It's been a funny old week for feminism. In Richmond, Virginia, a 17-year-old girl was sent home from her school ball — or "prom" as the Americans insist on calling them — because her appearance and outfit, which everyone agrees met the event's dress code, was bothering some of the
Paul Little: Kawerau hits below the belt
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Jess Koia gives the Kawerau Boxing Club punchbag a hammering. Photo / Alan Gibson
How low do you have to feel that beating someone up or watching two other people beat each other up will make you feel better?
The implicit message is that getting women to do something that men are more traditionally associated with is somehow a feminist move. It's predicated on the assumption that two wrongs make a right. Men do all sorts of dumb things that women tend not to. Trying to solve problems with violence is one of the more conspicuous ones. Making the same mistake is not equality. Boxing is one of those things — like cigarette-smoking, sugar-sweetened soft drinks and competitive cooking shows — that people a generation hence will look back at in wonder. They will wonder how anyone ever thought such things were acceptable in civilised society. A ban on boxing has been called for by the American, British and New Zealand Medical Associations. Proponents like to justify it by pointing to boxing's noble tradition. It's roots can be traced back millennia. Trial by combat plays a large part in some of the world's most important historic events. But so does drawing and quartering, and I don't see much enthusiasm for reviving that - even in the Bay of Plenty.
All boxing is really about is giving up the use of reason and our higher faculties and using violence to prove we're better than the other bloke — or sheila.