Fight Sports and American Masculinity

Fight Sports and American Masculinity
Author: Christopher David Thrasher
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2015-07-02
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0786497041

Throughout America's past, some men have feared the descent of their gender into effeminacy, and turned their eyes to the ring in hopes of salvation. This work explains how the dominant fight sports in the United States have changed over time in response to broad shifts in American culture and ideals of manhood, and presents a narrative of American history as seen from the bars, gyms, stadiums and living rooms of the heartland. Ordinary Americans were the agents who supported and participated in fight sports and determined its vision of masculinity. This work counters the economic determinism prevalent in studies of American fight sports, which overemphasize profit as the driving force in the popularization of these sports. The author also disputes previous scholarship's domestic focus, with an appreciation of how American fight sports are connected to the rest of the world.

Fight Sports And American Masculinity

Fight Sports And American Masculinity
Author: Roberto Ordeneaux
Publisher:
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2021-04-24
Genre:
ISBN:

The spectacular, scorched earth fighting styles are just a testament to the true exhibition delivered from the ever-winning Premier Boxing Champions promotion, demonstrating that Mexicans are a dominant part of the heart and soul of the boxing industry. With the influx of televised mixed martial arts (MMA) promotions, boxing has been likened to your father's or even your grandfather's sport; antiquated when compared to the many other fighting styles presented in MMA. If this axiom was indeed true and you scoured the world to find the oldest living boxing elder, he or she would probably be Mexican. With over 200 world champions hailing from Mexico or of Mexican descent, boxing is saturated in red, white, and green, south of the border style. Welcome to the colorful, flamboyant, and wonderful world of Mexican American boxing in Los Angeles. From the minute they stepped into the ring, Mexican American fighters have electrified fans with their explosiveness and courage. These historical images bring to life a sociological culture consisting of knockouts, the Main Street Gym, the Olympic Auditorium, neighborhood rivalries, Mexican idols, posters, and promoters.

Masculinities, Gender Relations, and Sport

Masculinities, Gender Relations, and Sport
Author: Jim McKay
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2000-05-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 076191272X

The papers in this collection consider how the study of masculinities in sport can be integrated with critical feminist studies, how to deal with the tendency to over-emphasize negative outcomes and the increasing trend to violence in sport.

Power at Play

Power at Play
Author: Michael A. Messner
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1995-04-30
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780807041055

Based on interviews with a diverse group of former high school, college, and professional athletes, Power at Play examines the important role sports play in defining masculinity for American men.

Fight Sports and the Church

Fight Sports and the Church
Author: Richard Wolff
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1476642133

Fighting sports may seem at odds with Christian tradition, yet modern ministries have embraced them as a means for evangelism and social outreach. While news media often sensationalize fighting sports, churches see them as a way to appeal to male congregants, presenting a peace-loving yet tough model of discipleship. From martial arts programs at suburban churches to urban boxing ministries geared towards at-risk youth, this book examines the substantial history of church sponsored training in combat sports, and presents arguments by Christian ethicists about their compatibility with church teachings and settings. Interviews with boxing and martial arts ministry leaders describe their programs and the relationship between fight sports and faith.

Sex, Violence & Power in Sports

Sex, Violence & Power in Sports
Author: Michael A. Messner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 238
Release: 1994
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Examines the effect of sports in shaping men's attitudes toward women and violence.

The Professor in the Cage

The Professor in the Cage
Author: Jonathan Gottschall
Publisher: Penguin Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016-03-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143108050

"When a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym moves in across the street from his office, Jonathan Gottschall sees a challenge, and an opportunity. Pushing forty, out of shape, and disenchanted with his job as an adjunct English professor, part of him yearns to cross the street and join up. The other part is terrified. Gottschall eventually works up his nerve, and starts training for a real cage fight. He's fighting not only as a personal test but also to answer questions that have intrigued him for years: Why do men fight? And why do so many seemingly decent people like to watch?"--Amazon.com.

I Fight for a Living

I Fight for a Living
Author: Louis Moore
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2017-09-11
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 025209994X

The black prizefighter labored in one of the few trades where an African American man could win renown: boxing. His prowess in the ring asserted an independence and powerful masculinity rare for black men in a white-dominated society, allowing him to be a man--and thus truly free. Louis Moore draws on the life stories of African American fighters active from 1880 to 1915 to explore working-class black manhood. As he details, boxers bought into American ideas about masculinity and free enterprise to prove their equality while using their bodies to become self-made men. The African American middle class, meanwhile, grappled with an expression of public black maleness they saw related to disreputable leisure rather than respectable labor. Moore shows how each fighter conformed to middle-class ideas of masculinity based on his own judgment of what culture would accept. Finally, he argues that African American success in the ring shattered the myth of black inferiority despite media and government efforts to defend white privilege.

Unleashing Manhood in the Cage

Unleashing Manhood in the Cage
Author: Christian A. Vaccaro
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2015-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498523773

Unleashing Manhood in the Cage: Masculinity and Mixed Martial Arts addresses the question “Why do mixed martial arts participants endure grueling workouts and suffer through injury, with little or no pay, just to compete?” The answer is because the participants enjoy a form of idolization from their supporters, each other, and culture more generally, which is linked to masculinity. In fact, MMA organizers, from the very beginning, purposefully created elements of the sport that are linked to dominant narratives about manhood. In this context, men don thin open-fingered gloves, lock themselves in a caged enclosure, and slug it out in a fight with few rules to see who comes out on top. This all occurs while “ring girls” in high-heels and skin-tight shirts and shorts stride around outside the cage holding signs and peddling t-shirts. The sum of these elements is the creation of a type of a publicly accessible and consumable form of masculinity. The sport of mixed martial arts is a rich and intriguing space where the construction of gender can be explored through a sociological and ethnographic lens.

Asian American Sporting Cultures

Asian American Sporting Cultures
Author: Stanley I. Thangaraj
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2016-04-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1479840165

Delves into the long history of Asian American sporting cultures, considering how identities and communities are negotiated on sporting fields Through a close examination of Asian American sporting cultures ranging from boxing and basketball to spelling bees and wrestling, the contributors reveal the intimate connection between sport and identity formation. Sport plays a special role in the processes of citizen-making and of the policing of national and diasporic bodies. It is thus one key area in which Asian American stereotypes may be challenged, negotiated, and destroyed as athletic performances create multiple opportunities for claiming American identities. This volume incorporates work on Pacific Islander, South Asian, and Southeast Asian Americans as well as East Asian Americans, and explores how sports are gendered, including examinations of Asian American men’s attempts to claim masculinity through sporting cultures as well as the “Orientalism” evident in discussions of mixed martial arts as practiced by Asian American female fighters. This American story illuminates how marginalized communities perform their American-ness through co-ethnic and co-racial sporting spaces.