A Situational Analysis of Boxing

Abstract

This study, undertaken in North East England, examines the way in which discourses around masculinity are reflected and reproduced in amateur boxing. With the decline of heavy industry, young men have had to seek other ways of expressing their masculinity. Boxing clubs provided a setting in which the hegemony of masculinity in the area could be practiced. A more inclusive environment began to develop in boxing clubs, however, and young men had to find alternative methods of expressing their masculinity while maintaining hegemonic control. One of the means by which they did this was to use boxing in an entrepreneurial way.

“‘No Tough Guys Here?’: Hybrid Masculinity in a Boxing Gym”

“…In his study of a boxing gym in the United Kingdom, he finds that problematic narratives about masculinity and violence embedded in the discourses, narratives, rhetoric, and imagery in the gym. Fulton (2019) also finds that boxing gyms became safe spaces to construct a localized hegemonic masculinity after deindustrialization left many working class men unemployed. Research on hybrid masculinities highlight the significant role that discourse and space play in perpetuating hegemonic masculinity (Matthews 2014(Matthews , 2016.…”