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

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told your protection by your heart radio. Samantha,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: did you have a field day when you were in school?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I did, and I hated it. Were you said, did
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: your school give me the option where you could sit
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: out and like in that dark room and watch school
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: health Rock. No, you had to compete. Did you get
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: like metals or trophies already? I think so. It was
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: weird too because the way they did the filled days
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: with the competitions, they had the gym teachers just pick
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and choose what you would do instead of you volunteering.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And I had a really good day where I was
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: playing with Frisbeesh and apparently I actually hit it on target,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: so they chose me to do that the whole like
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: almost like the ultimate level. And I sucked during competition,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: like it just went everywhere. But and I really didn't
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: want to do it. But because I had one good day,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the coaches baby do it ah well to anyone who
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't know, I don't. I'm not entirely sure how common
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a thing this is, but in the US, I feel
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: like it's pretty common. But it's like this day and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: for me it was elementary school and maybe middle school
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: as well. Middle school as well. Yeah, where you would
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: like have an entire day where you would just almost
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: kind of an Olympics style where they'd be running events
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and there'd be for me, water balloon of it, like
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: those tug of war like all kinds of things, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: you'd be on a team. And in my school, we
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: would make shirts every year and you would get like
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: trophies or medals at the end. And it's funny because
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I I was a very insecure, stressed out kid, but
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I was also extremely competitive, so I would it would
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be a day where I would feel miserable, but then
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: in the and I usually won and then I loved it.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: But until that I hated it, you know what I mean.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't win, so I was just miserable throughout because
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I was hot, sweaty. They made a stay outside. There
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: were so many bugs l J Georgia and you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: in the mountains and the woods, and I would just
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: get eaten up and I hated it. Yeah. I did. Uh.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Seventh grade, which is probably my least favorite school year
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I ever had. I skipped it. I didn't do it
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: because we we did have an option where you could
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: sit in a room and watch scholass I wish we
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: had that option, yeah, and I mean I had friends
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: for it was just this huge stresser because you were
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: performing these athletic things, and especially for young girls, and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: like all this attention to your body maybe that you
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: don't want that. It was just this miserable experience and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: we would try to find any way to get out
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of it. And it's supposed to be fun. I do
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: still have the medals, of course, you bring them and
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: show them off. So yes, as we are recording this,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this because one of my field
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: day shirts that I still have is from the Olympics.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Were in Atlanta and we did the Olympic rings and
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it says my name on the back and I can't
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: get rid of that shirt because I really like it. It
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It still fits. But yes, the Olympics are happening supposedly,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I mean we're recording this in early July, so something
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: could have happened. But and so we wanted to bring
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: back this classic episode because we're working on an episode
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: about women in the Olympics and it probably won't surprise
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: most of you, but it might surprise some of you.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: That women can't compete in all of the events, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: even as recently as twelve that was when um women
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: women's boxing first depute. So this is still like happening.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And of course there's been a long history with the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Olympics of keeping women not only out of them all together,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: but like slowly, Okay, you can do this event, Okay,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you can just this a bit. So we want to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: bring back this classic episode and we hope that you enjoy.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Stuff
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Christman. So back in two thousand nine,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Kristen the i o C, the International Olympic Committee, made
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the decision to add women's boxing to this year's London
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Summer Olympic Games. And before this it had been the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: only sport reserve for men. So now we're all equal.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: A story over kind of kind of well okay, yeah,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: not really. There actually is a debate raging currently about
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: women's boxing and basically, should women engage in a sport
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: whose main purpose is to inflict a damage on the
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: opponent and that we might even possibly knock them unconscious.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: That does not sound very ladylike Caroline, which it sure does,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and we might sweat. How what I know it shouldn't
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: be allowed. Well one one note though, one historical note.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Women have boxed at the Olympics before, one other time
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: at the nineteen o four St. Louis Games, which was
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the first time that the men's boxing debut at the Olympics,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: but women's boxing was relegated to a display event. Well
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: they were actually both display events, but after the display
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: event they were like, hey, men, come on and the women,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the women just just keeping the little sideshow act that
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: you are. Could you go make us some sandwiches? Exactly?
