The shady past of female boxers – what case studies in the USA reveal

Abstract

This study attempts to rectify the invisibility of female boxers and to narrow a research gap by examining the careers of four prominent female champions who managed to excel in the sport despite the social, psychological and physical restrictions imposed by the gender order of American society in the nineteenth century. The little studied roles of female boxers present some historiographical issues detailed in the study, which examines and analyses the social construction of gender, and the rejection of prescribed roles by the female boxers, who used the vaudeville and theatrical stages to negotiate a transition in gender roles, particularly the notion of females as a ‘weaker sex’. The lives of such courageous women presented an incremental change in the restrictive practices of society, leading to a greater measure of female liberation in succeeding years.