News
Saturday Oct. 8 at 7pm ET and Sunday Oct. 9 at 1pm.
The entertaining one-hour original documentary focuses on the lives of two women: a boxer and a wrestler. Examining the struggle for change in high-profile female combative sports, the documentary airs as the IOC is expected to announce their decision on women's boxing in October.
Narrated by Canadian actress Sandra Oh (Sideways, Grey's Anatomy), Girls Don't Fight includes interview montages set provocatively alongside women's etiquette film clips from the 1950's.
Jessica Rakoczy is a boxer who fought her way off the streets of Hamilton, ON and into the rings of Las Vegas to become the women's lightweight champion of the world. In contrast to Rakoczy's gritty world of pro boxing, the doc also presents wrestler Lyndsay Belisle's quest for gold in Athens as she competes in the first women's freestyle wrestling competition in Olympic History.
Belisle's Olympic opportunity is something Rakoczy has been denied. Female boxing is still not included at the Olympics. With no gold medal dream to follow, Rakoczy's only viable option was to turn pro, presenting a unique set of gender controversies. For a woman to have a profitable career in the media-driven world of boxing, she must be "marketable" and have sex appeal. This often relegates female boxing to being a circus sideshow on men's boxing cards, a trend that Rakoczy and other true fighters are trying to overcome. This film captures Rakoczy's training through a severe ankle injury to defend her world title, revealing the dedication, athletic skill, and iron-will it takes to be a champion.
Girls Don't Fight tackles gender issues in violent sport with irony and humour. What is it like for a woman to enter a boxing gym for the first time? How does it feel to hit or be hit? How do people react to a woman with a cauliflower ear or a black eye?
Shot on location in Hamilton, ON, Las Vegas, NV, and at the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens, GRC, Girls Don't Fight is directed by Jill Sharpe (Leo Award-winning and Gemini-nominated for Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture) and written by Ken Craw (Leo Award-nominated for Ben Johnson, Drugs & the Quest for Gold). The documentary is co-produced by Craw, Shel Piercy and the award-winning team at Infinity Films (Gemini-nominated and Leo Award-winning Guinea Pig Club).
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Hana Askren
October 26, 2004
It still shocks me when they sing the national anthem at wrestling tournaments. Is that the kind of event this is? A stars-and-stripes sporting event? As a competitor, I can't look askance or turn away, much as I hate national anthems; I must at least pretend to some kind of respect; people may be looking at me.
And looking at me they were during my one match this weekend at the Maccabi USA Wrestling Trials. I wrestled in the men's 50kg weight category (because there was no women's division), and everyone in the room looked on. When I won by a convincing technical superiority and a pin, I got a standing ovation.
Most people were standing already, crowding around the mat, and he was only a high school senior, but everyone except my coach expected me to lose, which made the victory greater.
In fact, simply by entering the tournament, I scored a victory for women's wrestling. It showed that at least one woman wanted to wrestle badly enough to enter a men's tournament - and she had the guts to do it.
I am constantly surprised by the fear I encounter from both genders when it comes to men and women wrestling together. They are reluctant to wrestle each other even in practice, and men often consider wrestling women a waste of their time. At the Olympic Training Center, the practices are sex-segregated, instead of divided by size (one practice for the smaller people, one for the larger). Occasionally, a boyfriend, friend or coach will wrestle with us a bit, but by and large the two sexes avoid each other.
Internationally, at the highest levels, men are still far ahead of women; even a female Olympian would probably be eliminated quickly at a high-level men's tournament. But how many people understand that this is due to a lack of funding and support, experience, interest, and development, not innate weakness? Sadly, I find that most people consciously or subconsciously locate the deficit within our (female) bodies. They don't see the point in women wrestling men because they don't believe that the gap can be narrowed, much less eliminated.
Why else would they avoid wrestling each other, leaving aside male fear of losing to a female? Everyone stands to gain - women will improve, men will have new partners with different styles, and in the long run, both sets will earn more respect from each other.
Wrestling is about pushing your limits, about rejecting the limits that others set for you, but I see both women and men passively accepting the limits set for them by society. Wrestling is not about physical strength unless we make it that way, and all else being equal, men's strength would only win for them a small percentage of the time.
The only way we will improve ourselves is by trying things that challenge us, even if we are uncomfortable; we will only gain if we take the risks. If we don't, we will be left wrestling with our own shadows in the dust.
Posted by hana at October 26, 2004 11:20 AM
Comments
Flexibility, quickness, alertness,creativity, stamina, attitude???? Yes they all count! Rock on Hana!
Posted by: Mom at October 26, 2004 08:42 PM
****Internationally, at the highest levels, men are still far ahead of women; even a female Olympian would probably be eliminated quickly at a high-level men's tournament. But how many people understand that this is due to a lack of funding and support, experience, interest, and development, not innate weakness?****
Maybe given greater funding, support, experience, interest, adn development, men's breasts would swell with milk.
You stupid brainless twit!
Posted by: Grizzlie Antagonist at December 14, 2004 08:13 PM
Grizzlie Antagonist,
You obviously feel very threatened. Try not to be so frightened of women and you may actually get one to speak to you one day.
Posted by: Hana at December 14, 2004 08:20 PM
Hana Askren, try not to be so hateful of men and you may actually get one to speak to you one day.
Posted by: Grizzlie Antagonist at December 15, 2004 08:02 PM
Scientifically pound for pound males and females are the same strength. Your strength is proportional to your lean muscle mass, there is no diffenece between male and female muscle so if a man and woman are about the same weight they are about the same strength. The average woman weight 70% of the average man and is 70% as strong.
People didn't used to think women could run marathins either but the women's times for the New York marathon are quickly catching up to mens times. In the 80's the women were beating mens records from thr 20's, but in the last few years, women are betaing mens records from the mid seventies. That is all due to training.
Posted by: LC at December 23, 2004 07:53 PM
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