Sparring with patriarchy: the rise of female boxers in the Global South

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the last 50 years the participation rates of women and girls in sport have soared, challenging sport as a male preserve. Participation rates of female athletes in most low to middle-income countries have lagged behind their higher income counterparts, but this too appears to be changing even in male-dominated sports such as boxing. Female boxers transgress gender norms, and threaten conceptions of masculinity and femininity that position women and girls as vulnerable, and male physical superiority as a justification for male dominance. Data drawn from the archives of the Association Internationale de Boxe (AIBA) and other sources document the increasing representation of women from lower income countries in the sport of boxing. Informed by the narratives of women from a cross-section of countries, I argue that increasing numbers of women boxers disrupt normative gender scripts in often highly patriarchal communities, and contests gendered hierarchies in sport.