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SMNTY Classics: Fighting for Women's Olympic Boxing · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is any and Samantha and do ope to
0:07
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told your production. I heart radio, Samantha.
0:19
Speaker 1: Did you ever get into anything like boxing or kickboxing,
0:23
Speaker 1: any kind of fighting sort of sports activity. Yes, I
0:27
Speaker 1: actually really really love kickboxing, and I have about three
0:31
Speaker 1: to four different pairs of kickboxing stuff, gloves specifically, and reps.
0:37
Speaker 1: I used to work out in and all girls fitness
0:40
Speaker 1: group that used to compete um He did tech window
0:43
Speaker 1: and kickboxing and all of that, and I loved it.
0:45
Speaker 1: I joined them for about three years and I made
0:48
Speaker 1: friends with all of them, loved every bit of it,
0:52
Speaker 1: really got into it, and to the point that I
0:55
Speaker 1: was an annoying person who would jab at people pretend
0:58
Speaker 1: like I was gonna kick him. I'm so sorry that
1:00
Speaker 1: I was an annoying kid. Uh And I was an adult,
1:04
Speaker 1: but probably before the pandemic, I had joined another one.
1:07
Speaker 1: It was a bigger class. I didn't enjoy that as
1:11
Speaker 1: much because they didn't do anything technical. It was all
1:14
Speaker 1: based on fitness, so if you did anything wrong, you
1:18
Speaker 1: would mess yourself up real hard. And I did something
1:20
Speaker 1: wrong I don't know how, and I ended up pulling
1:23
Speaker 1: my calf muscle to the point that I couldn't walk
1:26
Speaker 1: for a week and it was swollen and it completely
1:30
Speaker 1: bruised up. So I haven't done one since then. I'm
1:32
Speaker 1: really sad. But I really used to love them. Yeah, yeah,
1:37
Speaker 1: I used to be really big into kickboxing. I started
1:39
Speaker 1: taking it my dad was a college professor, and one
1:42
Speaker 1: of the perks of that was I got to take
1:44
Speaker 1: classes for free that were not like college classes, but
1:49
Speaker 1: we're offered by the college, right, And it was nice
1:51
Speaker 1: because that that sounds like a bunch of college students.
1:55
Speaker 1: And then I started in middle school, but it was
1:57
Speaker 1: you know, family members of of anybody at the college,
2:00
Speaker 1: so it was a nice mix of people. I also
2:02
Speaker 1: took Taichee, which is very different, but that was so
2:05
Speaker 1: terrible at it, but I loved it um. I have
2:09
Speaker 1: many many funny stories about TIChE um. And then when
2:12
Speaker 1: I was in college, there were some free programs that
2:15
Speaker 1: got really into. Capawara was one of them, which is
2:19
Speaker 1: kind of like Brazilian fight dancing. And then I started
2:24
Speaker 1: taking some more intense kickboxing UH in the past few years,
2:28
Speaker 1: but I too, I hurt myself and UH had to stop.
2:33
Speaker 1: But I have the gloves still in my car and
2:36
Speaker 1: every time I see them, I'm like, oh, that was
2:39
Speaker 1: such a fun time. They made me feel so tough
2:41
Speaker 1: to put on those gloves. Yes, especially you were wrapping
2:45
Speaker 1: up your hands. Yeah, it was extremely satisfying and that
2:53
Speaker 1: we wanted to to talk about this because as as
2:58
Speaker 1: we're recording this, as you're listening, the Olympics are underway
3:01
Speaker 1: and we're possibly are over. I guess we can't control
3:03
Speaker 1: it when you're listening to it, but the timing we chose,
3:07
Speaker 1: so this episode is a bit dated. It's about when um,
3:10
Speaker 1: the Olympics in had the women's boxing and all of
3:16
Speaker 1: this attention to one of the competitors, Claressa Shields. So
3:20
Speaker 1: it's a bit dated, but we thought we would bring
3:22
Speaker 1: it back since that's where everybody's mine, well not everybody,
3:27
Speaker 1: so where a lot of the attention is having a
3:30
Speaker 1: lot of like clarifications in those But we hope that
3:33
Speaker 1: you enjoy. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you from
3:40
Speaker 1: how stupp works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
3:49
Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And when we're recording this,
3:53
Speaker 1: we are one day away from the Rio Games, the
3:59
Speaker 1: two thousand six teen Summer Olympics, so exciting. I actually,
4:03
Speaker 1: you know, I I'm I've never been a sports fan.
4:06
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go ahead and myself. You wipe that
4:11
Speaker 1: look off your face, conger, I'm smiling. Yeah, uh huh um.
4:17
Speaker 1: But I I do love the excitement and the community
4:22
Speaker 1: feeling and the electricity that comes from watching the Olympics.
4:26
Speaker 1: Um well, hopefully not electricity anywhere near the swimmers, but
4:31
Speaker 1: electricity in your bones. The feeling that you get watching
4:35
Speaker 1: all of these people, these patriotic athletes competing to win
4:39
Speaker 1: the gold. Yeah. And this year I'm going to be
4:42
Speaker 1: watching boxing. And I'll tell you what, Caroline, I never
4:47
Speaker 1: watch boxing ever. It makes me uncomfortable to watch a
4:52
Speaker 1: professional boxing match. I don't like it. It It makes me nervous.
4:56
Speaker 1: So there's somehow going to like jump through the TV
4:59
Speaker 1: screen and like break my coffee table. So you're not
5:02
Speaker 1: a fan of conflict, I get it, it's true. But
5:06
Speaker 1: I am a huge fan of the USA middleweight favorite
5:12
Speaker 1: Claressa Shields. Oh she's got a great story, She's amazing.
5:16
Speaker 1: I was just telling Kristen before we came into the
5:19
Speaker 1: studio that I would watch the movie of Claressa Shields
5:25
Speaker 1: from Flint Michigan training with her coach, Billy Walsh, who's
5:30
Speaker 1: this Irish dude who's molded all of these really successful
5:34
Speaker 1: amateur teams, and he and Clarissa totally butted heads. There's
5:40
Speaker 1: this great article that we read about, you know, Clarissa
5:43
Speaker 1: being successful and the top of her game and also
5:47
Speaker 1: incredibly hardheaded. And here comes this new coach of hers,
5:51
Speaker 1: you know, telling her how to improve and and she
5:54
Speaker 1: just they were not so good eye to eye. Yeah,
5:57
Speaker 1: but they worked through their conflict and are now a
6:02
Speaker 1: really well oiled machine. And I love in that NBC
6:05
Speaker 1: article that Claressa said, you know, it turned out that
6:10
Speaker 1: he had some things to teach me, and I've got
6:12
Speaker 1: some things to teach him. And just for a little background,
6:17
Speaker 1: in twelve we were talking about Claressa Shields on stuff
6:22
Speaker 1: and I've never told you because the London Olympics was
6:25
Speaker 1: the first time that women's boxing was an event and
6:29
Speaker 1: Claressa Shields was seventeen years old at the time, and
6:33
Speaker 1: she brought home the gold. Yes, she did. She made history.
6:37
Speaker 1: She did make history. And at twenty one she is
6:40
Speaker 1: still a fierce fighter. Uh. We read an article about
6:44
Speaker 1: her in the Denver Post and they wrote, no US
6:48
Speaker 1: amateur is more important than Shields, who built on her
6:52
Speaker 1: teenage dominance in London with two World championships and a
6:56
Speaker 1: pan Am Games gold. And they right now she's a
7:01
Speaker 1: smooth twenty one year old team leader with major endorsement deals.
