Towards the “Undoing” of Gender in Mixed-Sex Martial Arts and Combat Sports
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Perspective: “Doing” and “Undoing” Gender
The strange, the incoherent, that which falls “outside”, gives us a way of understanding the taken-for-granted world of sexual categorization as a constructed one, indeed, as one that might well be constructed differently.[5] (p. 149)
Integrated Sport and the “Undoing” of Gender
3. Methods
4. “Undoing” Gender in Integrated MACS
4.1. Issues of “Ownership”: Women Teaching Fighting Skills
I see it as my number-one role at the moment, inspiring the talented young girls who come to the club... And I think one of the best ways to do that is to show what I can do, and that usually means practice with the men, demonstrate to everyone that women can be just as good at jiu-jitsu. (Louise, 32, BJJ)I think my driving force was having Evelyn join the club when I did, because she had done martial arts before and you could see like, the effort she puts in… that was a real benefit because with her and with the two main senior girls in the club, that sort of drove me to say, well yeah, why can’t we be just as good as the guys? (Michelle, 26, kung fu)
Because women are doing (kickboxing) just as much as men these days, you know, getting quite good at it and all that, it makes you think that maybe… you know, you can’t say this is manly nowadays. (Claude, 26, kickboxing)When (men) actually see what I can do, it’s amazing the amount of, like how people’s perceptions change, and then all of a sudden they will listen to you… One week they’re not interested and then they’ve seen you do something awesome and they want to listen. (Helen, 29, kickboxing)
I do really enjoy teaching people, so long as they want to be taught… Sometimes there are people who don’t really listen… like some big guy who doesn’t think he needs to be taught to fight by a girl. (Sara, 23, MMA/kickboxing)The boys are much less receptive, especially when I’m criticizing their sparring, I find that a lot. I find it quite frustrating that they don’t listen to my advice… It’s like they’re hearing it from a girl, a girl criticizing their fighting, and they’re not interested in listening to that. (Beth, 24, kung fu)
I don’t seem to remember (learning from a woman) crossing my mind as being an issue. When I was younger the club I trained at had a female instructor so maybe that helped to make me see that anyone can do this, get to that level. (David, 23, kung fu/jiu-jitsu)
4.2. “Fellow Martial Artists”: Sex Becoming Incidental
We do those “girl press-ups” and to be honest I really don’t like that, when the other instructors say “girls, do it on your knees”. I mean they can if they want but I always do the full ones, I don’t want half-training, you know? …We (shouldn’t) make things different and make it look like women need to do a softer or weaker thing because that would really go against a lot of what kung fu is about. (Evelyn, 25, kung fu)I think some of the girls do that, you know, if the coach isn’t pushing them to do (full exercises) because they’re girls, they’ll slack off because they can get away with it… And then they wonder why they lose (in competitions)! (Marie, 30, kickboxing)
I feel really uncomfortable that I could hurt a woman in that way, even if she’s asking me to do it I feel really uncomfortable, you know, physically uncomfortable with doing that. (Steve, 30, karate/kung fu)
I get so annoyed when it gets to the point where they just won’t spar with me properly, it’s really annoying because they don’t think I’m strong enough just because I’m a girl… I know they are looking out for me but how am I ever going to defend myself if I don’t get good sparring? (Keeley, 26, kickboxing)I need to get used to being hit, and especially for my first fight, you know, you gotta get used to getting hit, you can’t block or avoid every punch that comes your way, you gotta take it and move on… you get that false sense of security and you believe you’re doing better than you are. (Helen, 29, kickboxing)
(The grappling tournament organizer) waited for (the male under-65kg competitors) to walk out and then he said… “does anybody wanna fight this girl? She’s 58 kilos, been fighting for this amount of time”, which nobody else gets, you know, nobody else gets a history of what their opponents have done, stuff like that. So one guy from my gym said yeah, but everybody else said no, they all stood there, heads down, didn’t wanna look me in the eye… Not all competitions are like that, but some of them are a bit like, stuck in the past. (Rachel, 22, BJJ/MMA)
I remember when I first got beaten (in sparring) by a girl, she knocked me out I guess, elbowed me in the head. And that was a bit of a moment when I thought well, I should definitely take (women) more seriously and not feel weird about (hitting them) when they can hit like that! (Simon, 27, karate)If they’ve seriously got a problem that they don’t wanna hurt me then well that’s their problem and not mine, I’m still gonna go at them… I’ve been kicked in the head and punched and stuff, like anyone. I think they see that they can do it to me after I do it to them a few times! (Evelyn, 25, kung fu)
Once I trained with my instructor’s wife, and she used to be a British champion, she could punch me all over the ring, and I was fine with that. And we were joking because she’d been sparring one of the (best male) fighters in the gym and he knocked her clean out, and it’s like, that could’ve happened to a guy, could’ve happened to a girl, there’s a kind of acceptance, you know, “fuck it, it happens”. (Ed, 29, muay thai)I (no longer) see it as hitting a girl, you see it as hitting another martial artist… I knew about the capabilities of the people I was sparring with because I’d felt them first-hand... (This experience) forces you to look at women differently. (Jack, 34, kung fu)
4.3. “Case-By-Case”: Caution, Sensitivity, and Pacing Change
One of the big difficulties I find (now) is that I don’t want the (inexperienced) girls to get turned off by the aggression that I show them. But at the same time I want them to do the same sort of aggression, so it’s quite difficult to see that and get it right… Every time I punch them in the face I’ll be like, “is that ok? Is that alright?” I need to make sure of that. (Sylvia, 19, MMA/muay thai)We have to think about scaring women away so (instructors) keep (certain drills) separate to begin with, it makes sense to (women) like that… They’d pair up with other girls first, just to get used to getting hit, that sort of thing. (Claude, 26, kickboxing)
There’s an ethnic issue as well there, I find. When we have Muslim men in (training), they won’t even acknowledge me and they won’t listen to anything that I tell them. (Helen, 29, kickboxing)When you’re teaching technique you sometimes might touch and move people’s limbs or their body, and it’s just something I’ve been very mindful of with some of the women who we have, and like, the religious ones especially, because they probably don’t want me to directly touch them… People have boundaries that you might not have or agree with but you still need to respect those boundaries as a coach. (Paul, 29, kung fu)
You go on a case-by-case basis, there are those tough girls who you know can take (integrated sparring), but if it’s the first time you’re always very much, like a little bit more wary… It’s difficult to say how it works, it’s different between people, it’s best to do it case-by-case. (John, 27, taekwondo)
5. Concluding Thoughts
Being a real man? That means nothing to me, absolutely nothing… (A real woman?), it’s the same again, nothing. I couldn’t separate them out because they’re the same as much as they are different. You don’t need to be either to be good at kickboxing, to be a martial artist. (Amir, 43, kickboxing)I see myself doing something for women, instead of just obeying a stereotype… I think it’s feminism, you know, pursuing something for ourselves and showing that normal everyday women are capable of doing something which a lot of people say we’re not. I think it’s a good thing what we’re doing. (Rachel, 22, BJJ/MMA)
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References and Notes
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Channon, A. Towards the “Undoing” of Gender in Mixed-Sex Martial Arts and Combat Sports. Societies 2014, 4, 587-605. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4040587
Channon A. Towards the “Undoing” of Gender in Mixed-Sex Martial Arts and Combat Sports. Societies. 2014; 4(4):587-605. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4040587
Chicago/Turabian StyleChannon, Alex. 2014. "Towards the “Undoing” of Gender in Mixed-Sex Martial Arts and Combat Sports" Societies 4, no. 4: 587-605. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4040587