring points by making contact with a certain area of the glove. There may be an occasional knockout, but it’s extremely rare given the format.
It really needs to be said that amateur boxing is a very different sport from professional boxing. Amateur boxing, rather like fencing or tae kwan do , is scored on a point system with based on the number of legal blows in a maximum of three rounds, and referees have much more leeway to stop matches due to injury or a lopsided score. Professional boxing also has a nominal point system, but with matches extended to 5-15 rounds, there is much more emphasis on hurting or exhausting the opponent to a knockout or concession.
I personally dislike boxing, but that has ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on the fact that it’s a huge feminist step that women are being allowed to box in the olympics. There is no justifiable reason for being upset about women being permitted to engage in a sport. Are the same people who are upset about this working to get boxing banned as a sport for everyone? Then any ‘concern’ is misogyny in disguise.
And as a response to oldlady – Misogyny, violence, and incredibly restrictive gender roles for MEN are all closely linked. Breaking down the walls between the sexes is an important step in addressing the culture of violence, to allow women AND men a broader range of ‘acceptable’ performance in society.
There is a BIG difference between olympic boxing and professional boxing. Olympic boxing’s scoring system and protection requirements make it a much less dangerous and brutal sport, both in theory and in practice. I think it’s a very good idea for women to be competing in olympic boxing and for them to have the opportunity to pro box. For the boxers themselves though, I think it’s very dangerous to go into pro boxing. But would having women involved in pro boxing be better for society or worse? They might change pro boxing a little, for the better. Then again, what will it do to our already-misogynist culture for us to become accustomed to seeing women being beat senseless on national t.v.? We might already be accustomed to it….I don’t watch much t.v.
No one who inherently dislikes boxing has felt the need to charge themselves with bias, so I think you are off that hook too.
In my opinion, women who would be competing in boxing are adults and need to be treated as such. We’re just as capable of making decisions about our own health and safety as men are, and anyone who says otherwise is a bigot.
Honestly, if these people are so worried about how violent boxing is, they should be lobbying to have it removed as a sport for everyone–not infantilizing women by implying that we can’t take the same risks as men.
Fantastic! Women can box! women can be in the army and kill! They can become heads of international corporations that rape and ravage! They can become prime ministers of countries that declare war, bomb, and ravage! Hoorlay! Al the barriers are down! Women can be as big assholes, monsters, and pigs as men! At last! Equality!!!
Um, yeah, actually.
I love boxing. I love the training involved, the skills, watching and participating. I am absolutely thrilled that women’s boxing will be in the Olympics, and I think it’s a GOOD thing for feminism: women can be just as tough, strong, and physical as men.
And as a few people above have already pointed out, most sports require physical risk and pain. Boxers/fighters might slug it out for long minutes in the ring, but almost all of the time they embrace and support each other when the fight is done.
Wait a minute…..are you seriously comparing boxers (or other martial artists or for that matter, athletes in other competitive, contact sports) to…. rapists and war criminals? Seriously? You see no difference between two athletes who train hard with the intent of entering the ring to test their skills against a consensual opponent with similar skills….vs. rapists, predators or other criminals? The mind boggles.
And female boxers (or other athletes who are just a bit “too aggressive”) are now assholes? What?
oldlady– so, basically you’re saying that ridiculous gender roles preserve the “virtue of women”? What, are we naturally better people because we don’t have a penis? Forgive me, but I was under the impression we had moved out of 1952…
No, no–not comparing women who box to war criminals. Trying to ask: is this what I burned my bra for? And of course the answer is YES, resoundingly, for women to do ANYTHING they want to do. I am just sorry that so frequently what they want to do is follow in men’s footsteps instead of making their own.
As for boxing itself, I admire any athletes, students, dancers, actors, plumbers, artists, carpenters, doctors, lawyers, bakers, and candle-stick makers who train hard. I am simply saddened to think that beating each other up for the pleasure of on-lookers who pay large sums of money to watch is a sport that attracts women OR MEN.
