jiujensu🇵🇸Dec 6, 2022

Quote about women in #fightingsports:

"In addition, the Supreme Court, which consisted entirely of men, decided that it needed to uphold laws protecting public health and morality, as well as the rights of men to stop the "ever-increasing feminine encroachment upon what for ages had been considered strictly as manly arts and priveliges." "

(Manly arts and priveliges, lol.)

From She's A Knockout, by LA Jennings

#grappling #bjjwomen #brazilianjiujitsu #womensgrappling #bjj #boxing #martialarts

Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Dec 6, 2022

One thing that caught my eye in this quote against women in professional fighting sports - besides there very amusing "feminine encroachment on manly arts and priveliges" - was the bit about protecting "public health and morality."

This is a sentiment that still pops up today. 2022. Women's rights, freedom and bodily autonomy curtailed under some notion that we require a mortality police - men, government, a rando church, etc - to make health decisions for us.

#abortion #abortionishealthcare

Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023

1/? #ShesAKnockout
L.A. Jennings
222 pages
Pub. October 23, 2014

"Women have been competing in fighting sports for thousands of years, despite the perpetual claims by opponents of female fighters that they do not belong in the ring, on the mat, or in the cage. The convenient forgetfulness or misremembering of the past is a way to erase the history of female fighters and substantiate the inaccurate belief that women have never, and will never, belong in certain male spaces."
#bjj #bjjwomen

Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸
2/?
She's A Knockout is a fast paced, brief introduction to the history of women's fighting sports. Jennings uses mini biographies and interesting anecdotes to highlight main characters throughout the evolution of women's professional fighting sports. Although only covering the Western world, the stories are chosen to represent the progress and backlash, periods of history from the Victorian era to the present, as well as struggles in race, class, and gender.
#womensgrappling #fightingsports
Jan 29, 2023 at 3:48amWeb
Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023
3/?
Particularly entertaining and in contrast to the fight promotion business today, women like Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes in the early 1700s (UK) would advertise in the paper, making wild claims that would make Muhammad Ali proud. The other woman would then publish an equally boastful acceptance of the challenge. In one exchange, the woman's occupation was ass-driver, so her opponent accepted her challenge in flowery 18th century English language peppered with insults like "ass-woman."
Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023

4/?
Then they would just need to avoid arrest leading up to, during, and after the bout.

Media and public support for female fighters throughout history could turn on a dime, not unlike today. In one example in 1805, British reporters described the fight with interest and pride (one woman seconded by her mother!) but by 1807, participants were described as disfiguring one another with Victorian disgust.
#bjj #bjjwomen #blackbeltwomen #femalefightingsports #selfdefense

Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023
5/?
In more recent times, one can compare how the media was involved in Ronda Rousey being named a champion before stepping in the ring. The media and public was similarly judgmental on what was feminine with demands for Lucia Rijker in the 1990s to prove she's female and the similar commentary surrounding Cris Justino. Meanwhile, other fighters benefited from covers on Sports Illustrated or Maxim.
Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023

6/?
This same 1800s fight between what is feminine, what is healthy, what is strength (should it be different for men and women), objectification vs empowerment still rages today in some form.

Chapter 3 Fighting As A Spectacle

"Bernarr" McFadden, the early wellness influencer/quack, got a mention. The book doesn't go into the sort of details that complete the picture of this particular piece of work, but these podcasts do:

Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023

#BernarrMcFadden sideshow:

#BehindTheBastards did a two part show on his contribution to the world of fitness:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0deDnhZivR6XxAHyBAmxYV?si=4nEEFAsSTO2YuW7d09xZ7w&utm_source=copy-link

https://open.spotify.com/episode/04ikwv5uqzyu2qaqgOmvrP?si=Bpl3L88eRieXoaVWTtKT1A&utm_source=copy-link

#MaintenancePhase
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3bSxmddWqtdJWnNce71w7Z?si=9ozYv4KzRYKtZsIZA4r6FQ&utm_source=copy-link

Whatever his numerous faults, he's mentioned for encouraging excercise in the early 1900s.

#fitness #womensfitness #womensgrappling #bjj #bjjwomen

Part One: How the First Fitness Influencer Doomed Us All

Listen to this episode from Behind the Bastards on Spotify. Robert is joined by Caitlin Durante to discuss Bernarr MacFadden.FOOTNOTES: http://web.archive.org/web/20150915124002/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123750174381989343https://sites.edb.utexas.edu/stark/publications/building-american-supermen-bernarr-macfaddenbenito-mussolini-and-american-fascism-in-the-1930s/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346917559_Racialized_Surrogates_in_Bernarr_Macfadden's_Physical_Culture  https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/circulating/2021/01/21/circulating-physical-culture-by-catherine-keyser/ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/08/muscular-christianity-and-american-sports-undying-love-of-violence  Adams, Mark. Mr. America (p. 84). HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/12/wellness-influencers-vaccine-misinformation/ https://www.americanheritage.com/true-story-bernard-macfadden#6 https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a23610/strange-tale-historic-fitness-guru-bernarrmacfadden/ https://www.historynet.com/putting-fad-macfadden.htm Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spotify
Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023
8/?
As a practitioner of jiu-jitsu myself, i wanted to note the little section on Emily Diana Watts, who wrote The Fine Art of Jiujutsu, and her British counterpart Edith Garrud, who thought of jiu-jitsu as "a physical embodiment of the cause of women's rights" rather than a fighting sport. Both wrote to an already interested and practicing public.
Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023
9/?
Mildred Burke only got a brief mention here, but this book was fantastic if you wanted to understand the earliest iteration of women's professional wrestling:
The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6470245-the-queen-of-the-ring
The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the …

At only five foot two, Mildred Burke was an unlikely ca…

Goodreads
Show threadjiujensu🇵🇸Jan 29, 2023

10/10
And to finish up:
Chapter 4, The Fight To Fight, brings the drama. Around 1972 with Title IX and the fight for women to get boxing licenses in 1974, the big names are Tyger Trimiar, Jackie Tonawanda, and Cat Davis. As if the fight through the courts and boxing commissions wasn't enough, personal animosity developed as Davis, the conventionally attractive white newcomer recieved the first license ahead of the two who paved the way.

~~~
She's a Knockout! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22620322-she-s-a-knockout

She's a Knockout!: A History of Women in Fighting Sport…

Women's fighting sports have a rich and storied history…

Goodreads