7:06
Speaker 1: And it might seem like not a huge deal or
7:10
Speaker 1: huge thing to note that she has endorsement deals, but
7:13
Speaker 1: actually that's pretty important to bring up. Yeah. So there
7:17
Speaker 1: is a PBS independent lens documentary on Clarissa Shields called
7:22
Speaker 1: t REX Her Fight for the Gold, which I highly
7:25
Speaker 1: recommend watching. UM. It's actually available to stream for free
7:29
Speaker 1: on the PBS site throughout August UM, and it traces
7:36
Speaker 1: how she went from being an eleven year old kid
7:40
Speaker 1: in Flint, Michigan, which, if you're not familiar, Flint Michigan
7:43
Speaker 1: is just destitute in a lot of ways. Um. A
7:48
Speaker 1: lot of factory jobs have evaporated, completely evaporated. Of course,
7:53
Speaker 1: there's a whole water issue, UM that's been a major
7:57
Speaker 1: issue in the political campaign here in the US. UM.
8:03
Speaker 1: And it's just a bad situation all around. And for Shields,
8:07
Speaker 1: her father was imprisoned, her mother has had addiction issues
8:11
Speaker 1: off and on and at eleven, she shows up to
8:15
Speaker 1: this boxing gym in Flint, and the coach there, Jason Crutchfield,
8:20
Speaker 1: who ended up being her first coach, spotted her talent
8:23
Speaker 1: and so he kind of took her under his wing.
8:26
Speaker 1: But Crushfield had no idea that Sheields wold get as
8:29
Speaker 1: far as she had because he said that he didn't
8:32
Speaker 1: agree with female boxing at the time. But which is
8:36
Speaker 1: a pretty common thing that you hear from a lot
8:40
Speaker 1: of people in the sports world. Oh yeah, I mean,
8:42
Speaker 1: and and that's really what this episode that we're going
8:46
Speaker 1: to play from is focused on, is why it's taken
8:50
Speaker 1: so long for women's amateur boxing to get into the Olympics,
8:55
Speaker 1: and and the reasons. You know, the basic reasons aren't
8:58
Speaker 1: that surprising women punching other women and violates like all
9:02
Speaker 1: feminine gender norms. Yeah, I mean, think about you know,
9:05
Speaker 1: you just mentioned being uncomfortable watching boxing in general, Like
9:08
Speaker 1: think about people like ad Jason crutch Field from earlier,
9:12
Speaker 1: or just think about your average sports viewer. I'm sure
9:15
Speaker 1: a lot of people are very uncomfortable with watching two
9:18
Speaker 1: women essentially just beat each other about the face a
9:21
Speaker 1: whole bunch. Well, and watching Shields is story unfold in
9:27
Speaker 1: the t Rex documentary. H makes me want to watch her,
9:31
Speaker 1: you know, punch other women because I mean, again, her
9:37
Speaker 1: background is just so incredible. I mean, she really is
9:40
Speaker 1: living the American dream. Not to get cliche about it,
9:43
Speaker 1: but it's true. Yeah. And I mean you mentioned wanting
9:47
Speaker 1: to watch her punch other women in the face, and
9:49
Speaker 1: it was you know, I mentioned her endorsement deals a
9:53
Speaker 1: second ago. And it is that very public, open and
9:57
Speaker 1: almost gleeful discussion of being able to say successfully punch
10:02
Speaker 1: other women in the face that made people tell Clarissa
10:06
Speaker 1: that she needed to perhaps tone her bravado down a
10:09
Speaker 1: little bit if she did want to secure those deals. Yeah,
10:12
Speaker 1: because after she won the gold in London, she comes
10:17
Speaker 1: back to Flint, She's greeted with a hero's welcome, the
10:21
Speaker 1: local airport was flooded with fans of hers. She had
10:25
Speaker 1: a whole parade. But she ends up back at home
10:29
Speaker 1: and she's essentially having to support her family and trying
10:33
Speaker 1: to figure out, still at seventeen years old, how to
10:37
Speaker 1: get through high school, whether she wants to stay amateur
10:41
Speaker 1: and shoot for another gold or whether she wants to
10:45
Speaker 1: turn pro, and what to do with the kinds of
10:49
Speaker 1: offers that were immediately coming her way, and it was
10:53
Speaker 1: really hard for her at first to kind of wrap
10:57
Speaker 1: her head around the whole what's next, because she had
10:59
Speaker 1: been so focused on just getting to London and wanting
11:02
Speaker 1: to get the gold. And after she did, you know,
11:06
Speaker 1: you can kind of see her a little bit deflated
11:08
Speaker 1: of like, Okay, I've achieved my dream. Um, I'm not
11:12
Speaker 1: I'm famous, but I'm not rich and I'm not getting
11:16
Speaker 1: paid the same as mail boxers, who I am just
11:21
Speaker 1: as good as. And there's this meeting that she has
11:23
Speaker 1: in the documentary with representatives from USA Boxing where yeah,
11:28
Speaker 1: the rep is like, you know, um, you just uh
11:32
Speaker 1: you need to stop saying how you know how much
11:35
Speaker 1: you enjoy beating people up? And the look on Claressa's
11:41
Speaker 1: face is just like incredulous, and she just sort of
11:45
Speaker 1: shakes her head and says, yeah, I mean, I guess
11:46
Speaker 1: I can reward that, but it frustrates her because you know,
11:51
Speaker 1: after this meeting is over, she says, it's not about money,
11:56
Speaker 1: It's about getting what you deserve. It's about respecting me
11:59
Speaker 1: being a woman, respect me being black, and respect me
12:02
Speaker 1: as an athlete who represented the United States. Um, and
12:06
Speaker 1: I am glad to see that in the intervening years
12:09
Speaker 1: she has attracted bigger endorsement deals. UM. But I am
12:14
Speaker 1: so rooting for her to get that second gold, you know, um,
12:18
Speaker 1: because I want, I want everything for for Claressa. I
12:22
Speaker 1: want her to to achieve her dream not only of
12:25
Speaker 1: getting that second gold, but also as she talks about
12:28
Speaker 1: wanting to take her family out of Flint, that's all
12:32
Speaker 1: she wants. And even I mean, I think she's a
12:35
Speaker 1: great figure for girls, younger girls to be aware of,
12:38
Speaker 1: even if those younger girls are not boxing fans or
12:42
Speaker 1: even sports fans, because she is a great example of
12:45
Speaker 1: someone who will not take no for an answer. She's
12:48
Speaker 1: got this great quote where she says, uh, they said
12:51
Speaker 1: boxing was a manned sport. That was not the right
12:54
Speaker 1: reason to tell me not to box. In other words,
12:58
Speaker 1: she just sees it as well more thing that she
13:00
Speaker 1: will definitely overcome. It's a driving factor. Oh you're gonna
13:04
Speaker 1: tell me that this isn't for girls? Will let me
13:05
Speaker 1: show you. I mean, and I'm waiting to for her
13:08
Speaker 1: biopic because I mean, it should be her Her life
13:13
Speaker 1: is like reading like a movie at this point, and
13:15
Speaker 1: I just keep imagining her at eleven years old, just
13:19
Speaker 1: walking into a boxing gym, like comparing like myself at
13:24
Speaker 1: eleven years old, Like just how on a very basic level,
13:28
Speaker 1: just how brave that is? Yeah, what was I doing
13:30
Speaker 1: at eleven? I was just wearing the pleated shorts that
13:33
Speaker 1: my mother had bought me at J. C. Penny's and
13:37
Speaker 1: probably still playing by myself in the basement. I'm imagining
13:41
Speaker 1: you shadow boxing and you're really get at shorts now.