I was under the impression we had moved out of 1952…
After the men finish raping and killing everybody, can one of them come get this dead mouse out of the kitchen? I’ll be standing on a stool lifting up my apron in one hand, making little girly shrieking noises, and holding this freshly baked apple pie in the other hand… :p
I don’t support war but I hardily support women who want to serve in combat positions and I support my sister-in-law when she runs into sexism as an officer in the Air Force (even while I wish she was teaching school somewhere, instead).
As long as there are areas women can’t enter, even if those are areas I myself don’t want to enter, the patriarchy is strengthened, not weakened.
that should have been “I heartily support”
“Fantastic! Women can box! women can be in the army and kill! They can become heads of international corporations that rape and ravage! They can become prime ministers of countries that declare war, bomb, and ravage! Hoorlay! Al the barriers are down! Women can be as big assholes, monsters, and pigs as men! At last! Equality!!!”
Perhaps you’re wishing all of the ‘women take on the world’ sentiment would go back to a simpler time . . . let’s say the 50’s. Ah yes, the good old days. When women were expected to do nothing but have dinner on the table promptly at 6 and pop out babies (hopefully nothing but big strong boys to carry on the family name). It was a time of love for their man; the master, all knowing one, the rock of society as we know it. Peace ruled supreme because the man was the only one allowed to make decisions in HIS family and his little wife was the trophy that bore the fruit of his loins. *soft sigh* Such a wonderful vision.
However, what “Leave It To Beaver” never showed about the 50’s is that a majority of those perfectly submissive housewives were drinking up to a 5th of vodka or gin each day just to numb themselves to the lives they were tossed into. Rape didn’t happen back then, it was a wife’s duty to lie down and spread her legs whenever her man declared it so.
Women have claimed something that has been rightfully theirs since time began; their voices. It’s time for those that don’t want their ‘perfect’ little worlds to grow up, find your voice and/or grow a pair. It’s one thing to be truly happy in the life you’ve built with or without a man, it’s a completely ‘other’ thing to blast a new step forward in feminism just because you think it will rock your foundation.
Ahem, damn, I digressed quite a bit. Let women box, just because the first boxing match was between two men doesn’t mean that women can’t enjoy the sport themselves.
norbizness has a good point- based on the interview I heard on NPR with the US women’s boxing coach, Olympic boxing is not going to be a punchout to the death any more than Olympic fencing is a cut-and-slash swordfight. The scoring system will basically ensure that it’s reasonably safe.
The concern raised by the boxing coach was that currently, there are about 11 weight classes for women’s competition, and the Olympics will have only 3, so women are likely to have to either lose or gain significant amounts of weight to fit into a different class, and are more likely to end up with mismatched opponents, which is where things can get more dangerous.
Now I see there was a second reply after the first one. My bad for thinking you enjoyed the ‘good ole days’. Feminism is a fight, it is about equality for all. If that means women go to the front lines, box, be the head of their own households, become the corporate asshole . . . so be it.
I don’t approve of boxing as a competitive sport, but I don’t see what keeping women out of competition actually accomplishes. If women aren’t allowed to compete, the message sent won’t be “This calls into question the legitimacy of the sport; if it were a safe, sane, sport, then there wouldn’t be any reason to keep women out.” It would be “Women have come far, but there are some things they’re still just too delicate for.” Given that the good message won’t be sent, and the one that will be sent is toxic and harmful to feminism, I don’t see any reason to keep women out of competition. If it’s a good idea to protest against competitive boxing as a whole, the nature of the protest should be gender-neutral.
Deep down I think humans shouldn’t fight. That’s my opinion….When you get hit it’s very painful. Humans can get knocked out.
As to whether those humans are women or men… anything one kind of human is legally permitted to do, the other kind should also be permitted to do. Given the lower female rate of birth defects, better recovery from stroke, the longer lifespan in any country that has decent reproductive health management, the fact that our genitals are significantly harder to injure because they are internal, and the fact that many studies indicate we have higher endurance, I would say that the real question for any dangerous sport should be if *men* are too fragile for it; their greater physical strength and psychological predisposition to greater violence doesn’t actually make them better able to handle sports injuries.
