After Atalanta

Or maybe it's the new red--depends on what the usual color of boxing gloves is. I feel as if I have devoted a lot of blog space to the pinkification of women's sports and so I am not seeking out the pink stories, but when things come my way--in 3s--it's hard to ignore. So the latest is something called Pink Gloves Boxing. And it was featured on NPR's Morning Edition today . NPR! Guess it's time to write a letter. Pink Gloves Boxing is a fitness enterprise started by two former football players who started to train women in boxing. They have developed a whole package that they now sell to gyms. And the package includes not just information on training routines but the gear which includes: dog tags, t-shirts, and pink gloves--of course. The thing is, this program doesn't sound to me like it's any different than programs that already exist in gyms. My gym has a boxing class and many gyms have cardio boxing/kickboxing. After all, as the story states "There...

Cuba may not want its female citizens boxing, but Indian women, who have been stepping into the ring for a while now, are excited about showcasing their skills at the Olympics in 2012. In fact the Indian women are probably the second best in the world after the Chinese. The benefits of boxing for Indian women are numerous but seem to center, at least according to this NYT article , on the possibility of a better life after their boxing career ends. Boxers get government jobs and housing as well as other perks. Such things mark one as middle class and many of these women came from a lower caste and specifically sought out boxing for its ability to engender such a class shift. It provides honor to the boxer and her family. It also gives women a little more reprieve from the domestic duties required of many Indian women. And for some it has altered their attitude toward such roles. One woman has continued to fight even after marriage and motherhood and works in partnership with her husban...

...Cuba won't come. Cuba, always a contender on the international boxing scene, will not be sending female boxers to the Olympics in 2012. Something about the appropriateness of the sport for women and not getting their pretty faces punched. Not that I am trying to bring people down after the IOC's decision to add boxing: action that attempts to back up their alleged commitment to gender equity. But it's a good time to remember that even though women have access internationally, many countries put varying levels of restrictions on their participation.

In what appears to be a last-ditch effort to get their sport into the Vancouver games, a group of female ski jumpers has written a letter to IOC president Jacques Rogge asking him to let them compete this coming winter. Since it appears that no one has jurisdiction over the IOC and Rogge, the women are doing what they can to keep their cause alive. And they are also drawing on the positive reaction to the inclusion of women's boxing in the summer games starting in 2012. Boxing was the only summer games sport without with a men-only competition. Ski jumping and Nordic combined are the only men-only sports in the winter games (and now, I suppose in the whole Olympic roster). I admire their efforts as I have throughout this fight. But I am doubtful this letter, even in combo with the praise from the boxing decision, will sway Rogge. This is, after all, the man who refused to even meet with the women in person to let them plead their case.

Women's Olympic boxing is looking more and more like it will have a place in the 2012 Olympics. The IOC is in the midst of considering changes to existing sports and adding women to boxing is high among them. The changes being proposed by the International Boxing Association would allow three women and ten men on a country's boxing contingent. But the IOC, which has refused to allow women's boxing into the Games in the past, seems a little more supportive this time. Of course, they do need to accumulate some documents and get the facts and all, according to IOC sports director Christophe Dubi who said that the AIBA has "provided documents concerning the medical elements of the women's discipline." That's cryptic. Let me see if I can translate that: we're worried about women's "parts" getting hurt. Probably not just the girly parts but injuries in general, though I am sure the girly parts are of primary concern. Good thing men have that ha...

You're thinking: "where can she possibly be going with this? These sports have next to nothing in common." True. But both are seeking inclusion in the Olympic Games--the female athletes of the sports because, of course, the men are already in. Haven't heard much about ski jumping since the trial in April in Canada. But the inclusion of women's boxing in the 2012 London Games has been getting some press of late. Because apparently this bid for inclusion has some actual support by IOC members. It also has the strong support of boxing's governing body, the International Boxing Association (AIBA), which has put forth a proposal for 40 female boxers in the 2012 games in 5 weight divisions. (There would be 246 men in 10 divisions.) It would be an interesting project to compare the efforts of women's ski jumping with women's boxing. Like the line ski jumpers are getting now from the IOC, women's boxing was told in 2005 that their sport was just not ready ...

Earlier in the week The Boston Globe had a feature on a local boxer , Wendy Sprowl, who was the first woman from Massachusetts to win an international boxing title. [The feature was in the Living Arts section which made me ask the somewhat rhetorical question: if Sprowl was a man would this story be on the Sports page?] Sprowl is not fighting professionally anymore though she did indicate that she would return to the ring if the price was right. This speaks to an interesting aspect of her story. She started boxing after she got hurt on the job working construction and had near instant success from the moment of her first fight. She turned professional and one year later won a championship belt to much fanfare--but no money. So now she does odds jobs, landscaping, trains others, and has a DVD out called "Sweatin Bullets" which is also a class she runs out of a Cohasset gym. The "Sweatin' Bullets" program seems to be pretty successful and I was quite impressed th...

I recently read an article about Katie Dallam (the "real" Million Dollar Baby) excerpted in Susan Cahn and Jean O'Reilly's new edited collection Women and Sport in the United States and I have to say, having been pretty ambivalent about boxing in the past, I now wonder why anyone thinks this is a good sporting option. The training indeed gets you into great shape and I see the appeal in working out aggression, but doing it competitively seems a little...extreme. In a Thai women's prison though the appeal of participating in bouts between inmates is pretty obvious: if you win, you get out early. A convicted drug dealer recently won an officially sanctioned match against another prisoner and was pretty much assured of early release. Curious and with very little knowledge of either Thai prison culture or women's boxing, I asked my Thai colleague what she knew. Nothing--she found it curious too as did all of the friends she made inquiries of. Unfortunately ESPN....