A Good Fight: How Indigenous Women Approach Boxing as a Mechanism for Social Change

Abstract

This article examines the experiences of select Indigenous female boxers from Canada and the United States to explore and appreciate the diverse meanings they attach to amateur and professional boxing and to write these athletes into history by constructing short case studies of fighters active from the 1970s through the 2010s. We augment each fighter’s story with context from scholarly and secondary source materials, such as newspapers, to round out each woman’s story and to illustrate the multiple overlapping conditions that shaped their boxing experiences. We embrace the work of van Ingen on the importance of understanding female boxers at the intersection of race and gender. In doing so, our work emphasizes the ideological foundations embedded in narratives, so that each narrative presents a certain point of view that results in real practical effects, whether it be supporting White liberal feminism or Indigenous self-determination. Following van Ingen, this article views all writing, whether by journalists or professional historians, as ideological acts, capable of exalting select athletes while marginalizing others.

Experiencias de mujeres estudiantes en educación física: una revisión sistemática 2002-2022 (Experiences of female students in physical education: a systematic review 2002-2022)

“…Las mujeres experimentan una menor percepción de aceptación social y acceso en el ámbito deportivo en varios contextos (Méndez . Por tanto, el racismo y el sexismo se presentan como una gama de barreras que han mantenido a las mujeres segregadas a lo largo de la historia del deporte (Ross & Forsyth, 2021).…”

Kinesiology, Physical Activity, Physical Education, and Sports through an Equity/Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Lens: A Scoping Review

“…What EDI data, if any, is generated within the academic literature focusing on sports, kinesiology, physical education, and physical activity can influence the implementation and direction of EDI focusing on sports, kinesiology, physical education, and physical activity in universities Studies focusing on sports engage with equity and equality, in the context of the EDI groups of gender [37][38][39][40][41][42], race [43][44][45][46][47], and LGBTQ2S+ [48][49][50][51], including through an intersectionality lens [52] of these three identities [53]. Coverage exists for the term's diversity and inclusion [54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61] and Indigenous peoples [62][63][64][65][66][67][68]. Studies noted that women especially in third world countries continue to experience a lack of equity in sport [69], that women's sports are underrepresented in media coverage and that women are underrepresented in sports careers such as sports journalism, sports media, and sport leadership positions [70][71][72].…”