Given the choice between voluntarily getting myself punched in the face so hard it knocks me unconscious, and voluntarily undergoing a 28-hour-labor like my mom did, I think I would take the boxing, and I’d like to offer any man who boxes the opportunity to have excruciating internal pain one or two days a month for most of their adult lives so they can see exactly how much pain women put up with *involuntarily* before they spout off as to whether we should be allowed to voluntarily get beaten up by other women we are trying to beat up.
If boxing must be done, women should box.
And the winter Olympics needs to get over its damn self and allow women to ski jump, too. Hello, internal genitals and lower center of gravity, it’s *safer* for us than for men unless we are actually pregnant at the time, and I don’t know many athletes who would get pregnant and then try to compete in the Olympics. Are they afraid we’ll beat male records?
Hmmm, I think I want to reinforce a couple of things.
The popular image of boxing is largely the same as dog or cock-fighting. People watch it for the bloodlust and for gambling and this encourages the sport to be crudely savage. What with heavyweight boxing being largely discredited as a gambling medium, people have largely moved on to UFC and their like for their quota of blood and suffering.
Boxing is pretty easily turned into a relatively safe, point-based system. However, the pain, endurance, and sheer power of thought, reflexes, and action makes the more traditional style boxing highly entertaining as well. People find value in that, and if it’s offensive to conflate BDSM with sadistic sex with powerless people, then it’s offensive to conflate all of boxing to a singular image of bloodsport.
Most sports have problems with bloodlust. It’s just a matter of what the community tolerates or desires. Just look at pitchers and the whole beanball drama aspect. Or hockey with the fightiing. Especially hockey as the major leagues have discuraged fighting and people couldn’t get their little kicks anymores while the sport itself is still hard hitting.
As a feminist, I think this decision is ridiculously overdue.
As a relative of someone who now has a possibility of competing in the 2012 or 2016 Summer Games, this is exciting.
As someone opposed to the promotion of a culture of violence, I think it’s fair to wonder why we treat beating the pus out of each other as a sport, aside from the tendency of homo sapiens to turn anything possible into a competition.
Dana, you train in Muay Thai 6 days a week? That is hardcore! I can manage two, and am hoping to move up to three! (And in my opinion, Muay Thai is way better than regular boxing. Watching two people repeatedly punch each other until one falls over, I don’t get. Watching them punch, elbow, knee, and kick each other until one falls down? Much more interesting ;))
Like some have said before, Olympic boxing isn’t that brutal-we’re not talking Mike Tyson beating someone unconscious. And then biting his ear off. There’s all sorts of safety gear, particularly to protect the head.
Did the Olympic committee reinstate softball? Last I heard, it had been dropped from the slate, even though proportionally more women get a chance at competing in the Olympics because of it.
(Adds support to those who think the expansion of Olympic boxing to include women is a good thing.)
Why is this even a question in this day and age? Not only should women be allowed to compete in all sports, men should get to compete in rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming, as well.
I rather wonder why all sports aren’t simply made co-ed. All this stuff about women getting hurt or men feeling they are too good to compete with women is bullshit.
“I rather wonder why all sports aren’t simply made co-ed.”
In a lot of events, physical differences either do make it an uneven playing field or would probably favor performance strategies divergent enough to make scoring difficult. It’s quite bullshit that there are still events that aren’t open to both genders, though. I mean, if you don’t get enough entrants to make a go of it, okay, but the opportunity needs to at least be there. Women’s uteruses really aren’t going to go flying off the other end of the ramp during a jump, and there isn’t going to be a plague of testicular torsion if men get their synchronized swim on.
[i]I would say that the real question for any dangerous sport should be if *men* are too fragile for it; their greater physical strength and psychological predisposition to greater violence doesn’t actually make them better able to handle sports injuries.[/i]
Can you indicate where you actually read that compared to women in similar sports and with similar training and activity levels, men suffer more injuries? I’ve seen a couple of these posts before, the difference of men and women in sports, and also from playing sports and martial arts casually, that the opposite is true. For example, a female friend of mine involved in football (soccer to Americans) state that the women’s team often have more injuries to their knees and ankles compared to the men’s teams.
I know that women have more efficient muscles (relative to size) and with more body fat, are better at surviving at cold temperatures (swimming in cold lakes/water), but in regards to endurance, unless I am mistaken, when it comes to long distance running, the men’s records still is slightly ahead of the womens. But when I mean endurance, I mean stamina, so you could mean something else.
