'No-one wants to be a Kardashian anymore': female participation in recreational combat sport

Abstract

This research study utilised ethnographic methods to explore the lived experiences of women participating in recreational boxing in a gym in inner-suburban Melbourne, Australia. Women were caught between two narratives; on the one hand women were welcomed into the gym and there was a sense of growing female participation. On the other hand, the gym remained a masculine space in which women existed on the periphery and were required to prove their skills through the lens of male norms and from a position of assumed incompetence. In spite of this, female boxers increased their strength, skills and self-confidence, and perhaps due to their experience overcoming gendered expectations, some women..