Sports, As humans we love sports. Competition drives us as a species. We compete against one another to out do each other and we compete against ourselves for self improvement. So why do we pay more attention to one gender more than the other? Women have fought in military combat for many hundreds of years, maybe even longer. But yet we discouraged them from partaking in combat sports. Women have been perceived as nurturers throughout history and as fragile as glass.
Even though women’s professional boxing has been around for a long time, it was not even legal in England up until 1996 nor allowed into the Olympics until 2012. It was a struggle to get into the Olympics but it made its mark.
Christy Halbert, a boxing coach and member of the Women’s Commission for the 2012 Olympics had a struggle all her own. “A lot of people didn’t realize women’s boxing wasn’t already in the Olympics. We also had myths to dispel. There was a long-standing belief that women’s bodies were somehow too frail to box.”
The fact that female’s boxing made it to the Olympics was a headline all its own but the athletes participating made waves all their own. There were many star worthy fighters in the Olympics but the two most notable fighters from the western hemisphere were Claressa Shields and Marlen Esparza. If and when these two fighters decide to go pro, it could be a major game changer for women’s boxing adding on to the already talented rosters out there the way Oscar De La Hoya added a huge surge into the sport.
Women are making headlines in other combat sports as well. UFC president Dana White had publicly stated that he would not allot females to compete in the UFC. That all changed when there was demand to see top female fighters face each other; he saw opportunity for profit and for all the free publicity it would give him.
In many parts of the world, women are discouraged from doing any form of education, voting, or even competing in sports. We as a people have made women take a back seat to men’s sports, believe they are fragile and unentertaining. But that is not the case when it comes to boxing. Women have put on tremendous events and have gone unrecognized for a long period of time. Major networks pay pretty much no attention to them and the top two promoters in the sport (Golden Boy Promotions and Top Rank) have no female fighters that they promote.
Do they see no marketability? Are women just a pretty face to them that they do not want to see damaged in the ring? These ladies may be pretty but once you get them in the ring they turn into beasts who are able to put on a great show and even put some of these men to shame.
