Women’s Mixed Martial Arts: A description of the current academic perspectives and discussion on the representations of female MMA fighters in German Media

Titel Women’s Mixed Martial Arts: A description of the current academic perspectives and discussion on the representations of female MMA fighters in German Media

Autor*innen Martin Saldaño & Leo Istas

Zitationsvorschlag

Saldaño, M., & Istas, L. (2019). Women’s Mixed Martial Arts: A description of the current academic perspectives and discussion on the representations of female MMA fighters in German Media. Journal of Martial Arts Research, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.15495/ojs_25678221_22_98

Abstract

Women have been fighting in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) events for more than 20 years now. However, it was not until 2013 that the most important league for this sport (the UFC) started integrating female fighters into their events, and even nowadays there are numerous differences between men and women in this growing sport. A significant pay-gap and over-sexualized representations of their image are some of the issues that female fighters still have to face in this sport.
This research aims to summarize some of the main issues and perspectives that gender studies might offer and are already offering on the situation of women in this sport. After a brief description of the history of women in this sport, this exploration goes forward presenting current theoretical analyses on women’s sports and more specific observations in MMA, such as the preferences of MMA viewers and the fighters’ relationships with post-feminist discourses. These theoretical approaches are described here with examples from actual situations and empiric results from different researches on women’s participation.
Concluding, this study also expands the theoretical analysis and scholarly evidence on this area, by exemplifying and discussing those perspectives with recent news coverage concerning Women’s Mixed Martial Arts (WMMA) in German media.