13:44
Speaker 1: Don't forget the sleeveless, collared, button up plaid shirt that
13:48
Speaker 1: I wore tucked into them. I love it. Do you
13:52
Speaker 1: think though, that the USA team's lightweight Olympic contender MICHAELA
13:58
Speaker 1: Meyer ever gay? It's tired of always hearing about her
14:04
Speaker 1: middleweight team made up Claressa Shields because they're like the
14:07
Speaker 1: the only two women who are representing the US in
14:10
Speaker 1: boxing at the Olympics. Well, my hope is that they
14:13
Speaker 1: support each other. But I mean, yeah, Michaelas got a
14:17
Speaker 1: great story too. She when she was a teenager, she
14:23
Speaker 1: was struggling in school. Wasn't wasn't buckling down, you know,
14:26
Speaker 1: it was kind of hopping around to a couple of
14:28
Speaker 1: different schools and at seventeen, she walks into a Muay
14:33
Speaker 1: Thai jim. Not my taie jim. That's something completely different.
14:38
Speaker 1: That's what I call the bar them your local t
14:42
Speaker 1: key bar. Yeah. Um, yeah, she walked into this muy
14:46
Speaker 1: Tai jim, starts training, realizes that it's for her, that
14:50
Speaker 1: this activity, the sport is for her, and it actually
14:54
Speaker 1: helps her then buckle down at school and succeed. Yeah,
14:58
Speaker 1: it helps her focus. And as soon as she finds
15:02
Speaker 1: out that the Olympics was going to include women's boxing
15:07
Speaker 1: for the first time, that became her goal and she
15:09
Speaker 1: didn't make it to London, but now she's going to Rio.
15:13
Speaker 1: But the big question then is for for both Michaela
15:18
Speaker 1: and Claressa, after their amateur and Olympic careers are over,
15:23
Speaker 1: can they turn pro because there aren't that many opportunities
15:27
Speaker 1: as you might imagine for female boxers. Yeah, you've basically
15:31
Speaker 1: got to join up with UFC or start competing as
15:36
Speaker 1: an m m A fighter, like a Rhonda Rousy for instance,
15:39
Speaker 1: who did win the bronze in judo in But again
15:43
Speaker 1: here we have Claressa Shields having none of this disinterest
15:47
Speaker 1: in uh in women's boxing. She was having none of
15:51
Speaker 1: the lack of opportunities, and she was quoted in an
15:55
Speaker 1: NBC article saying, whichever promoter takes on women's boxing is
15:59
Speaker 1: going to be a very wealthy man. Because that's the
16:03
Speaker 1: issue a lot of times, is that it's not that
16:06
Speaker 1: people will never be interested in women's boxing, it's that
16:11
Speaker 1: traditionally they haven't tuned in and if promoters can't make
16:15
Speaker 1: money off of something, they're not going to put their
16:18
Speaker 1: money into it. And what you are seeing though, is
16:22
Speaker 1: with women like Rhonda Rousey, who are bringing a lot
16:25
Speaker 1: of attention to mixed martial arts and fighting in general,
16:30
Speaker 1: you are getting more people who are saying, oh, well,
16:33
Speaker 1: this is interesting to watch. I really enjoy watching this,
16:36
Speaker 1: and they're putting their money where they're boxing. Opinions are
16:40
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know. Their fandom is sure well.
16:43
Speaker 1: And the thing is it's not just you know, Rhonda
16:46
Speaker 1: Rousey who is bringing huge ratings for the UFC, it's
16:49
Speaker 1: pretty much all of their female fights. And so these
16:54
Speaker 1: boxers are looking to you know, UFC and m m
16:58
Speaker 1: A saying hey, if if they can do it, we
17:01
Speaker 1: can do this with boxing. Or the option is, you know,
17:05
Speaker 1: they will just transition into m m A. I mean,
17:08
Speaker 1: you have someone like MICHAELA who already has a white
17:10
Speaker 1: tie background. UM. And I did like though, how Claressa
17:14
Speaker 1: Shields said, listen, Ronda Rousey got a bronze, I have
17:18
Speaker 1: a gold. Yeah, like come on people, Well yeah, and
17:23
Speaker 1: and well I think it was even better than that,
17:25
Speaker 1: because it was something like, uh, you know, she has
17:29
Speaker 1: a bronze and I have a gold. You know what
17:31
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Like she's clearly like there's a little bit
17:33
Speaker 1: of shade there of course, yeah, but it's like, I mean,
17:36
Speaker 1: if she, if she can do that at that level,
17:37
Speaker 1: imagine just imagine what what I can do. So it'll
17:43
Speaker 1: be interesting to see not only how they perform in
17:46
Speaker 1: the Olympics fingers crossed Shields wins her second gold, UM,
17:51
Speaker 1: but also to see what happens afterwards, because I have
17:54
Speaker 1: a feeling that Shields at twenty one, especially if she
17:58
Speaker 1: wins the second gold, will probab way term pro and
18:01
Speaker 1: go for that. UM. But I don't think that women's
18:08
Speaker 1: Olympic boxing is nearly as controversial this year, in this
18:14
Speaker 1: Summer Olympics as it was in and partly because of
18:19
Speaker 1: Clarissa shields, partly because she was such a sensation. Yeah,
18:23
Speaker 1: and I mean, I people get used to stuff. I mean,
18:25
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are people this year who, especially younger viewers,
18:29
Speaker 1: who just probably assumed that women's boxing has always been
18:33
Speaker 1: a part of the Olympics. I'm sure there are people
18:35
Speaker 1: out there who take it for granted that women have
18:37
Speaker 1: had to fight to get included in the Olympics. Yeah.
18:43
Speaker 1: I mean you're thinking about just the fact that, you know,
18:46
Speaker 1: like you said, people get used to stuff. It's like
18:48
Speaker 1: back in the day, people had to get used to
18:50
Speaker 1: women just driving, riding and train women voting, women running,
18:58
Speaker 1: I mean, and I mean women wearing pants. Yeah, women
19:01
Speaker 1: running marathons is relatively new for for the Olympics, and
19:06
Speaker 1: only the eighties or nineties. And it is funny take
19:09
Speaker 1: it from us. Kristen and I have spoken to audiences
19:13
Speaker 1: of very young girls and have watched as the looks
19:17
Speaker 1: on their faces turned to shock and awe as we
19:20
Speaker 1: describe the history of things that they are used to
19:25
Speaker 1: seeing that weren't a possibility a hundred years ago. And
19:30
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think but that's good. I think people
19:33
Speaker 1: should be used to women in the Olympics. Absolutely, Um,
19:37
Speaker 1: there are still two primary differences between men's and women's
19:41
Speaker 1: boxing at the Olympics. Uh. Mainly you will notice that
19:46
Speaker 1: women still wear headgear, although that might change in Um.
19:50
Speaker 1: And while the dudes fight three four minute rounds, the
19:55
Speaker 1: women fight for two minute rounds. That's not a lot
19:58
Speaker 1: of time to bring down your opponent, to mess somebody up.
20:03
Speaker 1: But I tell you what, I would not want to
20:04
Speaker 1: go four rounds, okay with any of the women who
20:07
Speaker 1: will be fighting in the Olympics. But just imagining going
20:10
Speaker 1: four rounds with Chloris's shields, I would just I would
20:13
Speaker 1: immediately just get on the floor and ball up. Well,
20:18
Speaker 1: you know, I mean boxing is not your thing, and
20:20
Speaker 1: that's fine. Maybe you're more of the type of gymnasts
20:24
Speaker 1: that uses the ribbons. Oh my god, did you know
20:29
Speaker 1: that As a child, I had a ribbon dancer Caroline,
20:31
Speaker 1: and I pretended to be a rhythmic gymnast. Wait ribbon dancer,
20:34
Speaker 1: as in the thing, the one thing that although I
20:38
Speaker 1: had one listeners, Uh, I made my own. Oh it
20:44
Speaker 1: was subpar. It was really just a branch. The ribbon
20:50
Speaker 1: was too heavy. Um, but yeah, you are absolutely right.
