When A Man Hits A Woman

In 2016, when I first heard about men competing in women’s sports, I made a graphic to illustrate the problem. “This is so fringe, Kaeley,” they assured me. “It’s not worth your energy. It’s going to affect such a minuscule amount of people. Find something more important to care about.”

By the following year, the incidents had increased substantially, so I recreated the graphic accordingly and did so again the year after that until I realized there were just too many examples to include in the space of one image.

Female athletes from all ages and athletic disciplines were losing trophies and medals and championship titles to men appropriating their sex. It went from “it’s not happening that often, so why care?” to “Sports aren’t that important anyway, so find a cause to champion that actually matters.”

Well this week, we saw a male athlete physically punch a woman in the face on a global stage, and it still seems like no one cares. Algeria’s Imane Khelif is one of two male boxers permitted to fight against women at this year’s Olympics despite being disqualified from the women’s world championships last year for failing testosterone and ambiguously defined “gender eligibility” tests.

It is yet unclear to me whether Khelif is trans identified or a male with a DSD. There’s a difference between claims of trans identities and intersex or DSDs. One is based on subjective feelings. The other is based in material reality that renders a person’s actual biological sex ambiguous. To be clear, intersex is a mutation of the male/female binary; it is not a third option.

I obviously have a LOT more empathy for people in the latter category. It would be very difficult to inhabit a body with a genetic mutation that makes it difficult for people to know if you’re a man or a woman. I imagine it would be very isolating. But chromosomes don’t lie. And when there’s a Y chromosome present, you’re dealing with a male and most of the physiological advantages a male body affords. It is not safe or fair to expect female athletes to compete against males. We cannot afford to care more about the men’s feelings than we do about the women’s safety.

I’ve written extensively about the male takeover of women’s sports before and don’t wish to have to rehash that all here. What the world needs to know for this conversation is that Italian boxer Angela Carini was matched against Khelif in the Olympics this week, and Khelif pummeled her in the face with such force that she resigned after just 46 seconds of the fight, falling to her knees and sobbing. She declined to shake Khelif’s hand at the end of the match.

“I have never felt a punch like this,” Carini remarked.

We are expected to care more about men’s feelings than women’s physical safety or material reality or fairness.

Developmental biologist Dr. Emma Hilton has studied male/female power differentials in sports extensively. She reports, “The power gap between a male and female punch is 162%. That is, males can punch 2.6 times harder than females. It’s the biggest performance gap I’ve found to date.”

I pick this fight. This fight matters because women matter. Angela Carini matters. Riley Gaines matters. The high school girl pursuing a college track scholarship that may now be given to a man? She matters too. I’m nearly 10 years into this fight, but I’ll keep beating this drum as long as it takes. I paid for my college education with an athletic scholarship. Don’t tell me sports aren’t important.

This is a grave injustice to women. On that we should all agree. But of course we couldn’t just all unite around this one obvious common denominator. Nope. The theobros had to jump into the fray and once again blame the womenfolk for the problem.

For a number of these influential men, the problem isn’t the overt misogyny of a culture that literally celebrates public displays of male violence against women. The problem is that women are boxing at all. According to them, this is a violation of created order, an assault on femininity, which, everyone knows, is actually just an assault on men. Boxing is for men, and female boxers have invaded men’s spaces, not the other way around. It kind of reads like, “Well sister, you would never have been raped if you had just stayed home darning my socks instead of going out to the bar with your friends. What did you expect?”

Many of us have labored for literal years to create global awareness of the trans lobby’s egregious mistreatment of women, and now that the long overdue conversation is finally emerging on the world stage, the theobros have to sabotage it and find a way to center women as the villains instead of the victims. “This is feminism’s fault!” they deflect. “Crawl back into your gender cages where you belong, and then (and only then) will we menfolk come to your aid.”

