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Tuesday 14 August 2012

Women's Boxing viewed as Big Hit at The Olympics

Under the lights of London 2012, boxing occupies a shadowed corner, away from the healthy brilliance of other sports. It can seem a hopelessly outmoded sport – all vicarious brutality, needless damage, and cruel aggression. Olympic boxing, as a form of amateur boxing, attracts less controversy than the professional ranks, in part because Olympic boxers wear headgear and box fewer rounds. But this year Olympic boxing is under more scrutiny than ever before: for the first time, women are competing beside men.  Women's boxing attracts a wealth of controversy and prejudice, of approval and pride. Coach Pedro Roque, explaining why Cuba was not sending female boxers to London 2012, said that women should be "showing off their beautiful faces, not getting punched in the face". Frank Maloney, famous for managing Lennox Lewis, described the first British women's amateur boxing match as "a freak show".  Defenders of women's boxing tend to focus not on the merits of the sport itself, but rather on its cultural and political implications. For American writer Katherine Dunn, women's boxing reveals women's capacity for aggression, and should be seen in terms of a feminist movement. In the world of international advocacy, the Cooperation for Peace and Unity (CPAU) in Afghanistan developed a boxing project for women and teenage girls, in the belief that women's boxing could provide a model of cultural participation for women in Afghanistan.  Female boxers, and the progressive cultural force they are seen to embody, have also been the focus of artworks. Photographer Inzajeano Latif's compelling portrait of a "female boxer" was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. In America, Golden Gloves winner (and single mum) Nisa Rodriguez starred in the video to Gil Scot-Heron's 2010 track I'll Take Care of You.

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