Women Fighters as Agents of Change: A Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Case Study from Finland

“Some Women Are Born Fighters”: Discursive Constructions of a Fighter’s Identity by Female Finnish Judo Athletes

“…In line with previous literature (Halbert 1997;Kavoura et al 2015a;Walsh 2001), participants' stories revealed several strategies that female judoka (consciously or unconsciously) employ to survive in this male domain, such as minimizing the impact of gender on their experience and accepting the existing normative practices in their judo communities, connecting with other female fighters, asking for the support of significant (male) others, doing various "chores" for their club, or striving for better results than their male counterparts. For example, Liina, talked about the importance of having other female partners or female role models:…”

“…As in our previous work (Kavoura 2016;Kavoura et al 2012Kavoura et al , 2015aKavoura et al , 2015b, we position this study in cultural praxis Wright 2005, 2010), a framework that aligns well with poststructuralist theory and discursive work, while advocating social justice and change by making visible the various marginal identities of athletes (McGannon and Smith 2015;Ronkainen et al 2016a). The cultural praxis framework challenges theories and research that ignore culture and sees athletes' identities "as constituted by various discourses of race, ethnicity, gender, generation, sport events, and the national sport system" (Ryba et al 2013, p. 11).…”

“…Despite changing discourses (Kaivosaari 2017), the Finnish sport media describe women in rather contradictory ways-as heroic and successful athletes, but also as heterosexual, girly objects whose achievements, records, performances, and athletic skills do not need to be taken seriously (Pirinen 2006). The few empirical studies that have explored the experiences of female Finnish athletes (all conducted by female researchers) revealed that even in the comparatively egalitarian Finnish context, girls' and women's participation in sport is constrained by gender hierarchies (Herrala 2015(Herrala , 2016Kavoura et al 2015a;Rannikko 2016;Ronkainen et al 2016b).…”

“…When making sense of their experiences, female runners drew on dominant cultural narratives that construct elite sport as a project of youth and incompatible with being a grown woman, a mother, and a wife. Kavoura et al (2015a) studied female Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) athletes in Finland and found that gender hierarchies exist in this context and that female athletes adopt various strategies for advancing their careers, such as taking initiative in promoting women's BJJ; creating local, national, and international networks of female BJJ enthusiasts; and organizing women's only courses and seminars. Moreover, Herrala (2015) investigated female adolescents playing the masculine-typed Finnish national game of ice hockey.…”

The ‘male preserve’ thesis, sporting culture, and men’s power

“…Aside from the continuation of narratives reifying the naturalisation of masculinity through combat sports, this effect is also achieved through various ways in which women's growing presence within them remains subordinated to men's in several respects. These include challenges to the authority of female officials; the relative lack of female (head) coaches in combat sports; the continuing disparity between professional male and female athletes' financial rewards, or access to training facilities; and the sexualisation of female combat athletes in the media (see Channon et al, 2018;Jennings, 2015;Kavoura et al, 2015;McCree, 2015). Each of these phenomena serve as not-sosubtle reminders that men remain central, in both symbolic and tangible ways, to the social world of combat sports.…”