Rise of female boxing

There is a quiet, steady rising up of females boxing around the world.

• A team of Irish women boxers have gone public with their goal of competiting in the 2012 London Olympics.
• In the West Cape of Africa this month, a public tournament presented female boxers as a perk of the region's new democracy.
• In South Asia, Muslim women are thriving in the sport.
• Related - Barbados has its first female boxing chief administrator, Joyce Bowen. Boxing has been the country's leading sport over the last five years.

American females came into the competitive scene largely in 1995, when the Golden Gloves allowed them in. While the WBC will take credit for the rise, they only reach the competitor segment, not mainstream culture.

The everyday boxer, the woman who just loves to hit that bag, may never know Christy Martin's name. For this majority, I'd look more to pop culture and popular health club culture. There have been a lot of movies with female boxing protagonists in the last few years - Shadowboxers, Girlfight, Million Dollar Baby, so many more lesser-known. Health clubs have had the Tae Bo and subsequent cardio kickboxing boon in the last eight years or so really propelling the movement.

Whatever's behind it, I wish the media would quit portraying this as females entering into a male sport, and don't give me that garbage about the history of the sport. This can be explained without the rhetoric that irks me. Instead, this pheonomena should be recognized for what it is, the unleashing of a primal exercise of love, power and violence that is part of human nature.

From Wikipedia

The World Boxing Council WBC bolstered the legitimacy of women’s boxing by recognizing fighters such as Christy “The Coalminer’s Daughter” Martin and Lucia Rijker as contenders for World Female titles in 16 weight divisions. The first WBC World Female Champion (on May 30, 2005) was super-bantamweight (limit of 122 lb. / 55.338 kg.) Mexican, Jackie Nava. With her former-champion father at ringside, Laila Ali won the super-middleweight (limit of 168 lb. / 76.204 kg.) title on June 11, 2005.

left: Reuters photo of Congestina Achieng, Kenya's top female boxer and the first African woman to hold an international title
top: BBC photo of Muslim boxer in India