I haven’t followed the Olympics very much this year, but enough stuff has popped up on the news or social media regarding the boxing controversy for me to have read a little bit about it. Last Thursday, Angela Carini (of Italy) tapped out after only 46 seconds in the ring with Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who had previously failed gender eligibility tests by the International Boxing Association (IBA). The picture of Carini on her knees crying in the ring when viral and a conservative outcry was raised over men competing in women’s sports.
The story became more convoluted over the following days as the International Olympic Committee (who has overseen the boxing competition since the Tokyo Olympics) and the IBA publicly disagreed with each other over whether Imane Khelif, as well as Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, had XY chromosomes and whether the testing by which the IOC had judged them ineligible to compete against women was medically accurate. So there was some back and forth on social media of people apologizing for having misunderstood or doubling down on their position that these contenders should not be eligible to box in the women’s competition.
In the lightning fast world of social media there isn’t usually time to wait for all the details, and for influencers and people who make their living off of SM, the window of opportunity to capitalize on outrage is short. For conservatives, the pump has been primed for a while now as we have seen the male/female lines blurred for so long in ways that are contrary to the created order, with sports being the latest manifestation of worldly insanity. There is a creational reason (or natural, or biological if those terms help you) why men and women should not compete directly against each other, and that reason is because men and women are categorically different to the extent that biological men could dominate if they were competing against biological women a significant majority of the time, whether that be in tennis or swimming or basketball.
So the somewhat knee-jerk reaction, particularly after the opening ceremony blasphemy – which was so bad that even Andy Stanley had to put on his stern face and sermonize – is understandable, whatever ultimately gets decided about chromosomes and whatnot. But I have a more outrageous statement about the whole thing, which is that Christians should be against any women’s sporting event that involves direct physical violence. Like boxing.
Christians should be against any women’s sporting event that involves direct physical violence
I often think that Christians pick fights about things that are so far downstream of the issue that even if we were to win that one particular fight, the war has already been lost. That’s how I feel about women’s boxing. Instead of the outrage that (supposedly) biological men are competing against other women in boxing, we should just be outraged that women’s boxing is even a thing.
Women should not be assaulting each other, even in the ring. To Carini’s point when she said “I’ve never been hit that hard”, it is less likely for a woman to physically damage another woman in a way that a man would physically damage a woman. Things like bone density and muscle mass come into play. But even so, putting two women in a ring and telling them to destroy one another is a biblical violation of femininity.
“What about self defense?” you ask. And I answer that I think it’s wonderful to teach women how to defend themselves. I have no problem with that, because it is self-defense. Self-defense by definition is not offensive or aggressive. I don’t have a problem with women being athletic in general and competing in a variety of sports, including sports that have contact – such as basketball. But as a Christian, I don’t think women should be hitting other women, even if it’s in a boxing ring.
“So you think it’s ok for men to hit other men in a ring?” Yes. It does not violate masculinity to engage in a physical conflict in the same way that it violates femininity. If my son was in a boxing ring getting smashed to bits, I would want him to hit back harder. If my daughter was in a boxing ring getting smashed, I would want her to get out of the boxing ring.
The point of boxing is to hit, and to hit hard. To hit beyond your opponent’s ability to take a hit. That’s what happened to Carini in the ring last Thursday. She got hit beyond her ability to take that hit. As a woman, she should not be in a position to be taking such hits, even if she wants to, and the world is applauding, and medals are being awarded.
Nathan Writes 