Since the entry of mankind into patriarchal society, no matter which civilization has given the task of fighting and hand-to-hand combat to men. Women are to be classified as "women and children" representing the weak, and to be engaged in production in a safe rear.
But in the industrial age, when materials were abundant, women's productive forces were completely liberated. They were able to take a break from household chores and participate in many traditionally male fields of work, such as war, politics, science, science and engineering. Over the past hundred years, outstanding women from all walks of life have used their achievements to break the feudal thinking of "male lead and female lead" for thousands of years.
Among them is martial arts, a sport once thought to be impossible for women to participate in.
Martial arts is a representative sport of competitive sports confrontation, technical tactics, and physical and mental games. Compared with the indirect confrontation of ball sports, martial arts has faded the shackles of civilization and used the direct body of fists to the flesh to confront the animal nature that liberates human beings.
As a result, combat sports have been reluctant to accept women for thousands of years because they are so far removed from the "effeminate" qualities they represent.
But today, we find that even in the most brutal fighting arena, the appearance rate of women is still rising, and they have successively achieved and broken many honors and standards monopolized by men, and won great respect from society.
Zhang Weili is the first Asian person to win the UFC women's strawweight world title
The difference in innate physiological structure causes women to pay a great price for participating in combat sports, which is to some extent against the sky. But then again, what cause of mankind is not the result of going against the sky? It can be said that the development of human civilization so far is the comprehensive result of many moves against the sky.
Female "boxing" activist
Boxing is one of the oldest combat sports of mankind, dating back 5,000 years.
The earliest sports of boxing were very violent. For example, the rule of Greek boxing is that two naked men sit face to face and use leather as a boxing cover. Fight each other until one side falls, and life and death do not count. The ancient Romans, on the other hand, installed fingers or spikes on fists, and the winner's reward was to be alive. This led to the abolition of boxing in 393 AD, as it was too barbaric even from the eyes of the ancients.
Historians believe that women have bravely walked into the ring since the birth of boxing. It's just that for a long time, they have not received any recognition and record. Of course, it's fair to say that in an era without cell phones, male boxers also didn't have much record.
The Boxing of Minoan Youth, a Greek fresco of Knossos from 1500 BC
Fast forward to 16th-century London, and under the influence of the Renaissance, the English aristocracy began to find and restore some ancient knowledge and traditions from the dusty books, and brought the ancient art of boxing back to the table. The earliest boxing still maintained the ancient style of curiosity, and the aristocracy liked to invest in boxer matches and bet on pastimes.
At that time, there were two definitions of women in British society: lady and non-lady. The former is a woman with "three from four virtues" in the conventional sense, and the latter's less euphemistic terms are slut, madman, and son X.
The social stereotypes of "non-ladies" are unimaginable to us today.
Even as British society tried hard to ignore and suppress the endless stream of female boxers, a woman named Elizabeth Wilkinson left her name in the history books.
She publicly advertised her match with another female boxer in 1722 and asked each other to hold a coin of half a crown in their hands so that the boxing would not turn into a nine-yin white bone claw. Women at the time always played combat bare-chested, but Wilkinson required fighters to wear shirts in matches to prove that they were not trying to please curiosity, but serious competitive confrontation.
We don't know much about the other rules of boxing at the time, but what we do know is that Wilkinson allowed boxers to use daggers, daggers, and sticks, and she herself was a skilled user of these weapons. It is conceivable that boxing at that time was not completely divorced from the tendency of the classical era to play with life.
Wilkinson claims he has not suffered a single defeat in his six-year boxing career. Although there are no exact records of the competition, judging by the "London Champion", "European Champion" and "Britania's most puissant Heroine" (Britain's most puissant Heroine), she did have a good record.
The basic principle is that two people go in and one person goes out
But judging from the long course of history, Wilkinson is a special case. After her, the "European women's boxing scene" fell silent. During the Victorian era, gender norms against women in British society were at their peak, and women's boxing was seen as "extremely deviant, barbaric and immoral."
However, with the further improvement of men's boxing rules, women's boxing has also eliminated more barbaric rules in due course, enhancing the competitive and sportsmanship of boxing. The progress of the times and the efforts of female boxers finally led to the first regular women's boxing match in the United States in 1876.
In 1904, women's boxing entered the public eye for the first time through an exhibition competition at the St. Louis Olympics.
But strangely, in the United Kingdom, the birthplace of women's boxing, the sport has struggled. Coinciding with the British evangelical Christian movement, conservative trends swept across the island, and female boxers were stigmatized as "acrobatics" or "strippers" to "please the old ghost".
The British mayor, who opposed the boxing tournament in 1926, said: "The woman boxing was proposed by a group of vulgar men who satisfy the curious senses. And the Home Secretary, Sir Hicks, declared that "such a shameful performance on the mainland will never be allowed".
It wasn't until 1997 that Britain reluctantly approved the first women's boxing bout, and the result was mixed up by the media.
Britain suppresses women's boxing extremely hard, and the Iron Ladies in Britain just don't love red clothes and love arms.
In the mid-20th century, a British female typing stenographer named Barbara Buttrick happened to see the story of a female boxer in the newspaper and felt "nerve-wrenching." She bought boxing gloves and a boxing guide, and played sandbags, sparring and skipping rope with her trainer every night.
After a small success, she first wandered the English countryside and invited each fierce man to practice. But playing amateur was boring, so she went to France to play and went to the United States in 1952 to compete in official competitions. There, Barbara, who is one meter five tall and weighs 90 pounds, won eight fights and won the American women's boxing bantamweight championship.