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: But it actually it has so much more history or
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: beyond uh, nineteen o four. Back in the seventeen twenties,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the first staged women's prize fights took place. This was
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: in in England, and in addition to punching and kicking,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: women could mall and scratch their opponents, so it was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: more like just like a cat fight in the ring
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and stuff of true boxing. And then female prize fighting
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: happened in eighteenth and nineteenth century European fairgrounds and an
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: exhibition halls. But then in the nineteenth century also people
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: started clamping down on the sport they were very uncomfortable
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: was staying two women in the ring. And for that
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: reason it was prohibited in many US states and in Europe,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and it was officially banned in Britain, for instance, in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty. But that didn't hold back Barbara Buttrick, a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Yorkshire born fighter who was one of the those early renegades.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: And let's not forget in eighteen seventy six, Nel Saunders
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and Rose Harland got in the ring and duked it
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: out over a silver butter dish because you know what
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a women need with a coppera medal um and what
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: is considered the first women's match in the US. So
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: they probably maybe inspired ms Buttrick. Yeah, Because then in
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the late fifties and nine seven to be precise, Barbara
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: became the first female boxing license holder UM and she
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: was in Dallas, Texas, and she fought the second female
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: boxing license holder, Phyllis Coogler, for the first women's World championship.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: And I think it's worth pointing out that that Barbara
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: was just ninety eight pounds and four ft eleven. She's
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: a little step fire tiny. Yeah. So then fast forward
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to and women's amateur boxing is finally integrated into the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: rules of the US amateur boxing program, and then is
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a pretty huge year for women's boxing because of a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: bout between Christie Martin and dear Dreg Gogerdy and Christie
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Martin one and she became the face of women's boxing
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and actually made it onto the cover of Sports Illustrated,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: thus marking the birth of modern professional women's boxing in
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the US. But the funny thing is, if you go
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: back and read that Sports Illustrated story interviewing Martin, she
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: could not give a hoot about women's boxing. She liked boxing,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: but women, no, no, no, she says, I'm not out
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to make a statement about women in boxing or even
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: women in sports. I'm not trying to put women in
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the forefront. And I don't even think this fascination with
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: women in the ring has much to do with that.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: This is about Christine Martin. Well, I mean, yeah, quite
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: a quite a fighting spirit there, um, But the whole
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: profile of her just hammers home the thing of oh, yeah,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: she's she's a boxer, so in that way in the ring,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: she's you know, knocking out all these stereotypes, but at
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: home she's married to her coach, and she really likes
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to cook him dinner. For instance, include this quote from
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: her saying, if my house is on fire, I want
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Mike Tyson carrying me out, not Christie Martin. So well,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: so big, first four professional women's boxing, but Christy Martin
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: could care less. And then in we have the first
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: European Cup for women's boxing in the first World Championship
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: for women is held not too long ago, just in
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: two thousand one. Yeah, and speaking of there was this
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: New York Times article talking about how the trend in
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: women's boxing wasn't so much that all these women were
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: coming coming out of the woodwork to compete and go
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: pro is that they were all coming to Jim's to
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: get into shape. Right, But through this whole exercise trend,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: actually a lot of the women who went into exercise
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: came out champions um and that. In that same New
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: York Times article, they interviewed one of the coaches who
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: pointed out some gender differences among some boxers. Uh. He
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: told the Times that women are easier to train than
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: men because they are more relaxed and not as macho.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: But then he goes on to point out how women
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: boxers do have more fragile psyches. Quote, you can't scream
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: at them like you would with a man, even though
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes I really want to. Those trouble making women. Um.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: One of the women who went into a gym this
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: was I believe in in New York Long Island Baby
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: was Kathy Collins, who is originally from Georgia. She dropped
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: a hundred one pounds in the course of her very
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: strict exercise regiment and then turned pro. She won the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: first women's pro boxing match ever held in Madison Square
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Garden and her fights have been on pay per view
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and ESPN and USA networks, and she she loves the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: sport and she said that it really gives you a
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: sense of strength and a greater sense of self. But
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: here's here's the latest controversy that has come up. Because
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: we'll get back to the Olympic stuff in a second.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: But November two thousand and eleven, we've just been we've
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: been so liperaturely making these strides, getting more women in
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the ring, toughening up, going into those those all male gyms,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: not given a hoot, no hoots given, no hoots given.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And then in November of last year, the Amateur International
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Boxing Association, this brilliant idea that female boxers should put
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: on skirts? Why not? They're women, right, they should be
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: wearing skirts. Maybe they should be barefoot in the ring too. Well.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Their argument was, how else are you going to be
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: able to tell if you if you flip on a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: on a boxing match, how else can you tell if