20:53
Speaker 1: I was all about rhythmic gymnastics. Hey, I just said that.
20:57
Speaker 1: I didn't realize it's true. I checked out piles and
20:59
Speaker 1: piles of book from the library. I trained myself to
21:03
Speaker 1: be able to do splits. I was serious about it.
21:05
Speaker 1: This is what you get to do when you're homeschooled.
21:07
Speaker 1: I've never been an individual who can do a split.
21:11
Speaker 1: Never Anyway, Well, if you go get some books at
21:14
Speaker 1: your library, um, we'll get diagrams splits. Okay, just just
21:21
Speaker 1: work on it, you know. But we are going to
21:26
Speaker 1: be re airing this episode on the history of women's boxing,
21:31
Speaker 1: and like we said earlier, why it took so long
21:34
Speaker 1: for boxing to become a women's Olympic sport um and
21:39
Speaker 1: and also just like all of these kind of side
21:42
Speaker 1: debates that have popped up um in the meantime of
21:45
Speaker 1: people wondering like should they be required to wear skirts?
21:49
Speaker 1: Probably for sure, Yeah, and that's true. And we're not
21:52
Speaker 1: talking about women's boxing in like the nineteen tins. We're
21:55
Speaker 1: talking about women's boxing in in the two thousand's wondering
21:58
Speaker 1: about skirts. Can you imagine Clarissa going out there in
22:01
Speaker 1: like a tennis outfit? No, no, Serena Williams, Yes, she
22:08
Speaker 1: can do anything. She wants wearing anything. Yeah. We also
22:11
Speaker 1: mentioned people's fears about whether boxing is dangerous for women's boobs,
22:17
Speaker 1: like hitting the boobs. Yeah, well, I mean getting punched
22:20
Speaker 1: in the boob. It hurts, it does. Have you ever
22:22
Speaker 1: run into a door frame so many times? But see,
22:26
Speaker 1: I'm really flat chested, so usually my knees will hit
22:29
Speaker 1: before my bo Well, you know, I gotta say, I'm
22:34
Speaker 1: sure it's also not pleasant to to. Well, I'm I
22:39
Speaker 1: guess I'm glad boxers don't use their knees question mark.
22:42
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, or that there aren't
22:44
Speaker 1: door for doors and doorframes on boxing in boxing rings.
22:49
Speaker 1: My coordination is so bad. Well, why don't we travel
22:53
Speaker 1: back in time? Four years? I know? Can you believe it?
22:56
Speaker 1: I really can? Kristen like side note, this summer is
23:02
Speaker 1: the fifth anniversary of me joining you on the podcast.
23:04
Speaker 1: Oh my God, And so it's funny to think that
23:07
Speaker 1: we did this boxing episode four entire years ago. It
23:10
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like that long ago. It does not at all.
23:13
Speaker 1: And I started listening back to the episode expecting us
23:17
Speaker 1: to sound like little baby like welcome to stuff. Ma'm
23:21
Speaker 1: never Nope, But it sounded exactly the same. And uh
23:26
Speaker 1: now I need to just find out what the traditional
23:28
Speaker 1: five year anniversary gift is, like Pewter or something. I
23:33
Speaker 1: gotta get you, like some some Pewter headphones, microphone to
23:37
Speaker 1: commemorate my neck. It's just worn down. I hope it's paper.
23:42
Speaker 1: I know paper is one of the years. And if
23:44
Speaker 1: it's paper, somebody's getting some Lisa Franks station. Oh God,
23:49
Speaker 1: just saying. So we're gonna take a quick break and
23:52
Speaker 1: then we come back. We're going to hop in our
23:53
Speaker 1: podcast time machine and travel back to two thousand and
23:57
Speaker 1: twelve to learn some fascinating history about this highly controversial
24:03
Speaker 1: sport of women's boxing. So back in two thousand nine,
24:15
Speaker 1: Kristen the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, made the decision
24:20
Speaker 1: to add women's boxing to this year's London Summer Olympic Games.
24:26
Speaker 1: And before this it had been the only sport reserve
24:29
Speaker 1: for men. So now we're all equal A story over
24:33
Speaker 1: kind of kind well okay, yeah, not really. There actually
24:36
Speaker 1: is a debate raging currently about women's boxing and basically,
24:41
Speaker 1: should women engage in a sport whose main purpose is
24:44
Speaker 1: to inflict a damage on the opponent and that we
24:47
Speaker 1: might even possibly knock them unconscious. That does not sound
24:50
Speaker 1: very ladylike Caroline, which it sure doesn't. We might sweat,
24:55
Speaker 1: how what I know it shouldn't be allowed. Well w
25:00
Speaker 1: one note though, one historical note. Women have boxed at
25:04
Speaker 1: the Olympics before, one other time at the nineteen o
25:08
Speaker 1: four St. Louis Games, which was the first time that
25:11
Speaker 1: the men's boxing debut at the Olympics, but women's boxing
25:15
Speaker 1: was relegated to a display event. Well they were actually
25:18
Speaker 1: both display events, but after the display event they were like, hey, men,
25:22
Speaker 1: come on and the women, the women just just keeping
25:25
Speaker 1: the little sideshow act that you are. Could you go
25:27
Speaker 1: make us some sandwiches? Exactly? But it actually it has
25:33
Speaker 1: so much more history or beyond uh nineteen o four.
25:37
Speaker 1: Back in the seventeen twenties, the first staged women's prize
25:41
Speaker 1: fights took place. This was in in England, and in
25:44
Speaker 1: addition to punching and kicking, women could mall and scratch
25:48
Speaker 1: their opponents, so it was more like just like a
25:51
Speaker 1: cat fight in the ring instead of true boxing. And
25:54
Speaker 1: then female prize fighting happened in eighteenth and nineteenth century
26:00
Speaker 1: European fairgrounds and an exhibition halls. But then in the
26:04
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, also people started clamping down on the sport.
26:09
Speaker 1: They were very uncomfortable was seeing two women in the ring,
26:12
Speaker 1: and for that reason it was prohibited in many US
26:16
Speaker 1: states and in Europe, and it was officially banned in Britain,
26:19
Speaker 1: for instance, in eighteen eighty. But that didn't hold back
26:24
Speaker 1: Barbara Buttrick, a Yorkshire born fighter who was one of
26:30
Speaker 1: the those early renegades. And let's not forget in eighteen
26:34
Speaker 1: seventy six, Nel Saunders and Rose Harland got in the
26:38
Speaker 1: ring and duked it out over a silver butter dish,
26:41
Speaker 1: because you know what a women need with a coppera
26:43
Speaker 1: medal um and what is considered the first women's match
26:46
Speaker 1: in the US. So they probably maybe inspired ms Buttrick. Yeah,
26:50
Speaker 1: because then in the late fifties, in nineteen fifty seven,
26:54
Speaker 1: to be precise, Barbara became the first female box license
27:00
Speaker 1: holder UM and she was in Dallas, Texas, and she
27:03
Speaker 1: fought the second female boxing license holder, Phillis Coogler, for
27:09
Speaker 1: the first women's World championship. And I think it's worth
27:12
Speaker 1: pointing out that that Barbara was just ninety eight pounds
27:14
Speaker 1: and four ft eleven. She's a little step fire, tiny yeah.
27:18
Speaker 1: So then fast forward to and women's amateur boxing is
27:22
Speaker 1: finally integrated into the rules of the US amateur Boxing program,
27:27
Speaker 1: and then is a pretty huge year for women's boxing
27:33
Speaker 1: because of a bout between Christy Martin and dear Dreg
27:36
Speaker 1: Gogerdy and Christie Martin one and she became the face
27:41
Speaker 1: of women's boxing and actually made it onto the cover
27:44
Speaker 1: of Sports Illustrated, thus marking the birth of modern professional
27:49
Speaker 1: women's boxing in the US. But the funny thing is,
27:53
Speaker 1: if you go back and read that Sports Illustrated story
27:56
Speaker 1: interviewing Martin, she could not give a hoot about women's boxing.
