"Martial Art" Magazine Sexist??

[monkeygirl]

I just read the November 2002 issue of Martial Art magazine, and I am extremely upset. This is the only issue of the magazine I have ever read, but it is still unacceptable.

 

First, the magazine's literary skills are horrible...it's riddled with grammatical and punctuation errors, such as unclosed quotation marks...that's just a lack of proofreading!

 

Throughout the entire magazine, there was the acknowledgement of ONE, (count 'em) ONE female martial artist!!! And even that was truly pathetic.

 

On the very last page of the magazine, they have a "Warriors Highlight" Department.

 

On the top there is a 28-year-old man named Steve Babcock. Steve is an extremely successful blackbelt (don't know what degree) martial artist who owns his own dojo, manages the Paul Mitchell Karate Team, and holds many competition titles (about 13 sparring titles). To top it all off, he's a great guy.

 

Underneath him, there is a 39-year-old woman named Tamara Carousos. She owns a motorcycle and off-road gear company, and is a green belt. MA has helped her with health issues. Her awards? MaxFormation Monthly Winner...sounds business related. Oh, and she has perfectly manicured fingernails, and wears heavy makeup and jewelry for her lovely "action" picture . [edit: I apologize for my not-so-flattering view of Ms. Carousos. I did not intend to berate the woman herself, simply the magazine for putting her up in a comparitive light with Mr. Babcock. In my opinion, Martial Art magazine was saying (whether intentionally or not) that men could be extremely successful and make a career out of martial arts, while women had to be successful elsewhere, and only do MA on the side. This, combined with the lack of women throughout the rest of the magazine, helped me come to my final irate bantering Sorry. ]

 

The only other women are in tiny advertisements, all doing serene-looking tai-chi-ish exercises.

 

It's as if this magazine has conveniently forgotten that blackbelt women exist in the martial arts!

 

Black Belt Magazine is a little better...because they specialize in self-defense, there are a lot of women demonstrating self-defense moves. They also occasionally feature articles by Kathy Long. However, even Black Belt mag didn't have any women competing this month, and the only woman they had "kicking butt" in uniform, was a yellow belt! I don't think I've ever seen a guy in these magazines wearing anything but a blackbelt. To make matters worse, there was an ad for "Bloussant" *ahem* breast formula...on the same page there was something for *cough* male virility *cough* pills, and the Miami diet.

 

While I realize there aren't as many female "movers & shakers" in the martial arts as there are males, THAT DOESN'T MEAN THERE AREN'T ANY FEMALE BLACKBELTS!! I don't expect them to go out of their way to take pictures of women, or to make special provisions, but I tend to wonder what on earth dojos these people go to that don't have women! Yes, Black Belt Magazine has a "Self-Defense for Women" magazine, but what about us female martial artists, not just scared women who want to protect themselves?

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that women martial artists are being extremely misrepresented...as in, not represented at all!

 

Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? Does anyone have any cases that prove me wrong? I want to get together, maybe get an e-mail petition going, and fire it off to a few martial arts magazines letting them know that women read their magazine and had better see some changes!

 

I don't even want to mention Cynthia Rothrock because she kicks in thongs....ewwwww.

Edited December 18, 2002 by monkeygirl

[KickChick]

Well, listen monkeygirl, it is getting better with each passing year (and I've been in the martial arts now for 11 years).... in terms of percentages, the number of women training is still low, anywhere from 5-8% in some schools up to 15 or 20% in others. There are classes exclusively for women, even schools entirely devoted to women studying martial arts, it is still predominately male-oriented.

"Oh, and she has perfectly manicured fingernails, and wears heavy makeup and jewelry for her lovely "action" picture".

We women also must guard against becoming so de-sensitized to their emotional side that we risk losing our femininity. We've all seen it in the movies - Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, the female character Perez in Aliens. and others in the role of a female in a man's world have become more macho than the great majority of women. Some fear this defeminization so much that they hesitate to get involved in the martial arts. So that is why you will see "beautiful" female martial artsists (and what is so wrong with that??) We all seem to be fairly adept at de-sexing our demeanor on the mat and capturing our feminine side again when we're off the mat.