I am just curious to know, as this is always interesting. I’ve always think sports should be more co-ed, ie. allowing men and women to compete together, but not everyone thinks that is a good idea.
elite male athletes are still far, far ahead of elite female athletes in most sports. Football being the classic example–you gotta have mass and there’s no way around it. Not even place-kicking would offer a skill-only premium to any woman. A woman might, miiight be able to play quarterback in a Navy-type option offense.
Basketball is much more subtle, but no woman is going to be able to play in the NBA. The kind of athleticism required to be a bad player is just completly insane. At least in fooball, you can be a 350lb out of shape hog and still sorta contribute.
Baseball is about the only major team sport that women can theoretically play coed. Pitchers, 2nd basewomen being the most suitable position. Pitchers can be effective using 70mph knuckleballs (a japanese girl was drafted into the semipro league there for that). Women can also compete by being good utility infielders I think. The margin of difference is about as same as Roger Federer and Serena Williams, so there isn’t *that* much further to go.
Hockey has had Manon Rheome play goalie as a stunt in the major leagues, but I know nothing about that game to evaluate the possibilities.
Golf? Golf is not a sport. Obviously, that one could probably go coed.
I think sports leagues (not friggin’ chess, mind you) should be seperated by gender simply to ensure that we give many women enough opportunities to play. In any event, the women’s game is often different enough to be interesting in and of itself, like tennis and baseball/softball. I am not a fan of women’s college basketball (outside of the tourney)–the disparity in talent can be glaring and there are many people playing who obviously hasn’t put in enough time to compete with the top programs. I have not seen much pro women’s basketball, even though I keep meaning to watch. In the end, I like the seperation because I wind up being able to pick and choose the flavor of the sport I’m watching. I will always pick a match between Venus Williams and Lindsey Davenport over Mark Philloppousis and Pete Sampras…
P.S.
The crime is coaching. There are tons of female coaches who’d do well coaching men’s sports who don’t get that chance.
What I took from your question, “Is women’s boxing something that feminists should support? Is it too violent?”, is that you’re asking if boxing to “too violent” for women. Am I wrong here?
I think that the problem is specifically that. We shouldn’t think women are too fragile to handle this sport, or any endeavor. Is it too violent as a sport? Well that is the question to ask. But we know the answer- it’s just as violent as it needs to be to be popular. That will not change. So we might as well encourage women to join the sport and break down more gender stereotypes.
On a more personal note… I never understood men’s fascination with fighting until I saw two women in the ring together. At that point it was really exciting to see them, because for once I could connect. I think there’s some merits to seeing women (in the ring or not) fighting off someone who is assaulting them.
Oh I’m so with you, I’m a horrible martial arts snob. *looks ashamed*
I was actually training up to 8 times a week (twice a day two days, every day but Friday) but that was a few years ago. I only had two fights, there was a bit of drama in our club and ended up dropping out. No way I could fit it in working full time with too many pets now anyway, lol.
Trust me, it gets obsessive, you’ll get there. I was really lucky in our club, our trainer was incredibly driven. I want to fight again once I get down to my fight weight, but I’ll only be training four times a week including sparring, but weight training on consecutive days. That’s the plan anyway!
Good luck with it, it’s impossible to explain to anyone who doesn’t already understand but it’s the best rush in the world. :D :D
Can you indicate where you actually read that compared to women in similar sports and with similar training and activity levels, men suffer more injuries?
Oh, they probably don’t. What’s actually true is that men have more birth defects and die younger than women, so in terms of *health* they are more fragile; it’s as if they’re designed like Hobbes said, to live lives that are nasty, brutish and short.
As for the endurance thing, there’s linguistic confusion because of course one meaning of endurance is stamina and being larger, with stronger muscles, means one does less work to accomplish more, so one can accomplish more for longer. But in sports where some aspect of the female body counters the male advantage of larger muscles — and I’m specifically thinking of swimming and any cold weather sport, because healthy women have more fat on their bodies than healthy men, which protects against cold and increases buoyancy — women end up having more endurance than men. At least, I’ve heard on several separate occasions that women are better able to do long-distance real-world swimming, such as crossing the English Channel, than men.