28:02
Speaker 1: She liked boxing, but women, no, no, no, she says,
28:07
Speaker 1: I'm not out to make a statement about women in
28:09
Speaker 1: boxing or even women in sports. I'm not trying to
28:12
Speaker 1: put women in the forefront. And I don't even think
28:15
Speaker 1: this fascination with women in the ring has much to
28:17
Speaker 1: do with that. This is about Christine Martin. Well, I mean, yeah,
28:22
Speaker 1: quite a quite a fighting spirit there, um, But the
28:26
Speaker 1: whole profile of her just hammers home the thing of oh, yeah,
28:30
Speaker 1: she's she's a boxer, so in that way in the ring,
28:33
Speaker 1: she's you know, knocking out all these stereotypes. But at
28:37
Speaker 1: home she's married to her coach and she really likes
28:39
Speaker 1: to cook him dinner. For instance, include this quote from
28:43
Speaker 1: her saying, if my house is on fire, I want
28:45
Speaker 1: Mike Tyson carrying me out, not Christie Martin. So well
28:52
Speaker 1: so big first four professional women's boxing, but Christie Martin
28:57
Speaker 1: could care less. And then in nineteen nine we have
29:00
Speaker 1: the first European Cup for women's boxing. In the first
29:03
Speaker 1: World Championship for women is held not too long ago,
29:07
Speaker 1: just in two thousand one. Yeah, and speaking of there
29:12
Speaker 1: was this New York Times article talking about how the
29:15
Speaker 1: trend in women's boxing wasn't so much that all these
29:17
Speaker 1: women were coming coming out of the woodwork to compete
29:20
Speaker 1: and go pro, so that they were all coming to
29:23
Speaker 1: Jim's to get into shape. Right, But through this whole
29:26
Speaker 1: exercise trend, actually a lot of the women who went
29:29
Speaker 1: into exercise came out champions um and that In that
29:33
Speaker 1: same New York Times article, they interviewed one of the
29:37
Speaker 1: coaches who pointed out some gender differences among some boxers. Uh.
29:42
Speaker 1: He told the Times that women are easier to train
29:45
Speaker 1: than men because they are more relaxed and not as macho,
29:50
Speaker 1: but then he goes on to point out how women
29:52
Speaker 1: boxers do have more fragile psyches. Quote, you can't scream
29:56
Speaker 1: at them like you would with a man, even though
29:59
Speaker 1: sometimes I really want to. Those trouble making women. Um.
30:04
Speaker 1: One of the women who went into a gym this
30:05
Speaker 1: was I believe in in New York Long Island Baby
30:09
Speaker 1: was Kathy Collins, who is originally from Georgia. She dropped
30:12
Speaker 1: a hundred one pounds in the course of her very
30:14
Speaker 1: strict exercise regiment and then turned pro. She won the
30:17
Speaker 1: first women's pro boxing match ever held in Madison Square
30:20
Speaker 1: Garden and her fights have been on pay per view
30:23
Speaker 1: and ESPN and USA Networks, and she she loves the
30:27
Speaker 1: sport and she said that it really gives you a
30:29
Speaker 1: sense of strength and a greater sense of self. But
30:32
Speaker 1: here's here's the latest controversy that has come up. Because
30:37
Speaker 1: we'll get back to the Olympic stuff in a second,
30:39
Speaker 1: But November two thousand and eleven, we've just been we've
30:42
Speaker 1: been so liperaturely making these strides, getting more women in
30:46
Speaker 1: the ring, toughening up, going into those those all male gems.
30:51
Speaker 1: Not given a hoot, no hoots, given, no hoots, given
30:55
Speaker 1: and then in November of last year, the Amateur International
30:59
Speaker 1: Boxing Association this brilliant idea that female boxers should put
31:08
Speaker 1: on skirts. Why not? They're women, right, they should be
31:11
Speaker 1: wearing skirts. Maybe they should be barefoot in the ring too. Well.
31:15
Speaker 1: Their argument was, how else are you going to be
31:17
Speaker 1: able to tell if you're if you flip on a
31:20
Speaker 1: on a boxing match, how else can you tell if
31:22
Speaker 1: it's a woman up there? But a question that I
31:25
Speaker 1: had and when I first I said out why I
31:28
Speaker 1: said it out loud when I read this, and actually
31:30
Speaker 1: a bunch of people commenting on the articles about this
31:32
Speaker 1: topic said the same thing. Why is it so important
31:35
Speaker 1: to distinguish female boxers from mail boxers when you're watching
31:39
Speaker 1: it on TV, or whether you know, even if you're
31:41
Speaker 1: a spectator in the arena? Is it not just about
31:44
Speaker 1: the boxing? And so all these issues come up about
31:47
Speaker 1: discomfort with the lack of gender division or obvious gender division, UM,
31:51
Speaker 1: discomfort with women entering a traditionally male dominated sport. Following this,
31:57
Speaker 1: this announcement, the skirt fiasco UM the they held the
32:02
Speaker 1: European Championships in Rotterdam and only two nations, Poland and
32:06
Speaker 1: Romania decided to have their boxers wear the skirts in
32:11
Speaker 1: the ring. Um and the Polish coach told the BBC.
32:15
Speaker 1: By wearing skirts, in my opinion, it gives a good impression,
32:18
Speaker 1: a womanly impression. Wearing shorts is not a good way
32:21
Speaker 1: for women boxers to dress. So much ridiculous there in
32:27
Speaker 1: that statement, right and then um on the heels of
32:30
Speaker 1: all these complaints, not only from female boxers who are like, what,
32:34
Speaker 1: I'm not going to wear a mini skirt and also
32:36
Speaker 1: outrage from the public, the president of the Amateur International
32:40
Speaker 1: Boxing Association Association said, after we hear about its comfort
32:44
Speaker 1: and how easy it is to compete in the uniform,
32:47
Speaker 1: it may be compulsory. So he's he's trying to argue
32:50
Speaker 1: that skirts are just an easy, breezy kind of thing
32:53
Speaker 1: that you could just toss on and go just hop
32:55
Speaker 1: into the ring, no need for shure. It sounds like
32:58
Speaker 1: a makeup ad um. Yeah, well and a B A
33:01
Speaker 1: or excuse me a I B. A spokesman recently came
33:04
Speaker 1: out and said that, oh, well, we never we never
33:06
Speaker 1: intended to make the mandatory after the president had said
33:09
Speaker 1: that they could become compulsory depending on people's reactions to them,
33:13
Speaker 1: and on February thirt of this year, boxer Tyresha Douglas
33:16
Speaker 1: was quoted by Sports Illustrated as saying, we're women and
33:20
Speaker 1: women should be wearing a woman's uniform. I mean, women
33:23
Speaker 1: can wear shorts, but it's boxing. We need to look
33:26
Speaker 1: more feminine under the headgear. You don't know if it's
33:28
Speaker 1: a man or a woman. If we don't have boobs,
33:30
Speaker 1: we're women and we need to let people know we're
33:32
Speaker 1: women because you can't tell. But not surprisingly, Tyresia was
33:36
Speaker 1: very much in the minority. There have not only been
33:41
Speaker 1: some amateur boxers who have headed up a change dot
33:44
Speaker 1: org petition to get the Amateur International Boxing Association to
33:48
Speaker 1: abandon this skirt plan um, others have just spoken out
33:53
Speaker 1: in the press against it. Because this decision um has
33:57
Speaker 1: followed quickly on the heels of the the trials for
34:01
Speaker 1: the Olympics. So there's been all of this focus on
34:04
Speaker 1: women's boxing lately, and the skirt issue keeps coming up,
34:08
Speaker 1: and so far, Torisha Douglas is the only person I've
34:11
Speaker 1: heard who is really outright in favor. I found well
34:15
Speaker 1: world champion fighter Mary Calm, She's from India. She compared
34:19
Speaker 1: female fighters to female competitors in sports like tennis and
34:22
Speaker 1: wear gender specific uniforms. But I mean, I think it's stupid.