 

The participation of women in the martial arts is and has been increasing over the years. In a few styles, the number of women to men is almost equal, but generally women are still a minority in the martial arts and with that you are going to find some onesidedness in the media.

 

Join one of the many female martial artist organizations that are out there!

 

National Women's Martial Arts Federation http://nwmaf.org/index.shtml

 

Kiai: A Mailing List for Women Martial Artists http://apocalypse.org/pub/kiai/

[Pacificshore]

Monkeygirl:

 

I read all the martial arts mags out there; blackbelt, inside kung-fu, and the martial art. However, I read only those articles that interest me, and for the most part, lately all 3 have been very boring in my opinion. Like many magazines, sometimes they are good and other times bad.

 

Although the martial arts world is still predonimately male-oriented, I'll read any article in the magazines written by a woman author or about a woman martial artist so long as it captures my interest. A good example would be articles by the late Jane Hallander, she was an excellent author as well as a martial artist in her own right.

 

I too was dumbfounded as to why blackbelt magazine went and allowed the bloussant ad and the male virility ad in their latest issue. After all this is a martial arts publication and I don't see what either ad has to do with martial arts.

 

If I am not mistaken martial arts publications allow people a platform to share their story and art by submitting their stories and photographs to them for review and the hope of actually having it published. They will always have the big names in their magazines because that's what attracts sales. But not everyone in any of those 3 magazines are well known.

 

Bottom line if the article written is good and is by a man or woman, I'll read it, and if is poorly written or boring then I won't bother.

[Xtreme Fury]

There's a lot more men then women in martial arts and lot more men are in charge of the organization and stuff then women, at least I think. I would say in a the next few years, the ratio will start to even out. Anyway no matter what we would like to think lots of people are sexists. At my school there are guys that believe girls should stay home and do the dishes. To make it worse, it's always the cute guys that think this!!!! Dang it.. hehe. Hmm.. ya know I always wondered why they got rid of the Susan B. Anthony coin...Makes me mad.

[Bon]

I'd imagine there's a very low percentage of women buying those magazines and they target them at males. I agree that they don't really do anything to help make the martial arts more appealing to women by providing sexy images of women on the page next to men who are sweating and bleeding.

[Pacificshore]

If I'm not mistaken, BB magazine has come out with an issue dedicated to women in the martial arts. I think this is a new magazine that'll come out regularly. The cover I saw had Erin Vunak on it.

[omnifinite]

I'm not sure you can decide all of that from reading one issue ever. Maybe there didn't happen to be any females submitting articles that month (or if they did maybe they had ambiguous first names). Maybe none of the female martial artists happened to be in the dojos the days those photos were taken. Maybe advertisers are idiots and can't be relied on for any sort of fair or enlightened representation of anything. I don't read martial arts magazines that often but I see plenty of women in them when I do.

 

*shrug* I'd rather just look at them all as "martial artists" anyway... why do we need to separate them further?

[BlueDragon1981]

They may be, but why are the people sitting in front of the tv on the direct tv commercials always men? Don't let it bother you. The amount of women will grow. Magazines have to sell to make money, so they will use "beautiful women" until it no longer sells. They are just marketing to the wider variety of martial artists at this time. That is part of marketing. Just like Direct TV always shows sports fans with Direct ticket being men. I know a lot of women who are sports fans why wouldn't they want it.

[monkeygirl]

Ah but there is that commercial with the woman who loves football...making sure they would get Packers games too, I believe?

[BlueDragon1981]

You know what I mean. Women often don't look at things in the other respect. There are things were guys get the short end of the deal. With magazines and other things like that marketing and money rule the them.

 

I haven't seen that commercial your talking about. Of course I haven't watched tv in like 3 months.