Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports: Women Warriors around the World (Global Culture and Sport Series)

This volume offers a wide-reaching overview of current academic research on women's participation in combat sports within a range of different national and trans-national contexts, detailing many of the struggles and opportunities experienced by women at various levels of engagement within sports such as boxing, wrestling, and mixed martial arts. Front Matter....Pages i-xvi Approaching the Gendered Phenomenon of ‘Women Warriors’....Pages 1-21 Front Matter....Pages 23-23 Moral Guardians, Miniskirts and Nicola Adams: The Changing Media Discourse on Women’s Boxing....Pages 25-40 The Boxers of Kabul: Women, Boxing and Islam....Pages 41-56 ‘Chicks Fighting in a Cage’: A Philosophical Critique of Gender Constructions in the Ultimate Fighting Championship....Pages 57-72 ‘Beauty and Strength’: Defining the Female Body in The Ultimate Fighter Season 20 Promotional Campaign....Pages 73-85 Front Matter....Pages 87-87 Gender Inequality in Olympic Boxing: Exploring Structuration through Online Resistance against Weight Category Restrictions....Pages 89-103 The Fight outside the Ring: Female Boxing Officials in Trinidad and Tobago....Pages 104-118 Mexican Female Warrior: The Case of Marisela Ugalde, the Founder of Xilam....Pages 119-134 Women Fighters as Agents of Change: A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Case Study from Finland ....Pages 135-152 Front Matter....Pages 153-153 Beautifully Violent: The Gender Dynamic of Scottish Karate....Pages 155-171 Mediating Factors in Martial Arts Practice: A Specific Case on Young Girls....Pages 172-186 Outlaw Emotions: Gender, Emotion and Transformation in Women’s Self-Defence Training....Pages 187-203 Resisting the Hegemonic Gender Order? The Accounts of Female Boxers in South Korea....Pages 204-218 Front Matter....Pages 219-219 Reinventing the Body-Self: Intense, Gendered and Heightened Sensorial Experiences of Women’s Boxing Embodiment....Pages 221-236 ‘I’m Not the Type of Person Who Does Yoga’: Women, ‘Hard’ Martial Arts and the Quest for Exciting Significance....Pages 237-252 Ambivalent Lives, Fighting Bodies: Women and Combat Sports in Brazil....Pages 253-266 UnBoliviable Bouts: Gender and Essentialisation of Bolivia’s Cholitas Luchadoras....Pages 267-283 Back Matter....Pages 284-322