34:26
Speaker 1: And tennis, why, I mean, why should a female athletes
34:31
Speaker 1: have to wear a skirt? Why can't she just wear
34:34
Speaker 1: what is comfortable or what her coach wants her to?
34:36
Speaker 1: You know what, did it matter? It just seems with
34:39
Speaker 1: something like boxing too, skirts just don't. It's clearly a
34:43
Speaker 1: thing to feminize these athletes and it's not. It's not
34:48
Speaker 1: that necessary. For instance, Gara Hodge over at Gender Focus
34:52
Speaker 1: put it very well when she said, um, the attitude
34:54
Speaker 1: is clearly persisting today. This idea of um a team
34:58
Speaker 1: of foxes and not boxes, which was a quote from
35:01
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty U S women's track coach Um and they.
35:06
Speaker 1: She says that it's clearly persisting today as many female
35:09
Speaker 1: professional athletes report feeling pressured to act and look feminine
35:13
Speaker 1: outside of sport in order to compensate for their masculine strength.
35:18
Speaker 1: And what better segue than into the gender dynamics of boxing, because,
35:24
Speaker 1: according to some sports scholars, boxing is the ultimate egalitarian
35:31
Speaker 1: sport if you're a guy, because once you get up
35:36
Speaker 1: in the ring, it doesn't matter your class, your race,
35:39
Speaker 1: all your weight and size obviously will will play a role.
35:42
Speaker 1: But once you're in the ring, all all of that
35:44
Speaker 1: goes away, and you have one opponent and one mission
35:47
Speaker 1: and that is to take him down. But when you
35:50
Speaker 1: toss a woman in there, everything goes topsy turvy, right. Um.
35:55
Speaker 1: Some researchers went to an Australian boxing gym and talked
35:59
Speaker 1: to not to a bunch of people, but really focused
36:01
Speaker 1: on interviews with three men and three women at this gym.
36:05
Speaker 1: And this was a study in qualitative sociology from Faul
36:08
Speaker 1: two thousand four called Suffragettes and Satin Shorts, Gender and
36:12
Speaker 1: competitive Boxing, and it was interesting. They pointed out that
36:15
Speaker 1: competitive boxing can be studied productively as a paradoxical gender
36:20
Speaker 1: regime that simultaneously enables and constrains how women quote unquote
36:24
Speaker 1: do gender. Um. There was one scholar that they quoted
36:30
Speaker 1: um as saying raw aggression is thought to be the
36:32
Speaker 1: province of men, as nurturing is the peculiar province of women.
36:37
Speaker 1: The female boxer violates the stereotype and cannot be taken seriously.
36:41
Speaker 1: She has parody, she has cartooned, she is monstrous. Yeah,
36:46
Speaker 1: one guy, the researcher talked to said, boxing isn't a
36:49
Speaker 1: female sport. Women are feminine. It's in the society. It's
36:52
Speaker 1: probably not right. They've got breasts that are going to
36:54
Speaker 1: get whacked. Although they have done research on whether or
36:59
Speaker 1: not female boxing endangers are breasts, uh specifically whether or
37:04
Speaker 1: not it could um uh cause breast cancer down the road.
37:08
Speaker 1: No risk, Your breasts are safe. Yeah, boxing is pretty
37:11
Speaker 1: it's a pretty safe sport. But the very fact that
37:14
Speaker 1: that safety issue is one of the first things that
37:17
Speaker 1: people bring up when they talk about women's boxing as
37:20
Speaker 1: opposed to men's boxing, which we have, you know, just
37:23
Speaker 1: accepted as yes, a little bit more more violent and
37:26
Speaker 1: aggressive sport, but it's not, I mean, it's not something
37:30
Speaker 1: that is on the forefront of our minds, it seems like.
37:33
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why these uh, this
37:36
Speaker 1: gender issue with boxing is is really fascinating, because people
37:39
Speaker 1: are so uncomfortable with the idea of women punching at
37:44
Speaker 1: each other, right, And some of the guys in the
37:47
Speaker 1: gym that these researchers want to were just that they
37:49
Speaker 1: were they were totally uncomfortable with women who came into
37:52
Speaker 1: the gym on a regular basis. It's one thing if
37:54
Speaker 1: maybe you bring your your steady girlfriend or your wife
37:57
Speaker 1: in there, somebody who's not going to try to distract
37:59
Speaker 1: you with her her feminine wiles. But yeah, for the
38:02
Speaker 1: most part, women in these boxing gyms were considered to
38:04
Speaker 1: be distracting or weakening to men. Well, and I think
38:07
Speaker 1: that this is um one of the reasons why this
38:12
Speaker 1: Olympic Women's boxing landmark is is such a good thing,
38:17
Speaker 1: not just because it's opening up that final sport to women,
38:20
Speaker 1: but because a lot of the coverage that I've seen
38:23
Speaker 1: of the boxing trials, which are now over, has been
38:27
Speaker 1: really positive. You know, it's really painting these these women
38:32
Speaker 1: as athletes is really strong and diverse and compelling, not
38:37
Speaker 1: terrifying and monstrous and parodies of themselves. Yeah, exactly, they're
38:41
Speaker 1: just strong athletes. Well, with that said, should we look
38:45
Speaker 1: at who the winners of the boxing trials are absolutely
38:48
Speaker 1: absolutely starting off with Marlon Esparza. She's the flyweight. She
38:53
Speaker 1: actually had to gain six pounds to fit into to
38:58
Speaker 1: fit her small frame into the really strict weight classes
39:01
Speaker 1: that the Olympic Committee approved, so they only approved weight
39:05
Speaker 1: three weight class divisions for a dred and twelve pounds,
39:08
Speaker 1: one thirty two and one sixty five, which has actually
39:11
Speaker 1: caused a lot of concern about women either gaining too much,
39:14
Speaker 1: losing too much, or dropping out. A Sparza, like I said,
39:17
Speaker 1: gained six pounds and she postponed college because she had
39:21
Speaker 1: her sight set on the Olympics. And coincidentally, her last
39:25
Speaker 1: bout happened to be against Yresha Douglas, who we mentioned earlier,
39:30
Speaker 1: who was pro skirts pro skirt just just thrown out well.
39:34
Speaker 1: In the lightweight division, we have Queen Underwood, who was
39:38
Speaker 1: a favorite going into the trials, and then there's also
39:42
Speaker 1: Clarissa Shields who is the middleweight Caroline Clarissa Shields is
39:47
Speaker 1: sixteen years old. That's amazing. Yeah, she's a high school
39:51
Speaker 1: junior from Flint, Michigan who started boxing at the age
39:53
Speaker 1: of eleven to make her imprisoned father proud. Yeah. There
39:57
Speaker 1: is a really touching NPR story about about Shields and
40:01
Speaker 1: her her boxing journey. You want to give it a lesson, um,
40:05
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the journey does not stop for
40:08
Speaker 1: these three women. Even though they made it through the trials,
40:11
Speaker 1: they now have to go on to the World Championships
40:14
Speaker 1: in China. Where they have to finish in the top
40:16
Speaker 1: eight of their weight category in order to qualify for
40:20
Speaker 1: the full Olympic event in London. So three women to
40:24
Speaker 1: pull for. And you pointed out that they, you know,
40:27
Speaker 1: the IOC boiled it down to the three weight classes
40:30
Speaker 1: for men's boxing. They've got ten. Yeah. Uh. And coach
40:34
Speaker 1: Christie Halbert said that about three thousand women register as
40:36
Speaker 1: amateur boxers in the US in ten weight classes, and
40:40
Speaker 1: she said that keeps the sports safe and to make
40:43
Speaker 1: it fair, to celebrate the diversity of the human body.
