Tory Maguire, feminism, fair dibs for all, and the noble art of female boxing

(Above: Louise Adler, lightweight world champion, training with Joe Rivers in the United States in 1926).

It's always the tough questions that sort the weak kneed conformist from the genuinely liberal or the libertarian flock.

Take women's boxing, and The Punch, Australia's most cheap skate, torpid conversation, and its resident controversialist Tory Maguire.

One Olympic sport I won't be watching - women's boxing, opines Tory, which leads me to wonder what she thinks women who want to be cops or soldiers might get involved in? 

Things like fighting and shooting and killing, not to mention a little torture in Abu Ghraib if you happen to be in the right place at the right time.

But should women have the right to become cops or soldiers? Sure enough, if that's what they want. Am I enlisting next week? No way Jose, I'm more into macrame.

Should women have the right to work in an abattoir? Go for it, though I reserve the right to suggest that skills once learned there shouldn't be deployed in a domestic relationship (as you might recall Katherine Mary Knight did, when she stabbed her partner to death, skinned him, decapitated him, placed the head in a pot on the stove, and served baked flesh from his buttocks to his adult children - here).

Yep, I'm afraid that even when it comes to butchery, some women make dramatic claims for equality.

But Tory isn't so sure. It doesn't seem girlie somehow, even if it might be feminist:

I know this goes against everything else I’ve written about women having the same opportunities as men but I just can’t cop women’s boxing.

News overnight it’s been put on the list for the 2012 Olympics has been hailed as a triumph for feminism, as it means there will no longer be any men-only Olympic sports.

But the right to get in a ring and beat each other about the had is not exactly what I had in mind as a great leap forward for equality of the sexes.

To be fair, I’ll admit I’m not exactly a fan of men’s boxing either, which probably compounds my view this development in sports administration is not fantastic news.

But men’s boxing is so entrenched in the sporting arena it’s unlikely to ever be removed. Some of the world’s biggest sporting legends have been boxers, but somehow I don’t think there will ever be a female Muhammed Ali.

Well while Tory is resigned to boxing hanging around, it's clear she's never heard of Muhammad Ali's daughter, nor has she ever thought about the art of boxing.

On ABC radio this morning Julie Ryan, who is Queensland-based, was very excited about the possibility of going to London in 2012.

She described her training regime and efforts, including sprints and other types of exercises, saying: “It’s just like any other sport.”

I’m sure she thinks so, but I don’t reckon Stephanie Rice’s day involves punching her training partner in the head repeatedly, in an attempt to get her to fall down.

Which of course as many of her indignant correspondents pointed out, entirely misses the point of boxing and the way amateur boxing scores points to amount to a win (I'm told knock outs are relatively rare in evenly matched and fit opponents).

But all the same, let's not dance around the point. Boxing is a barbaric sport, even if it has hung around for a very long time - centuries before the Marquess of Queensberry formulated his rules in the Victorian era (here). At the same time, because it has hung around for well over the thousand years Hitler allocated to the Third Reich, you can also bet it shows no signs of going away soon.

And if you accept men have the right to box, so women should have the right to box. No one's forcing them into the ring, and no one's forcing anyone to watch, though the news that women's boxing has been accepted into the 2012 London olympics is what seems to have got Tory Maguire's nickers in a knot.

Me? Well I once did a session of Tai bo, and discovered the futility of any kind of exercise not loved by the exerciser.

What a pity Tory doesn't seem to have caught up with all the various kinds of professional wrestling provided as entertainment on cable, emanating from the United States, in which women play a conspicuous and often nauseatingly stereotypical role. Compared to that folderol, heavily regulated amateur boxing is a haven for the art of the noble pugilistic science.

To support her prejudice, Tory leads with a medical argument:

For a long time women’s boxing was banned in NSW, until December last year when the state government announced plans to relax the rules.

At the time the NSW president of the Australian Medical Association Brian Morton said boxing had a different physical effect on women than men.

“Women’s bodies are not as muscular and there’s good evidence to suggest that their bodies are less protected than a man’s,” he said.

Well yes, but any sport has its dangers - studies suggest that the death rate associated with boxing isn't as high as horse racing, which is a much more potent killer of people and horses.

But should women have the right to fall off horses and kill themselves? If they want to. (Sorry, got that macrame class on right when the horse riding lesson's scheduled). 

How about hoops riding over jumps? Well sure, provided they fill the jumps full of racing officials and put down any injured by horses' hooves.

Of course, after death, brain damage is the next biggest problem in boxing, since if you go hitting someone about the head it will have an effect, however much point scoring rewards other kinds of approaches . 

Amateur boxing - which has better head covering - is less problematic than professional boxing, but all the same, the risks shouldn't be underestimated. But if men have the right to give themselves brain damage and 'punch drunk' syndrome and open themselves up to diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in later life, should women have the same right? Damn right. (But you know macrame avoids this kind of issue).

Why I even think women have the right to drink themselves into a brain dead stupor on a daily basis, though I'd caution against it.

Should boxing be banned? Only if you want underground "fight clubs" to spring up, or cult alternatives like extreme fighting to take hold. You're better off regulating and monitoring for safety and improving where and how you can.

Logical thinking has never been a big item in Tory's make up, but in the end, after a faint-hearted attempt at controversy and the dangers of boxing, she also gives in:

If, in spite of this, women want to box, go for it. 

With a rider:

I just think it’s a shame there will now be gold medals awarded for those women who can inflict the most physical damage on their opponent.

As opposed to cash in a professional ring? Where physical damage is more likely, even if the point of the exercise is purportedly not about physical damage so much as winning a match? Well two cheers for the glitter of useless medals over the lure of cash for novelty acts.

Fortunately The Punch's lively conversation - the best in Australia - knew where and how to take a stand:

I have to agree with you. If they were going to make any womens sport into an Olympic event that we'd take seriously it should have been Mud Wrestling.

(Pardon me while I learn the noble art of boxing so that I can punch the shit out of that man).

How about Foxy Boxing?

(Hmm, remind me to hone up on my big knife skills).

Meantime, here's a list of Olympic sports I won't be watching: boxing, wrestling, weight lifting, fencing, whatever martial arts they've got in that year, running, swimming ... oh heck, I won't be watching the Olympics at all. Sorry. 

But if the loons want to run and jump and show how strong they are, and have a fight or three, let the women do it just as much as the men.

Enough of this faint hearted smelling salts rhetoric Ms Maguire. Leave that to the likes of David Penberthy, Piers Akerman and Tim Blair.

Now will someone join me in my campaign to make synchronized swimming open to men at an Olympic level? That's right, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and synchronized swimming is the one sport which excludes men.

Surely if women have the right to punch each other silly, then men should have the right to stick pegs on their noses and look silly in the water?

It's allowed in Canada and the USA, and it's only fair.

And then for the Mount Everest of feminist mountain climbing! The Melbourne Club ...

(Below: Laila Ali, thirty one year old daughter of Muhammad Ali, who's won plenty of titles in her career as a professional boxer. By golly, there's a few men chatting in The Punch, Australia's inclined to be sexist conversation, that I wouldn't mind her sorting out. Go girl).