Sparring with Femininity

Abstract

This ethnography explores how a group of adolescents—predominantly girls—negotiated a sport-for-development program centred on the traditionally masculine pastime of mixed martial arts (MMA). The ethnographic setting was a youth centre in central Montréal that provides free after-school programming for youths aged 11 to 18 years. Our analysis yielded three prominent themes: 1) ‘girls don’t do MMA,’ in which we discovered how young female pugilists actively challenged residual stereotypes that cast them as ‘too soft’ to play violent sports such as MMA; 2) ‘a mixed bag of martial artists,’ in which we learned how local youths conceived MMA as a vehicle for supporting innovative agendas that extended well-beyond the sport of MMA; and 3) the ‘racialization of self-defence,’ in which we witnessed how self-defence against complex social realities (profiling and marginalization) experienced by many non-white youths in the area were integrated into the teachings of the MMA program. Collectively, these themes raise important questions about the socially significant role(s) that MMA plays in the lives of local youths with respect to their race, class, and gendered identities.