engleski

How to Fight Like a Girl: Feminist Discussion of Women in Combat Sports

The binary and stereotypical understanding of human subjects deems the idea that women can and are willing to resort to calculated violence to be deviate and grotesque. Propensity to aggression has always been interpreted as a sign of true masculinity, being materialized through hand-to-hand combat and consequent self-sacrifice in the name of the community, homeland and those that are considered fragile and weak – women and children. Accompanying political decision on the necessity of preserving and protecting those who by giving birth contribute to the restoration and maintenance of the community led to women being denied participation in war and combat activities for centuries. When they did participate, world wars being a good example, historiography often diminished and concealed their contribution, reducing them most often to the roles of nurses and healers. A similar understanding of women’s disadvantages and their roles in the community was carried over into combat sports in which women’s participation was historically the subject of controversy. Nevertheless, women have been competing in combat sports for centuries, fighting not only against patriarchal stereotypes but also against traditional feminist stereotypes as well, that often view women through the essentialist lenses of empathetic and tender beings or through the activist lenses of vulnerable and passive victims. In this paper I will discuss, from a philosophical and feminist point of view, women in combat sports, women whose accomplishments break through traditional gender boundaries both in the ring (cage or on the mat) and outside of it. It will be divided into two parts. In the first I will analyse the history of women in combat sports. In the second I will discuss difficulties they face and feminist issues they (un)knowingly help to provoke.

combat sports, boxing, mixed martial arts, women, Olympics, de Coubertin

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