I believe women also have a higher survivor rate in situations like famines, when one factors out death by violence… probably because smaller bodies with more fat on them need less food and have more stores of it.
But no, as for sports injuries it doesn’t surprise me that women would have as many or more than men, because of smaller bones and joints. For skiing, though, women have a lower center of gravity, and the argument made to keep us out of skiing is that the jumps can harm our reproductive organs. Really? I mean, seriously? Because any activity that can harm female reproductive organs can also harm *all* internal organs and is not safe for men lest they suffer a prolapsed intestine. If one’s liver and spleen are staying put, so are one’s ovaries and uterus. *Men* have external genitalia that can be harmed by a sports injury; women *don’t*. Nothing can harm a woman’s genitals or reproductive system (if she’s not currently using it) that would not cause just as much harm to a woman or man’s gastrointestinal system.
I think thats kind of an unfair statement that has a lot to do with perception and POV. All competition, at it’s core, is an attempt to dominate an opponent. All sports are a kind of alienated violence. Few people would argue that Greco-Roman or Amateur wrestling shouldn’t be considered a sport, even though it is a visceral and physical display of dominance. I would also argue that there aren’t a whole lot of people uncomfortable with Fencing, despite the fact that what we’re really looking at is a ritualized and stylized duel. Even sports with a less direct connection to physical violence (say, competitive swimming), are judged by who does better than the other person, involve language that invokes the image of physical violence (“beat their opponent,” “destroyed the competition,” “was a dominant force”). Moreover, any physical sport necessarily demands a certain amount of suffering in order to reach and perform at a high level of competition. Sure, the damage to bodies in the name of dominance might be moved to blowing out your own knee while running, but the expenditure of physical suffering in order to win is still an integral part of any competition.
I think the discomfort so many have with the more obviously martial sports is that they are less able to hide what is behind all sports. They wear their violence on their sleeves, without having hidden it beneath layers of symbol and internalization. Two individuals striking one another until the other can no longer stand is immediately violent; such a display makes us uncomfortable because we can’t pretend that we’re watching anything other than what we’re watching. Martial sports don’t let us have the lie, they don’t allow us to tell ourselves that we’re watching anything other than a direct physical confrontation. Unlike in softball or skiing the violence isn’t implied or alienated, it is direct and unselfconscious.
Oddly enough, you see some of the most truly impressive displays of sportsmanship in some of the more brutal kinds of martial competition. Georges St. Pierre (the current UFC welterweight champion) being an excellent example of how, even in an extremely violent context, competition doesn’t have to be ugly or angry.
For example, a female friend of mine involved in football (soccer to Americans) state that the women’s team often have more injuries to their knees and ankles compared to the men’s teams.
Part of that is due to using training standards designed for the male body. I remember reading somewhere that women athletes shouldn’t be doing the lengthy, rigorous stretching (pre-and post-workout, but especially pre-workout) that men do—that we already have that flexibility that men are striving to get with these routines. For us to do them sets us up for injury; that women are good do go with a light warmup. I also read something about how the U.S. military (I forget whether it was Army or Marines) did a study on if it was possible to train women (meaning, the average woman—not elite athletes or significantly larger-than-average-sized women) to do the heaviest physical labor. They found that it was—but that the training and diet needed to be adjusted (specifically, women needed less cardio and more weight bearing training than men, and higher protein without all the “carbo-loading”). The long runs (like 10 miles) that the men went on interfered with strength and muscle-building in women, and the women didn’t need the carbo-boost that the men did to maintain energy in cardio workouts. That was not much of a surprise to me, ‘cuz I’m a smaller woman who can lift a lot of weight, and never thought this was unusual (y’know, that you didn’t need to be built like King Kong to lift heavy weights).
Thanks to everyone for the comments!
Amy – I think it’s fair to say that many feminists have issues with violence in society and how it is glorified in sports. Thus, is it feminist to celebrate a violent sport such as boxing and women’s inclusion in it?
