IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics

Abstract:

Although women have long been participants in martial sports, norms of “proper” feminine comportment can interfere with their success. Iris Marion Young’s “Throwing Like a Girl” argues that, in physical activities, many women experience an inhibited intentionality. I extend this idea and argue that norms of proper feminine comportment make it harder for women to conceptualize their bodies as standing in agential physical relationships to others’ bodies. This hampers many women starting out in combat sports and needs to be accounted for in women’s self-defense training.