Exploring the construction and subversion of gender within contemporary combat sports spaces

This project explores various interconnecting phenomena within the social world of martial arts and combat sports, with a view to understanding the significance these activities hold for contemporary patterns of gender. While pervasive cultural interpretations of fighting-based practices tend to construct them as the preserve of certain men, or as sites where ideals of masculinity are played out, this project specifically explores the ways in which both men’s and women’s participation within, and the mediated representation of, martial arts and combat sports stand to disrupt such orthodox assumptions.

Project timeframe

Project began in January 2012 and is ongoing at present.

Project aims

The project aims to

  • develop nuanced theoretical accounts of the manner in which we can understand contemporary patterns of gender in combat sports
  • investigate how disruptions to typical gendered norms within such settings can take place, while theorising around their wider, social implications
  • explore strategies for realising such possibilities in practice.

Project findings and impact

Empirical research in various training sites and with different groups of practitioners, as well as two studies of media representation, have revealed various possibilities within these spaces for challenging orthodox gender patterns, and thus impacting on the various social hierarchies built around sex, gender and sexuality.

However, such possibilities are never guaranteed, as the nature of practice and the discourses framing participants’ engagement mediate these outcomes significantly. Indeed, a key element of our work has been to situate such possibilities for undoing gender within nuanced appreciations of the often robust nature of traditional discursive representations of womanhood and manhood.

The project’s findings to date thus point to the importance of recognising the specific characteristics of training environments and representational frames which allow for the generation of gender-subversive discourse within and through martial arts and combat sports. Attempting to harness their potential for advocating and effecting anti-sexist social transformation, we have made recommendations to that end for practitioners within our publications and other dissemination activities.

On a related theme, we have recently begun a separate project seeking to advocate anti-violence messages within combat sports spaces, drawing on insights generated through this work in order to illuminate issues surrounding gender-based violence specifically.

Research team

Dr Alex Channon

Dr Christopher Matthews

Output

Publications

Jakubowska, H., Channon, A. and Matthews, C.R. (in press) Gender, media and mixed martial arts in Poland: The case of Joanna Jędrzejczyk. Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

Channon, A. (2015) Ronda Rousey and mixed(-sex) martial arts. The Allrounder. Online at: http://theallrounder.co/2015/04/09/ronda-rousey-and-mixed-sex-martial-arts/

Matthews, C.R. (2015) The tyranny of the male preserve. Gender & Society, Online First, doi: 10.1177/0891243215620557

Channon, A. and Matthews, C.R. (eds.) (2015) Global Perspectives on Women in Combat Sports: Women Warriors around the World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Channon, A. and Matthews, C.R. (2015) ‘It is what it is’: Masculinity, homosexuality and inclusive discourse in mixed martial arts. Journal of Homosexuality, 62(7), 936-956.

Channon, A. (2014) Towards the ‘undoing’ of gender in mixed-sex martial arts and combat sports. Societies, 4(4), 587-605.

Matthews, C.R. (2014) Biology ideology and pastiche hegemony. Men and Masculinities, 17(2), 99-119.

Channon, A. (2013) ‘Do you hit girls?’ Some striking moments in the career of a male martial artist. In R. Sánchez García and D.C. Spencer (eds.) Fighting Scholars: Habitus and Ethnographies of Martial Arts and Combat Sports, London: Anthem, pp.95-110.

Channon, A. and Jennings, G. (2013) The rules of engagement: Negotiating painful and ‘intimate’ touch in mixed-sex martial arts. Sociology of Sport Journal, 30(4), 487-503.

Channon, A. (2012) Western men and Eastern arts: The significance of Eastern martial arts disciplines in British men’s narratives of masculinity. Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science, 1(2-3), 1-17.

Conference streams and seminars

Martial Arts Studies: Gender Issues in Theory and Practice, University of Brighton, 5 Feb 2016 – conference report; plenary session report

Women’s Martial Arts: Contemporary Gender Analyses – two parallel streams at Martial Arts Studies Conference 2015, Cardiff University, 11-12 June 2015

Gender, Sex Integration, and the Combat Sport Experience – parallel stream at Sporting Females: Past, Present and Future, Leeds Metropolitan University, 4 Sept 2014

Contemporary Combat Sports – two parallel streams at 7th Meeting of the Transnational Working Group for the Study of Gender and Sport, University of Gothenburg, 13-14 Dec 2013

Conference presentations and invited talks

Matthews, C.R. (2016) Theorising exclusive spaces and considering policy. Public Policy Exchange Event, London, 9 Feb.

Matthews, C.R. and Senior, P. (2016) Understanding contemporary exclusion and practicing inclusion. Martial Arts Studies: Gender Issues in Theory and Practice, University of Brighton, 5 Feb.

Channon, A. (2015) Hit me! Gendered problems in mixed-sex martial arts training. Invited talk, University of East Anglia, 16 Dec.

Channon, A. and Matthews, C.R. (2015) Subverting gender through combat sports: Sketching the limits of optimism. Martial Arts Studies Conference 2015, Cardiff University, 11 June.

Maclean, C. and Channon, A. (2014) To hit, or not to hit? Female and male practitioner-researcher perspectives on sex-integrated martial arts. Sporting Females: Past, Present and Future, Leeds Metropolitan University, 4 Sept.

Channon, A. and Phipps, C. (2014) Pink gloves and black eyes: Constructions of femininity among British female kickboxers. British Sociological Association Annual Conference, University of Leeds, 25 April.

Matthews, C.R. and Channon, A. (2014) ‘Women warriors’, inclusive ‘violence’ and power in ‘pastiche’: Combat sport and theorising gender. European Association for the Sociology of Sport Conference, Utrecht University, 8 May.

Matthews, C.R. (2013) Boxing, biology and pastiche hegemony. 7th Meeting of the Transnational Working Group for the Study of Gender and Sport, University of Gothenburg, 13 Dec.

Channon, A. and Matthews, C.R. (2013) Inclusive masculinity in an ‘orthodox’ setting: Mixed martial arts, homosexuality, and discourses of inclusion. British Sociological Association Annual Conference, Grand Connaught Rooms, London, 2 April.

Partners

Martial Arts Studies Research Network