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it's a woman up there? But a question that that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I had, and when I first I said out why
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I said it out loud when I read this, and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: actually a bunch of people commenting on the articles about
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: this topic said the same thing. Why is it so
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: important to distinguish female boxers from mail boxers when you're
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: watching it on TV, or whether you know, even if
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: you're a spectator in the arena? Is it not just
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: about the boxing? And so all these issues come up
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: about discomfort with the lack of gender division or obvious
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: gender division UM, discomfort with women entering a traditionally male
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: dominated sport. Following this, this announcement, the skirt fiasco UM
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the they held the European Championships in Rotterdam and only
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: two nations, Poland and Romania, decided to have their boxers
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: wear the skirts in the ring um and the Polish
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: coach told the BBC. By wearing skirts, in my opinion,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: it gives a good impression, a womanly impression. Wearing shorts
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: is not a good way for women boxers to dress.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: So much ridiculous there in that statement, right, and then
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: um on the heels of all these complaints, not only
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: from female boxers who are like, what, I'm not going
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to wear a mini skirt and also outrage from the public,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the president of the Amateur International Boxing Association Association said,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: after we hear about its comfort and how easy it
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: is to compete in the uniform, it may be compulsory.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: So he's he's trying to argue that skirts are just
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: an easy, breezy kind of thing that you could just
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: toss on and go just hop into the ring, no
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: need for sure. It sounds like a makeup ad um. Yeah,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: well and a B A or excuse me, a I B.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: A spokesman recently came out and said that, oh, well,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: we never we never intended to make the mandatory. After
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: the President had said that they could become compulsory depending
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: on people's reactions to them, and on February thirteenth of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: this year, boxer Tyresha Douglas was quoted by Sports Illustrated
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: as saying, we're women and women should be wearing a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: woman's uniform. I mean, women can wear shorts, but it's boxing.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: We need to look more feminine under the headgear. You
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's a man or a woman. If
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: we don't have boobs, we're women and we need to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: let people know we're women because you can't tell. But
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: not surprisingly, Tyresia was very much in the minority. There
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: have not only been some amateur boxers who have headed
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: up a change dot org petition to get the Amateur
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: International Boxing Association to abandon this skirt plan and UM
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: others have just spoken out in the press against it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Because this decision UM has followed quickly on the heels
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of the trials for the Olympics. So there's been all
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of this focus on women's boxing lately, and the skirt
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: issue keeps coming up, and so far, Torisia Douglas is
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the only person I've heard who is really outright in favor.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I found well world champion fighter Mary Calm. She's from India.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: She compared female fighters to female competitors in sports like tennis,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and wear gender specific uniforms. But I mean, I think
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: it's stupid and tennis, you know why. I mean, why
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: should a female athlete have to wear a skirt? Why
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: can't she just wear what is comfortable or what her
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: coach wants her to? You know what, did it matter?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: It just seems with something like boxing too, skirts just don't.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It's clearly a thing to feminize these athletes, and it's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: not it's not that necessary. For instance, Jara Hodge over
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: at jen Her Focus put it very well when she said, um,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the attitude is clearly persisting today. This idea of um
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a team of foxes and not oxes, which was a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: quote from the nineteen sixty U S women's track coach
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Um and they. She says that it's clearly persisting today
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: as many female professional athletes report feeling pressured to act
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and look feminine outside of sport in order to compensate
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: for their masculine strength. And what better segue than into
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the gender dynamics of boxing, because, according to some sports scholars,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: boxing is the ultimate egalitarian sport if you're a guy,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: because once you get up in the ring, it doesn't
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: matter your class, your race, all your weight, and size
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: obviously will will play a role. But once you're in
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the ring, all all of that goes away, and you
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: have one opponent and one mission and that is to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: take him down. But when you toss a woman in there,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: everything goes topsy turvy. Right. Um. Some researchers went to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: an Australian boxing gym and talked to not to a
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: bunch of people, but really focused on interviews with three
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: men and three women at this gym. And this was
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a study in qualitative sociology from fall two thousand four
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: called Suffragettes and Satin Shorts, Gender and competitive Boxing, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: it was interesting. They pointed out that competitive boxing can
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: be studied productively as a paradoxical gender regime that simultaneously
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: enables and constrains how women quote unquote do gender. Um.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: There was one scholar that they quoted um as saying
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: raw aggression is thought to be the province of men,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: as nurturing is the peculiar province of women. The female
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: boxer violates the stereotype and cannot be taken seriously. She
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: has parody, she has cartooned, she is monstrous. Yeah. One
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: guy the researcher talked to said boxing isn't a female sport.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Women are feminine. It's in the society. It's probably not right.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: They've got breasts that are going to get whacked. Although
