By: Julio Garcia
Times have changed since I was a kid. Things used to be classified when way or another. As time goes on, things change whether we agree with them or not and this generation’s change has a lot to do with cultural appropriation, fixing racial inequalities, and gender neutrality. It is easy to agree and disagree With everything in the point in life that we should make is to find that line where both sides can come to a common ground.
All three of these subjects have been an issue in sports throughout history. Players of a certain ethnicity had to play in a separate league. Leagues were also separated by gender and the pay that they got had a significant difference.
Boxing has had its fair share of ups and downs in the gender-specific area of discussion. Women that fight are highly praised and then that dies down for years and then has a resurgence. It’s a common thing that happens in the United States but elsewhere in the world, the women are treated as fighters, warriors just like the men. I’m not sure how the pay works out somewhere else but at home, there’s a significant difference.
There are several fighters that speak out on the subject and the latest by Heather Hardy proves a good point. Hardy states that There are no separate venues for fights that take place between men and women so the term women’s boxing should be gone from our vocabulary.
“It’s time to stop the ‘women’s boxing’ narrative,” stated Hardy via Twitter. “It’s just boxing. There [are] women who box and men who box – there’s not a separate venue for ‘women’s boxing’. We fight on the same shows; thereby the revenue generated per show should be determined based on MERIT, not gender.”
Hardy is 100% accurate about that. There is no separate league for women that box. The only difference aside from the pay is the number of rounds and the time per round that they fight. That is also something they have no control over. It is time for a change in this world full of cultural appropriation and gender equality. These fighters can go a full three minutes and it would produce so many different results in fights. It would also add a tremendous amount of entertainment and cause a resurgence in popularity for the women in the sport at the same time producing more knockouts. There should not be a fear of damage taken in a fight as we are not having men and women fight each other and it would be a leveled playing field.