40:45
Speaker 1: And so the Amateur International Boxing Association is actually lobbying
40:49
Speaker 1: the i o C to get more women into the Olympics.
40:53
Speaker 1: There's also one quote from Queen Underwood's coach Bashir Abdullah
40:58
Speaker 1: that I wanted to point out because it fits so
41:00
Speaker 1: nicely in our conversation about gender and boxing, because initially
41:05
Speaker 1: he was very uncomfortable with the idea of coaching a
41:08
Speaker 1: female boxer, which kind of reminds me of Clint Eastwood
41:11
Speaker 1: a million dollar baby um and he said, I didn't
41:14
Speaker 1: want to see women in this sport, which was based
41:17
Speaker 1: on his religious beliefs, but he also wanted to keep
41:20
Speaker 1: his job as a boxing coach with the U. S. Army,
41:22
Speaker 1: So he adapted when the Army's World Class Athlete program
41:26
Speaker 1: accepted women, and he was very glad that he did.
41:29
Speaker 1: And he told NPR there are great athletes in this
41:32
Speaker 1: women's sport. They're more focused, they're coachable, they're more determined,
41:36
Speaker 1: and they're more disciplined than mail boxers, right, which echoes
41:40
Speaker 1: what trainer Tom Malloy said that you mentioned earlier that
41:43
Speaker 1: women are better at learning how to box, I guess,
41:46
Speaker 1: although Malloy did follow it up with how we might
41:48
Speaker 1: cry if you if you yelled us too hard. Fragile,
41:52
Speaker 1: We're fragile, fragile people. Well, somebody else talking about Queen
41:56
Speaker 1: Underwood that I like this quote. US boxing coaches Joe
41:59
Speaker 1: Zanders was talking about her and staid, Queen can hurt you.
42:03
Speaker 1: Queen is a killer. She has a nice doll like smile,
42:05
Speaker 1: but you can't take that seriously because she has some
42:08
Speaker 1: dog in her and she will get after you. It's
42:10
Speaker 1: great embodying, you know, both ends of those. Uh, that
42:14
Speaker 1: that gender dichotomy that everybody harps on so often. You know,
42:18
Speaker 1: Queen Underwood, man, she's not gonna mount. And speaking of knockouts.
42:24
Speaker 1: We have talked about, you know, the violence associated with boxing.
42:28
Speaker 1: But the I A B A, the same association that
42:32
Speaker 1: wants to put these women in skirts. According to fifteen
42:35
Speaker 1: years of data, they have shown that women's Olympic style
42:38
Speaker 1: boxing is safer than men's and compared to other sports,
42:43
Speaker 1: women's boxing is incredibly safe. Yeah, and it has a
42:47
Speaker 1: very low rate of concussions and hand injuries and pretty
42:50
Speaker 1: much no rate at all of lower extremity injury. And
42:55
Speaker 1: not to mention that the female athlete has a more
42:57
Speaker 1: flexible neck, less shoulder and neck musculature and less upper
43:02
Speaker 1: body strength than the male athlete, which means she might
43:05
Speaker 1: not pack as hard of a punch, but she might
43:07
Speaker 1: take one a little bit better than the dudes. Um.
43:11
Speaker 1: And just to hammer home the point of the safety
43:15
Speaker 1: of women's boxing, according to study from Australia, it is
43:20
Speaker 1: much safer than pony riding, polo, touch football, even cricket
43:27
Speaker 1: and soccer. Okay, well there you go, but um, that's
43:32
Speaker 1: studied by the A I B. A. Actually pointed out
43:35
Speaker 1: that you know, and what we already know this that
43:37
Speaker 1: boxing is an excellent workout. That's why all those people
43:40
Speaker 1: are going to boxing gyms to try to get fit.
43:43
Speaker 1: For the average one forty pound woman, it burns nearly
43:46
Speaker 1: eight hundred calories per hour, compared with riding a stationary
43:50
Speaker 1: bike at six d and fifty calories per hour and
43:52
Speaker 1: jogging at nine hundred. But women are protected. They wear
43:57
Speaker 1: leather groin protector, they wear hard plastic cups and hearted
44:00
Speaker 1: into a sports bra, and they were depending on the
44:03
Speaker 1: weight that either were eight ounce gloves for women up
44:05
Speaker 1: two d forty pounds or ten ounce gloves for the
44:08
Speaker 1: heavier women. And of course amateurs wear headgear two So
44:10
Speaker 1: they're in a safe sport. They're getting fit and they're
44:13
Speaker 1: they're protecting themselves at the same time. But the one
44:16
Speaker 1: big restriction women out there who are thinking about boxing,
44:19
Speaker 1: if you are pregnant, you are not allowed to box.
44:22
Speaker 1: Although there was a pregnant curler in the last Olympics,
44:26
Speaker 1: but I guess you know curling is a pretty low
44:28
Speaker 1: intensity sport, low contact. Yeah. If I remember seeing there
44:34
Speaker 1: was it was like a big splashy headline like pregnant olympian,
44:37
Speaker 1: Oh she's curling. Nothing against curlers out there were pregnant
44:41
Speaker 1: women were pregnant curlers. We like all of these people,
44:44
Speaker 1: but pregnant boxers, now, that is just a risk that
44:47
Speaker 1: should not be taken. And now that we're four years
44:55
Speaker 1: in the future, we're we're in UM don't know. I
45:01
Speaker 1: how do you feel about pregnant women boxing four years
45:03
Speaker 1: down the road? I still I stand by what we said, UM,
45:09
Speaker 1: that that pregnant women boxing probably isn't a smart idea,
45:12
Speaker 1: although we have so many active listeners who do all
45:18
Speaker 1: sorts of incredible things. Um and if there's anyone listening
45:24
Speaker 1: who has been pregnant in box, or knows of a
45:27
Speaker 1: pregnant boxer, or knows that it's like fine to box
45:30
Speaker 1: while pregnant, I would love to hear from you. Yeah,
45:33
Speaker 1: this is something we don't know. Yeah, it just seems
45:35
Speaker 1: like it wouldn't be a good idea. You know, you
45:38
Speaker 1: avoid sushi, soft cheeses, and boxing rings, that's what that's
45:43
Speaker 1: what you do when you're pregnant, right, I think so
45:45
Speaker 1: obviously I've never been pregnant. Maybe if they just hit
45:48
Speaker 1: you in the face. Yeah, it's like eyes up here,
45:52
Speaker 1: eyes and gloves up here. You have like a really
45:56
Speaker 1: big you have to wear one of those um you know,
45:58
Speaker 1: those big puffy bouncy suits, but just around like your bailly,
46:03
Speaker 1: or you can just each for an inner tube. There
46:05
Speaker 1: you go. Yeah. Um, And I wish I could go
46:10
Speaker 1: back and tell you and me of two thousand twelve
46:13
Speaker 1: that Clarissa won the gold and that she's back, She's
46:17
Speaker 1: back in action. But it's almost like we're traveling back
46:20
Speaker 1: in time to tell our listeners that, yes, this is true,
46:24
Speaker 1: sort of something like that. I don't know how time works.
46:28
Speaker 1: I hear it's a circle, a flat circle. It is
46:32
Speaker 1: a flat circle, and Matthew McConaughey teach that to us. Yeah,
46:36
Speaker 1: that's that's what I learned. So are you going to
46:39
Speaker 1: be watching women's boxing? Yes? And the gymnastics with the ribbon?