For me, I think it’s a great thing. I do have a love/hate relationship with boxing, but as many have already pointed out Olympic boxing isn’t the same as Mike Tyson boxing. While it may lead to an increase in women’s professional boxing, that’s another blog post.
I do think that that women’s ski jumping may be able to use boxing as proof that we aren’t fragile flowers who will break each time we jump.
And gawd damn it!! I can’t believe softball is still out.
It’s all about balance. If women box, then men should knit, or shop (for fun), or what ever it is that we can agree is “feminine.”
So far women have taken great strides towards expressing their inner masculinity. They gain in value in a male-dominated world when they are more like men, or when they mostly play by the already male-determined “rules.”
Unfortunately there isn’t as much progress on the side of men expressing their inner femininity.
So the scale is too far tipped on the masculine side in terms of social value, cultural capital, etc. Women boxing, though a perfectly fine thing to happen, doesn’t change the structure of the problem. It doesn’t make it worse, but it doesn’t make it much better. It still participates in and reproduces the overvaluation of core masculine traits: competition and aggression.
Competition and aggression are the core traits of a society built upon dominance and hierarchy in order to maintain a specific structure of power. That structure of power places men in authority roles, however that no more makes competition and aggression “core masculine traits” than the same situation makes submissiveness and objectification core feminine traits. The rigid gender roles society imposes are not the same thing as gender. As a man, a fairly masculine man, I reject the idea that my identity necessarily has to revolve around traits which I neither chose nor find particularly useful out of certain well-defined contexts.
By buying into the idea that the constructs we call gender are somehow bound by the traits that we have associated with them we continue to not only conform to those constructs in subtle ways but we support them through admission. I work in a job which demands that I spend the vast majority of my talking to people about their feelings and the meanings of their experiences, something which most people would not identify as masculine. I do not, however, feel feminized because I spend my days talking about emotions rather than wrestling bears and beating my dinner to death with my bare hands. As long as we continue to group behaviors into “things members of X gender do” rather than “things some people do” we continue to support a binary system which values some behaviors over others in order to maintain a system. Saying that a given behavior is by definition masculine or feminine and then adding a negative connotation to that judgment (especially as it applies to someone behaving “wrong” for their gender) is engaging in the kind of gender policing that will ultimately only further entrench the rigid standards we’re trying to fight.
I agree with the many commenters who think boxing shouldn’t be in the Olympics at all, but as long as it is, women should not be excluded.
Conicidnetally, I hope those of you who are interested in this subject will take the opportunity to watch the superb movie Million Dollar Baby, in which Hillary Swank stars as a boxer.
British boxer Amir Khan, an Olympic silver medallist in 2004, said: “Deep down I think women shouldn’t fight. That’s my opinion….When you get hit it’s very painful. Women can get knocked out.”
Yeah, because women NEVER get knocked out by men. Dude is just all a-flutter because he’s not used to the idea of women hitting back. Well, get used to it. Speaking as somebody who spent time getting knocked around for hoursby guys who were much bigger and much younger, I found the sport itself (juijitsu) both exhilarating and useful; I learned that I could get pounded pretty thoroughly and keep on going; I learned I could beat people who were a LOT bigger than I was; and it was both physically and intellectually challenging: like chess, only sweatier. If one gender gets to do it, the other should, too. There was a real advantage to the men, too, in my participating – at least to the smart ones: it gave them a chance to really practice their technique, if they chose to, rather than rely solely on muscle to win. There were some of those, too; I’m sure there always will be – but they’ll eventually lose to the ones who practiced their technique. My sister was in the Navy, and I’m proud of her, and proud of that. Just because you don’t approve, doesn’t make it shameful. Isn’t that what the patriarchy tries to do, shame women out of doing/trying/being something that it doesn’t approve of? Doesn’t look any better here.
Mortisha: My sport is crosscountry equestrian and being badly injured or dying in a fall is one of the risks you take –my choice.
Amen, Mortisha. One of my mother’s best friends was an inveterate rider. She had an accident while riding, and it killed her. Yes, it was sad for the people she left behind – but really, who here wouldn’t prefer to go out while doing something s/he loved?
Awesome news about women’s boxing in the 2012 London Olympics. Australia should field some strong contenders.
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