Fighting for equality

In 2012, women’s boxing will be added to the Summer Olympic games in London. While women have managed to make their way into numerous professional sports, they have been met with more resistance when it comes to boxing. Nonetheless, women have recently begun to make a space for themselves in the decidedly male-dominated world of boxing. Today, women around the world are not only participating competitively in boxing, they are changing the world with it. The ability to participate in the physically demanding sport of boxing, and to break through one of the last male-dominated sporting events, signals that women are breaking new ground, challenging gender roles, and literally fighting for equality.

While women’s boxing is only now making its way to the Olympic games, women have a surprisingly long history in boxing which dates back to the 1720’s, when various exhibitions were staged around London. In step with the Women’s Liberation Movement, women’s boxing reemerged in the United States in the 1970’s with states lifting bans on women in boxing, issuing boxing licenses to women, and sanctioning women’s boxing matches. But it wasn’t until nearly twenty years later that USA Boxing officially recognized female boxers, and even then only after losing a landmark court case to the ACLU. In 1999, Muhammad Ali’s daughter Laila Ali made her professional boxing debut, and later faced Jacqui Frazier (daughter of legend Joe Frazier) in front of 8,000 fans; this silenced lingering critics as to the presence of women in competitive boxing.

Yet, the most inspiring advancements in women’s boxing are happening abroad. At the Ghazi Olympic Stadium in Kabul, Afghanistan, small groups of women are training for the upcoming Olympic trials. The stadium is perhaps an ironic site for such training, as it is better known for its history of Taliban executions, including the decapitations and stonings of Afghan women accused of adultery. Today, young women head to the stadium to step out of the repression that surrounds them in the streets, and to slip into tracksuits and boxing gloves.

The sight of young women boxing and sparring, many in head scarves, is an extraordinary scene in a country where women are routinely harassed for taking part in sports and where Islamic clerics have spoken out against females performing in public as athletes or entertainers. By training to box, Afghan women are not only building confidence, they are challenging their prescribed roles and directly confronting established societal rules; indeed, boxing has become social change in action.

In a country with so much violence and prejudice towards women, the young female boxers are experiencing many freedoms for the first time, yet their short time spent in the gym is not a true reflection of their new station in society. Each of them has been given permission to participate by their fathers, many of whom objected and view their participation as an affront to Islam. Others are unsure as to how long their involvement can last; once a woman is married, her participation will depend on her husband's approval. For the women who have been training for years, the addition of women’s boxing to the Olympic games has served to embolden their determination to make it as a boxer. Some of the top boxers have gotten the rare opportunity to travel the world, and the allure of what an Olympic medal might bring to Afghan women is an almost unimaginable possibility.

Like the women training in Afghanistan, it seems that women in the United States also feel that they are boxing their way towards equality. Disenfranchised women of color have taken to boxing in disproportionate numbers. African-American and Latino women from working-class backgrounds have dominated women’s amateur boxing with more than half of the women’s flyweight division being comprised of Latinas, and African-American women largely dominating the other weight classes. Marlen Esparza, a Mexican-American and front-runner for the US Olympic team, said, "We fight all our lives to get ahead. Some of us even grow up in the streets fighting with our fists.” Perhaps there is a parallel between marginalization and the appeal of boxing - the empowerment one feels from physical strength that may make up for the disempowerment they feel in their everyday lives.

Perhaps women from some of the most disempowered demographics are finding their strength in a sport that mimics what they have grown up having to do: fight. On the surface, the introduction of women’s boxing to the Olympic games marks the end of men-only events at the Summer games (ski jumping is the only other male-only event), but a closer look reveals how this seemingly small change may be facilitating a global change for women’s empowerment that will leave an impact long after the Olympic torch is snuffed out.