Five years later, she went to Dallas to defeat legendary American female boxer Phyllis Coogler to win the Flyweight Women's Boxing World Championship with a 17-1 record. Barbara dominated the world women's boxing scene for 10 years in the 40s, and no one was shaken. With a career record of 30 wins, 1 loss, and 1 draw, she is known as the pioneer of modern women's professional boxing.
Allsport Hulton/Archive/Getty Images, Barbara training at the Mayfair Arena, London, February 4, 1949
Although women's boxing has frequently entered the public eye with the efforts of many legendary fighters, it has not shaken off the hat of "niche and curious". However, in order to be recognized by society and the government, American female boxers did not pretend to be pitiful and miserable, nor did they incite the masses to protest on the streets, nor did they play moral kidnapping or identity politics as women.
They just silently shed more sweat and blood, in this real world, speaking with strength.
Endure scabbed and torn wounds, endure painful and boring training, respect the rules like male boxers, and play seriously. Day after day, year after year. Finally, in the late 70s, he obtained a boxing license from the state government and became a legally recognized professional boxer. Since then, U.S. states and many European countries have issued licenses for female boxers.
In 1993, the United States Boxing Association officially recognized female boxers as members and established rules and regulations.
Tyger Trimiar was one of the first women in New York State to earn a boxing license
Fast forward to 1996, and three of the many events of the year are worth mentioning: I was born, the American Boxing Association registered female boxers reached 340, and one of the best fights in the history of modern women's professional boxing, the Lightweight Women's Boxing World Championship at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, which went down in history!
The fight was supposed to be just a "warm-up match", as the real protagonists of the night were Mike Tyson and Frank Bruno, the "King of Fighters of the Generation". Before the two fierce men faced off, boxing gold agent Don King was interested in tapping Irish woman Deirdley Gogatti. She has been called "the best female boxer since Eve picked apples from a tree".
Gogarty's opponent is U.S. women's lightweight champion Christy Martin.
The race began with a dizzy smell of cigarettes, beer and grilled meat. But after only 10 seconds, the greasy rough man in the audience realized that this was not a drinking performance. No more rude jokes or loud cajoling, only shutters and bursts of amazement remained in the air.
Because they saw fierce boxing, swift footwork and tenacious fighting spirit.
The two big girls hardly hugged and tried too much, and their tactics were heavy punches. Heavy hooks and jabs all greeted the face and the weakness. Gogarty smashed a torrential fist on Christie in the first round, hitting at least four punches straight into the face. Not to be outdone, Gogarty suffered a blow to the jaw.
The two played a full six rounds. Christie's nosebleed stained her blouse red and won the respect of the audience. In the end, Gogarti lost the game because of the lesser score. When she was lonely, she did not know that the game had achieved an unprecedented 1 million simultaneous views and a cumulative total of 30 million subscribers.
The competition overtook Tyson and made the front page headlines of many newspapers around the world.
Eight months later, the British Boxing Association voted in favor of lifting the 116-year-long ban on women's boxing. Since then, commercial women's boxing has been operating globally and has become an Olympic sport.
Christy Martin, the winner of the '96 Battle of the Century, won 9-1 in succession, and finally retired in 2005 with a record of 49-7 and 3 draws, and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. But then something happened that cast a shadow over the life of the legendary female boxer.
Christie's husband and coach Jim had a long-standing feud with her, and during an argument in late 2010, Jim stabbed his unsuspecting wife three times in the chest, punctured her calf, and finally hit Christie in the chest with a 9mm pistol.
The female boxing king's blood was splattered on her trophy.
But Christie survived. Her husband was sentenced to 25 years in prison for felonies including attempted first-degree murder, essentially to death. Perhaps because of the boxer's professionalism, Christie quickly picked himself up and ran the business, and later married another boxer, and he still loves him.
Still, the tragic attempted murder hangs over women like a dark cloud and poses a poignant question to us:
Are even experienced female martial artists powerless to deal with sudden dangers in reality?
Open guns are easy to dodge
While martial artists are often far more reflexive, powerful, and explosive than ordinary people, their experience is hardly effective in a surprise attack, because the attacker doesn't make an appointment with you in advance, and usually (definitely) uses a variety of weapons, from slabs to knives, whether you are sick or recuperating.
And most importantly, you have a bottom line, and the thugs don't.
In the moment of the attack, you will be many scrupulous, worried a lot, and the thug has only one thought in his mind: "Kill you". To do this, they will stop at nothing and stop at nothing. Even if you are physically in the same condition as the other party, you will fall into the downwind due to scruples about the bottom line.
In this regard, men and women are alike. Even UFC signatories, or masters in various fields, have a hard time dodging deadly dark arrows.
The effect of women using anti-wolf spray or electric shock devices is not as optimistic as advertised. Spray weapons can easily injure themselves, while electric shockers need to be used at very close range and are very likely to be snatched and countered. And a folding knife in the hands of a thug can cancel out your years of fighting experience.
This is not counting many women who do not have any sudden experience, whether they can remain calm when encountering emergencies, and whether they can restrain fear and pressure to seek counterattacks. Hard.
But on the other hand, as long as you are not in a remote place, in theory, there will always be people who act bravely to save you from danger. But this leads to an even sadder reality: today, the cost of acting bravely is clearly far beyond the acceptance of most ordinary people. The legal, policing and ethical issues derived from it are the heaviest shackles on the head of every "hero".
Even though the boxing octagonal cage is cruel, there is always a referee to block the fatal blow for you.
But in supposedly calm reality, justice is always late or absent.