THE ENTREPRENEUR FIGHTING GENDER STEREOTYPES IN COMBAT SPORTSHOW A COMBAT SPORTS COMPANY FOR WOMEN I

THE ENTREPRENEUR FIGHTING GENDER STEREOTYPES IN COMBAT SPORTSHOW A COMBAT SPORTS COMPANY FOR WOMEN IS DOING MORE THAN JUST TRANSFORMING HOW WE SEE FEMALE FIGHTERS.“Women athletes have made great strides in recent years. In 2012, 4,847 women competed in the London Olympic games, the most ever in Olympic history. Not only that, women represented every country in every sport that year, and CBS Sports launched the first all-female sports talk show, We Need To Talk, in September 2014.However, the battle for gender equality in sports is still very much ongoing. Underrepresentation, misrepresentation, sexualization, and a lack of suitable of equipment and attire are just a few facets of the plight of many female athletes, particularly women in combat sports.Of course, this isn’t something an entrepreneurial female fighter will take lying down. Enter Krav Maga fighter and former kickboxing instructor, Lynn Le. She’s building Society Nine, an equipment and apparel brand intended to align with the strength, femininity, and physical diversity of women who get in the ring and embrace sports and fitness across the board."I created Society Nine as a response to my frustration with fashion fitness media and the message that we [female fighters] are expected to work hard purely for our physique,” says Lynn Le. “This image has to change.”Historically, women in boxing have been ring girls wearing bikinis and holding signs.And like every male dominated industry, society deems women who are successful in sports as masculine unless they prove otherwise. In 2015, one would hope there’s no need to negotiate femininity and masculinity in terms of athleticism. But sports is a social institution just like any other that exists under a societal construct where the gender gap is blatant in pay, media coverage, and general recognition of competence. This is part and parcel of the reason so many images of women in sports and fitness are hypersexualized.“Yes, MMA is a male-dominated market in terms of viewership and participation, but it’s not like that any more, and what we are saying is there are other ways,” says Le. “We are offering that platform to defy the stereotype or expectation. The exciting thing is that combat sports are brewing among women practicing, and there is an opportunity to brand ourselves differently to appeal to a female market progressive in its thinking.”Green agrees that it’s time for the burgeoning community of women in combat sports to shift the social construct around female fighters by promoting and fulfilling what these women want and need.Green says, “Not only will the brand support those who choose to train in fighting, but it will naturally inspire the future generations as the world changes its views of what is possible. Overall, it is time to see conscious steps towards shifting the patriarchal paradigm, and in this case it’s by not only being women fighters, but having the gear needed for it.”Read the full piece here -- source link

More pics about