Fighting Sports, Gender, and the Commodification of Violence: Heavy Bag Heroines

Heavy Bag Heroines explores the cultural terrain of women's boxing, challenging dominant assumptions about gender and the sport through the experiences of participants. It highlights the appropriation and marketing of boxing as a means to improve health and fitness and defend against attackers, emphasizing the body project for women in boxing as a form of resistance and physical feminism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 214 pages
Publication date: 07 April 2021
Publisher: Lexington Books

Fighting Sports, Gender, and the Commodification of Violence: Heavy Bag Heroines offers a captivating exploration of the cultural landscape of women's boxing within everyday gyms for novice boxers. Through an ethnographic lens, Victoria E. Collins delves into the broader concepts of gender, violence, self-defense, commodification, and health and fitness, drawing insights from the perspectives of women who engage in the sport. Collins challenges prevailing notions of gender and the sport by examining participants' interpretations of gender norms, social expectations regarding physicality, sexuality, and the challenges to masculine and feminine performativity. A central aspect of this study revolves around the appropriation and marketing of women's boxing workouts in cardio-boxing gym spaces, commonly known as fitness boxing. These spaces have become increasingly popular, catering to predominantly middle-class, white female consumers who seek to enhance their health and fitness while also gaining self-defense skills. The body project for women in boxing, therefore, should be recognized not only as a form of resistance but also as a manifestation of physical feminism.

Weight: 531g
Dimension: 228 x 162 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781793600639