46:44
Speaker 1: Oh yes, rhythmic gymnastic and I'll think of you. Ribbon
46:48
Speaker 1: ribbon is a duance. I like, that's going to be
46:51
Speaker 1: my version of that song. And that's what I'm going
46:52
Speaker 1: to sing as I'm watching the rhythmic gymnastics. Please Facebook
46:56
Speaker 1: live that when it happened. Listeners, Now we want to
47:00
Speaker 1: hear from you. Are you a fan of boxing? What
47:04
Speaker 1: do you think about the women's Olympic boxing that's been
47:08
Speaker 1: happening and the whole issue of them turning pro and
47:11
Speaker 1: just generally, are you excited about watching ladies in the Olympics.
47:18
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
47:20
Speaker 1: email address. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff
47:24
Speaker 1: podcast or messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple
47:27
Speaker 1: of messages to share with you when we come right
47:29
Speaker 1: back from a quick break. Your to do list can
47:33
Speaker 1: seem totally out of control some days, so much to
47:37
Speaker 1: do and so little time. But there's one thing that
47:40
Speaker 1: you can totally scratch off that to do list, and
47:42
Speaker 1: that is going to the post office. Thanks to stamps
47:46
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Speaker 1: for stamps dot com and use our promo code stuff
48:04
Speaker 1: for a special offer. It's a four week trial plus
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Speaker 1: digital scale. So don't wait. Go to stamp dot com
48:14
Speaker 1: before you do anything else. Click on the microphone at
48:17
Speaker 1: the top of the homepage and type in stuff that's
48:19
Speaker 1: stamps dot Com, Enter stuff and now back to the show. Well,
48:30
Speaker 1: I have a semi related letter from Kendall. She was
48:33
Speaker 1: responding to our Girls who Lift episode from a ways back.
48:39
Speaker 1: She says, thank you so so much for calling attention
48:41
Speaker 1: to this issue. I started lifting about two years ago,
48:44
Speaker 1: and it's been one of the best things I've done
48:46
Speaker 1: for my body. I've always been a small girl with
48:48
Speaker 1: a petite frame, so I was worried about bulking up
48:51
Speaker 1: and putting on a lot of size. And yes, ladies
48:54
Speaker 1: who have that fear, you might see that number of
48:56
Speaker 1: on the scale fluctuate up and down, but that's because
49:00
Speaker 1: muscles really do way more than fat. I did put
49:03
Speaker 1: on a little muscle bulk. I had to go up
49:05
Speaker 1: a size and pants, but I love my muscles and
49:07
Speaker 1: how crazy strong I am. For example, my boyfriend, who
49:11
Speaker 1: also lives and I have been through a few moves
49:13
Speaker 1: and we didn't need to hire a crew or even
49:15
Speaker 1: ask friends to help. We did it ourselves. Geez, Kendall,
49:19
Speaker 1: I should have called you when I moved a couple
49:21
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. My energy level is outrageous. It's helped
49:26
Speaker 1: with my insomnia, posture, and overall confidence. Cheeze, that sounds awesome. Okay.
49:32
Speaker 1: She goes on to say, there is still a great
49:34
Speaker 1: amount of misconception about lifting. Even my doctor made a
49:37
Speaker 1: comment that my weight was going up over the last
49:39
Speaker 1: few years, and that was after we discussed what I
49:42
Speaker 1: do for exercise. I reminded her that I lift weights,
49:46
Speaker 1: but she didn't back down from her comment. And I'm
49:48
Speaker 1: ashamed to admit I had a moment of not feeling
49:50
Speaker 1: so great about myself. But I also have days when
49:52
Speaker 1: someone tells me how muscular I look, and I feel
49:54
Speaker 1: like a superhero. The biggest problem I've had with lifting
49:58
Speaker 1: is the attitude I get from dudes at the gym.
50:01
Speaker 1: It takes some confidence to walk up to the weights,
50:04
Speaker 1: especially if you're being stared at. But worse than that
50:07
Speaker 1: is a bunch of dudes hogging the weight area. I
50:09
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times some guy has stolen
50:12
Speaker 1: the bench I'm standing near before I can use it,
50:15
Speaker 1: because surely a girl wouldn't be using that. It's infuriating.
50:19
Speaker 1: So I want to encourage all the lifting or soon
50:22
Speaker 1: to be lifting ladies out there to claim what's yours.
50:25
Speaker 1: She put that in italics. Don't let a bro dude
50:28
Speaker 1: bully you around because he thinks chicks don't lift. If
50:32
Speaker 1: someone takes something you're using, say something. And if they're
50:35
Speaker 1: hogging a rack or a bench, ask them if they're
50:37
Speaker 1: done because you want to use it. And no, you
50:41
Speaker 1: don't need their help. All right, Kendall, thanks for the advice. Well,
50:46
Speaker 1: I've got a let her hear from Caroline about our
50:49
Speaker 1: women Tattoos two parter, specifically correcting us on our misrepresentation
50:55
Speaker 1: of Cat Vonde and I will say, We've got a
50:58
Speaker 1: couple of letters about this. So Caroline helpfully informs us
51:04
Speaker 1: that while yes, Kat has gained a lot of popularity
51:07
Speaker 1: from her shows, but she is not just a pretty
51:10
Speaker 1: face on TV. Kat is widely regarded as one of
51:13
Speaker 1: the most skilled tattoosts in the business and is known
51:17
Speaker 1: for her extremely realistic portraits, for which many consider her
51:20
Speaker 1: the best in that field. Along with this, Kat opened
51:23
Speaker 1: up one of the most successful tattoo shops in the country,
51:26
Speaker 1: High Voltage Tattoo, which always has a long waiting lists
51:29
Speaker 1: of clients, and she often brings an artist from around
51:32
Speaker 1: the world to do month long work periods in order
51:34
Speaker 1: to expose the local community to the great tattoo is
51:37
Speaker 1: around the world. She's also used her fame for numerous
51:40
Speaker 1: social justice campaigns, most notably her fight for animal rights.
51:44
Speaker 1: There are few, if any female tattoost who have reached
51:47
Speaker 1: this level of success and recognition, and I'm really disappointed
51:51
Speaker 1: that you didn't give her the credit that she deserves
51:53
Speaker 1: her becoming a leading lady in a male dominated field.
51:57
Speaker 1: And she goes on to say, in response to your
51:59
Speaker 1: request for lady tattoo is suggestions for a bird tattoo.
52:03
Speaker 1: Not sure what specific style you're going for, but definitely
52:05
Speaker 1: keep Cat in mind if you want a realistic tattoo
52:08
Speaker 1: in black and white. Apparently she's one of the nicest
52:11
Speaker 1: people you'll ever meet and has on interviews while giving tattoos.
52:15
Speaker 1: What a great podcast that would make. Oh, Caroline, I
52:18
Speaker 1: absolutely agree and we stand corrected on Cat Bondie, although
52:24
Speaker 1: I do think we mentioned that she is super talented. Um,
52:28
Speaker 1: but yeah, we were were by no means we're experts
52:31
Speaker 1: on Cat Bondie. So thank you to Caroline and other
52:33
Speaker 1: listeners who have filled us in on what a rab
52:37
Speaker 1: lady she is and if you got rad ladies to
52:40
Speaker 1: tell us about her, just thoughts you want to send
52:42
Speaker 1: our way. Mom. Stuff at how stuff works dot com
52:46
Speaker 1: is our email address and for links to all of
52:48
Speaker 1: our social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
52:52
Speaker 1: and podcasts with our sources. So you can learn more
52:55
Speaker 1: about women's boxing, head on over to stuff mom Never
52:59
Speaker 1: Told You dot com. For more on this and thousands
53:05
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com