I’m not a violent person myself, but it makes me want to hit things. It’s so predictable, so pathological, so pathetic. “The woman thou gavest me did give me the fruit, and I did eat.” Same song, verse 4 trillion and 72. They’re only interested in defending women they can dominate.

Now listen. We can have legitimate discussions about finding entertainment value in boxing overall. I’ve never much cared to watch humans bash each other in the face and destroy each others’ brain cells. I don’t find it entertaining. I find it concerning. When forced to watch “The Gladiator,” I am physically sick to my stomach at the realization that people could watch other humans be dismembered for fun. I think gratuitous violence is harmful to the human psyche, and I never want to be desensitized to human suffering. If physical violence must exist, let it be reserved for wars where good must defeat evil. That’s just my personal preference, but you’ll notice it’s not sex specific. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Violence isn’t magically justified because men are the ones engaged in it. And if people disagree with me, that’s fine. They have the freedom to do so.

The point is that, regardless of any of our personal beliefs about boxing, women have as much of a right to participate in it as men do, and they have as much of a right to fair, safe competition as anyone else. Violence aside, female displays of grit and tenacity and perseverance are always inspiring to me.

And let’s be really honest, guys: We are not living in the pages of a Victorian era novel. Today’s women don’t exactly have the luxury of fragility; we can’t afford to faint at the first hint of emotional distress, hoping for some dashing young aristocrat to administer smelling salts and woo us back to health the minute life gets tough. We aren’t occupied with needlepoint and tea parties. We’re just trying to go on a run in our neighborhood without needing a rape whistle. We’re navigating a world where over 75% of the men rewire their brains with porn on a regular basis, and where 88% of that porn features violence against women. We’re living in a time where we walk around actually knowing that a bunch of the men in our personal spheres of influence are regularly fantasizing about harming women.

Today’s women aren’t, as a general rule, looking for good men to save us. In fact, it’s often the opposite; if we need saving at all, it’s usually FROM men, not by them.

This all hits me on a pretty personal level because, before I got fired from the YMCA for opposing men in the girls’ locker room, I really did look to all the Christian men around me for support, and I know I’ve said this before, but seriously? Not a single one of them stepped up to the plate to help. So I defended myself.

“Men are the protectors” is a claim that rings pretty hollow in the ears of the many women who’ve struggled along without it. Should anyone really be at all surprised that increasing numbers of women want to learn how to fight? Women are often as big and bad and as fierce and as bold as life has required us to be. So work with us as we are.

“Men do all the fighting.” I mean, can you imagine saying this to a female living in Israel today? “Don’t worry your pretty little head about learning self-defense. Hamas won’t hurt you; you’re a woman.” It becomes even more absurd with every word I type.

Inevitably someone will accuse me of man-bashing, and that’s not my heart at all. But I’m a realist, and I’m just calling it like it is. People who’ve only known good men may struggle to understand what I’m saying, but please try to trust me when I say not all women have been so blessed. I’m trying to invite thoughtful people to re-enter the world in which we live instead of punishing women for failing to cosplay the theobros’ preferred fantasy version of it—you know, the version where they get to be the heroes of every story.

I know there are a great many good and faithful men who actively use their power for good. The world needs more of them. I married such a man, and I’m exceedingly grateful for him. But I also understand that many women don’t have the luxury of sitting around waiting to be rescued by the men mistreating them in the first place.

We must engage the world as it is, not merely as we would like it to be. And in this world, women fight, too. We have to.

I understand that female boxers offend some peoples’ sensibilities. Be that as it may, I offer the same advice to the theobros as I offer to the transactivists: We cannot afford to prioritize men’s feelings above women’s physical safety. Right now we have policies that do just that, and a poor, beaten woman named Angela Carini is the collateral damage. We need to work together to fix this, whether or not you like it.

I'm working to treat my writing like a job, so if you appreciate my writing, I would be so grateful if you would consider investing in a paid subscription. I try to keep my costs low, but my family thanks you for every dollar you invest in my writing. Thanks so much for your support!