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: they have done research on whether or not female boxing
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: endangers are breasts, specifically whether or not it could um
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: uh cause breast cancer down the road. No risk, Your
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: breasts are safe. Ye, boxing is pretty it's a pretty
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: safe sport. But the very fact that that safety issue
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: is one of the first things that people bring up
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: when they talk about women's boxing as opposed to men's boxing,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: which we have you know, just accepted as yes, a
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: little bit more more violent and aggressive sport, but it's not,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not something that is on the forefront
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of our minds, it seems like. And that's one of
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the reasons why these uh, this gender issue with boxing
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: is is really fascinating because people are so uncomfortable with
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the idea of women punching at each other, right, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: some of the guys in the gym that these researchers
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: meant to we're just that they were they were totally
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable with women who came into the gym on a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: regular basis. It's one thing if maybe you bring your
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: your steady girlfriend or your wife in there, somebody who's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: not going to try to distract you with her her
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: feminine wiles. But yeah, for the most part, women in
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: these boxing gyms were considered to be distracting or weakening
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: to men. Well, and I think that this is um
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons why this Olympic Women's boxing landmark
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: is is such a good thing, not just because it's
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: opening up that final sport to women, but because a
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: lot of the coverage that I've seen of the boxing trials,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: which are now over, has been really positive. You know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it's really painting these these women as athletes is really
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: strong and diverse and compelling, not terrifying and monstrous and
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: parodies of themselves. Yeah, exactly, they're just strong athletes. Well,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: with that said, should we look at who the winners
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of the boxing trials are absolutely absolutely starting off with
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Marlon Esparza. She's the flyweight. She actually had to gain
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: six pounds to fit into to fit her small frame
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: into the really strict weight classes that the Olympic Committee approved,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: so they only approved weight three weight class divisions for
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a hundred and twelve pounds one thirty two and one
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: sixty five, which has actually caused a lot of concern
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: about women either gaining too much, losing too much, or
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: dropping out. A Sparza, like I said, gained six pounds
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and she postponed college because she had her sight set
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: on the Olympics. And coincidentally, her last bout happened to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: be against Tyresha Douglas, who we mentioned earlier, who was
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: pro skirts pro skirt just just thrown out well. In
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the lightweight division, we have Queen Underwood, who was a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: favorite going into the trials, and then there's also Clarissa
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Shields who is the middle weight Caroline Clarissa Shields is
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: sixteen years old. That's amazing. Yeah, she's a high school
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: junior from Flint, Michigan who started boxing at the age
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of eleven to make her imprisoned father proud. Yeah. There
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: is a really touching NPR story about UM about Shields
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and her her boxing journey. You want to give it
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: a lesson, um, But the thing is, the journey does
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: not stop for these three women. Even though they made
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: it through the trials, they now have to go on
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to the World Championships in China where they have to
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: finish in the top eight of their weight category in
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: order to qualify for the full Olympic event in London.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: So three women to pull for. And you pointed out
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that they, you know, the IOC boiled it down to
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the three weight classes for men's boxing. They've got ten. Yeah. Uh.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And coach Christie Halbert said that about three thousand women
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: register as amateur boxers in the US in ten weight classes,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and she said that keeps the sports safe and to
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: make it fair, to celebrate the diversity of the human body.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And so the Amateur International Boxing Association is actually lobbying
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the IOC to get more women into the Olympics. There's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: also one quote from Queen Underwood's coach, Bashir Abdullah that
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I wanted to point out because it fits so nicely
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: in our conversation about gender and boxing, because initially he
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: was very uncomfortable with the idea of coaching a female boxer,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: which kind of reminds me of Clint Eastwood a million
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: dollar baby um and he said, I didn't want to
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: see women in this sport, which was based on his
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: religious beliefs, but he also wanted to keep his job
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: as a boxing coach with the U s Army, so
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: he adapted when the Army's World Class Athlete program accepted women,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and he was very glad that he did. And he
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: told n PR there are great athletes in this women's sport.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: They're more focused, they're coachable, they're more determined, and they're
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: more disciplined than mail boxers, right, which echoes what trainer
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Tom malloy said that you mentioned earlier that women are
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: better at learning how to box, I guess, although malloy
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: did follow it up with how we might cry if
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you if you yelled at too hard. Fragile. We're fragile,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: fragile people. Well, somebody else talking about Queen Hunderwood that
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I like this quote US boxing coaches that Joe Zanders
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: was talking about her and said, Queen can hurt you.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Queen is a killer. She has a nice doll like smile,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: but you can't take that seriously because she has some
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: dog in her and she will get after you. It's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: great embodying, you know both ends of those. Uh, that
