Malissa Smith is an amateur boxer and maintains a popular blog about the sport—Girlboxing. She writes frequently on the topic of women’s boxing and has appeared as a guest on the radio show Courts & Sports to discuss women’s boxing history and women’s boxing in the Olympics. Smith is a board member of the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF).

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: She-Devils and Amazonian Tigresses: Women Enter the Boxing RingChapter 2: Victorian Ladies BoxingChapter 3: Boxing, Women, and the Mores of ChangeChapter 4: Encountering the Modern: Flappers, Mae West, and the War YearsChapter 5: Boxing in the Age of the “Mighty Atom”Chapter 6: Burning Bras, Taking on the “Sheriff,” and Winning the Right to Fight Chapter 7: A Ring of Their Own Chapter 8: These Ladies Love the Ring Chapter 9: Christy Martin and the Pinking of the Velvet RopesChapter 10: Women’s Boxing and the Fame GameChapter 11: The AmateursConclusion: The State of Things: 1722-2012 and BeyondBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

In her classic meditation On Boxing, Joyce Carol Oates wrote, 'Boxing is for men, and it is about men. A celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for being lost.' Smith (herself an amateur boxer) challenges that idea in this study of the long, sometimes all but invisible, history of women in the ring. As early as 1722, when Elizabeth Wilkinson challenged Hannah Hayfield to meet her 'on the Stage' and battle for three guineas, women have expressed a desire to fight for money, honor, championships, or physical satisfaction. As much as anything, Smith claims, women entered the ring as an expression of their desire and right to shape their identities. Since Wilkinson’s challenge, women, for the most part, have been denied full expression of that desire; their participation in boxing has had something of a sideshow quality. But in recent decades, women have won that right and fought with distinction (as the appearance of professional boxer Christy Martin on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Claressa Shields’s gold medal in the middleweight division in the 2012 Olympics demonstrate). . . .Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Malissa Smith is an amateur boxer and maintains a popular blog about the sport—Girlboxing. She writes frequently on the topic of women’s boxing and has appeared as a guest on the radio show Courts & Sports to discuss women’s boxing history and women’s boxing in the Olympics. Smith is a board member of the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF).

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: She-Devils and Amazonian Tigresses: Women Enter the Boxing RingChapter 2: Victorian Ladies BoxingChapter 3: Boxing, Women, and the Mores of ChangeChapter 4: Encountering the Modern: Flappers, Mae West, and the War YearsChapter 5: Boxing in the Age of the “Mighty Atom”Chapter 6: Burning Bras, Taking on the “Sheriff,” and Winning the Right to Fight Chapter 7: A Ring of Their Own Chapter 8: These Ladies Love the Ring Chapter 9: Christy Martin and the Pinking of the Velvet RopesChapter 10: Women’s Boxing and the Fame GameChapter 11: The AmateursConclusion: The State of Things: 1722-2012 and BeyondBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

In her classic meditation On Boxing, Joyce Carol Oates wrote, 'Boxing is for men, and it is about men. A celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for being lost.' Smith (herself an amateur boxer) challenges that idea in this study of the long, sometimes all but invisible, history of women in the ring. As early as 1722, when Elizabeth Wilkinson challenged Hannah Hayfield to meet her 'on the Stage' and battle for three guineas, women have expressed a desire to fight for money, honor, championships, or physical satisfaction. As much as anything, Smith claims, women entered the ring as an expression of their desire and right to shape their identities. Since Wilkinson’s challenge, women, for the most part, have been denied full expression of that desire; their participation in boxing has had something of a sideshow quality. But in recent decades, women have won that right and fought with distinction (as the appearance of professional boxer Christy Martin on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Claressa Shields’s gold medal in the middleweight division in the 2012 Olympics demonstrate). . . .Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.

Malissa Smith is an amateur boxer and maintains a popular blog about the sport—Girlboxing. She writes frequently on the topic of women’s boxing and has appeared as a guest on the radio show Courts & Sports to discuss women’s boxing history and women’s boxing in the Olympics. Smith is a board member of the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame (IWBHF).

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: She-Devils and Amazonian Tigresses: Women Enter the Boxing RingChapter 2: Victorian Ladies BoxingChapter 3: Boxing, Women, and the Mores of ChangeChapter 4: Encountering the Modern: Flappers, Mae West, and the War YearsChapter 5: Boxing in the Age of the “Mighty Atom”Chapter 6: Burning Bras, Taking on the “Sheriff,” and Winning the Right to Fight Chapter 7: A Ring of Their Own Chapter 8: These Ladies Love the Ring Chapter 9: Christy Martin and the Pinking of the Velvet RopesChapter 10: Women’s Boxing and the Fame GameChapter 11: The AmateursConclusion: The State of Things: 1722-2012 and BeyondBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

In her classic meditation On Boxing, Joyce Carol Oates wrote, 'Boxing is for men, and it is about men. A celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for being lost.' Smith (herself an amateur boxer) challenges that idea in this study of the long, sometimes all but invisible, history of women in the ring. As early as 1722, when Elizabeth Wilkinson challenged Hannah Hayfield to meet her 'on the Stage' and battle for three guineas, women have expressed a desire to fight for money, honor, championships, or physical satisfaction. As much as anything, Smith claims, women entered the ring as an expression of their desire and right to shape their identities. Since Wilkinson’s challenge, women, for the most part, have been denied full expression of that desire; their participation in boxing has had something of a sideshow quality. But in recent decades, women have won that right and fought with distinction (as the appearance of professional boxer Christy Martin on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Claressa Shields’s gold medal in the middleweight division in the 2012 Olympics demonstrate). . . .Summing Up: Recommended. All readers.