Female Boxing meets Women's Rights - Gender empowerment and Social Movement Practice(當女拳遇上女權-性別培力與運動實踐)
Time:
11/06/2019 - 11:15 to 11/06/2019 - 12:45
Room:
304b
Type:
Proposal(Workshop / Presentation)
Coordinating organization:
博拓運動空間
Theme:
New Methods in Shelter Management and Social Work
Language:
Chinese
Organization Name:
BTSS Sports Stadium (博拓運動空間)
Proposer:
rainy7286
Describe your workshop/presentation (300-500 words):
"Sports" has always been regarded as a masculine domain. Boxing, martial arts and other fighting sports have long been male-dominated sports. Associated with violence and aggression, these sports often discourage female participants. Those who do practice fighting are often seen as the purpose of “self-defense.” Thus, the boxing movement, which employs a highly conventional male sport as therapy for female survivors, is especially unique.
This workshop will share the result of the “Female Boxing meets Women's Rights”—a collaboration between the proposer and the GOH Kaohsiung branch where boxing was introduced to teenage girls in shelters. The program differs to conventional intellectual and mindfulness lectures. Rather than “speaking” about bodily experience and its traumatic associations, they “enact” the experience through boxing. By boxing, they reform and release their armored, tough, and tired bodies scarred from their traumatic experience. The program leads the girls to believe in themselves once more and to break through the conventional girl empowering system of “self-defense” which includes “stepping away from the old self” and “trusting female empowerment.”
The procedure of the boxing course as follows: assemble a team of boxing coaches to visit the institute. After the boxing courses, a follow-up discussion on physical reactions, observations, life experiences, and sexual experiences would take place with the participants. Field notes and interviews with staffs at the institutions are also taken into account. The boxing therapy program is carefully monitored and recorded. These records are crucial for redesigning teenage girl empowerment programs and also its intention of breaking away from gender stereotype.