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that gender dichotomy that everybody harps on so often. You know,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Queen Underwood, man, she's not gonna mount. And speaking of knockouts,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: we have talked about you know the violence associated with boxing.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: But the I A b A, the same association that
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: wants to put these women in skirts. According to fifteen
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: years of data, they have shown that women's Olympic style
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: boxing is safer than men's and compared to other sports,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: women's boxing is incredibly safe. Yeah, and it has a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: very low rate of concussions and hand injuries and pretty
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: much o rate at all of lower extremity injury. And
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: not to mention that the female athlete has a more
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: flexible neck, less shoulder and neck musculature and less upper
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: body strength than the male athlete, which means she might
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: not pack as hard of a punch, but she might
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: take one a little bit better than the dudes. Um.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And just to hammer home the point of the safety
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of women's boxing, according to study from Australia, it is
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: much safer than pony riding, polo, touch football, even cricket
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and soccer. Okay, well there you go, but um, that's
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: study by the A I B A actually pointed out
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that you know, and what we already know this that
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: boxing is an excellent workout. That's why all those people
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: are going to boxing gyms to try to get fit
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: for the average one forty pound woman, it burns nearly
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: eight hundred calories per hour, compared with riding a stationary
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: bike at six hundred and fifty calories per hour and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: jogging at nine hundred. But women are protected. They wear
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: leather groin protector, they wear hard plastic cups inserted into
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: a sports bra, and they wear depending on the weight,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: they either were eight ounce gloves for women up two
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: hundred forty pounds or ten ounce gloves for the heavier women.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And of course amateurs wear headgear two. So they're in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a safe sport. They're getting fit and they're they're protecting
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: themselves at the same time. But the one big restriction
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: women out there who are thinking about boxing, if you
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: are pregnant, you are not allowed to box. Although there
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: was a pregnant curler in the last Olympics, but I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: guess you know, curling is a pretty low intensity sport,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: low contact sport. Yeah, if I remember seeing there was
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: it was like a big splashy headline like pregnant olympian,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Oh she's curling. Nothing against curlers out there, or pregnant
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: women or pregnant curlers. We like all of these people.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: But pregnant boxers. Now that is just a risk that
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: should not be taken, right. Um, So yeah, three some
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: athletes to keep an ear out for. As the Olympic
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: trials continue to China for those World championships, I really
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: hope that they will place so that we can see
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: them in London this summer. So let's hear from any
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of our listeners who do box, male or female, but
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you know, mostly female. I want to hear if you
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: got involved in the sport because you want to fight,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: or if you want to get in shape, or if
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it was intimidating walking into that boxing gym. Right, Did
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you have to deal with a lot of angry stairs
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: from men who you were clearly distracting. Did you have
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a Clint Eastwood like coach to help you along the way. Yeah,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: someone surly who came to love you. Let us know
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: all of these things. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot Com
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is the email address, and I have a letter here
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: from Justina in response to our episode about gendered toys
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: and those pink legos that are causing such a curfuffle.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: She writes, I have no problem with petitions and putting
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: pressure on companies to not over to the gender thing.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: But I believe the key to successfully mixing it up
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: with toys is parenting and what you model at home.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: My husband and I have one daughter and one son,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and when they were little, we had toys from all
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: over the gender spectrum for them to play with. But
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: it's not enough to simply place your kid in a
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: room full of toys. You as the parent, need to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: spend some time playing with him or her. And if
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: your little girl is building a Lego house with her mom,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: she is learning that women can build and even better.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Our kids saw and still see mom repairing electronics, doing
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: computer setup for the home network, and also cooking and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: doing embroidery. Their dad also cooks and cleans and is
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to go to math and physics tutor. Mom takes care
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of chemistry, social studies, and English essay critiques. So thank you, Justina,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and I have a correction here from Julie, And this
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: is actually a correction we've received from several people on
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: our Facebook wall, so it's good too. It's good to
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: point this out. Um. She said that I listened to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the Tattoo podcast recently and realized that you said in
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the Bible Rebecca was married to Abraham. In fact, she
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: was his daughter in law Mary to his son Isaac.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: So thank you. I'm glad we could finally lay that
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to rest. Yes. Um, So, if you have any boxing stories,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: random thoughts, corrections, anything at all you'd like to send
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: our way, you can get in touch with those myriad ways.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is our email address.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook and follow us on
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and you can see what
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: we're doing during the week on our home website, how
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Be sure to check out our
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow. The house Stuff Works iPhone app has
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: a ride Dewnload it today on iTunes, brought to you
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: you