Women in Wrestling

[THE Great GAMMA]

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/463515-hulk-hogan-on-arsenio-hall-this-week

Associate Professors Conduct Study on Female Characters in WWE, Hulk Hogan on Arsenio Hall This Week

Associate Professors Conduct Study on Female Characters in WWE
According to The Wrestling Observer, University of Windsor Associate Professors Betty Barrett and Dana Levin conducted a study on how female characters are portrayed in WWE, following Linda McMahon's claims that WWE had "cleaned up" its product and made it more family friendly by making it TV PG.

The study concluded that McMahon was not telling the truth when she made the claim, as Barrett told The Windsor Star WWE continues to portray women in relationships as inferior to men, as psychos, gold diggers, cougars or vengeful scorned crazies.

Barrett admitted that she is a wrestling fan, and she also admitted that male characters in WWE aren't portrayed all that well either. But she said that even though WWE portrays females as they do, the characters work.

The difference, however, is that other TV shows which portray women similarly to WWE do not aim their product at younger kids. Adults know what's real and what is not, but with children, often times they're more unsure as to what is and is not real in the world of WWE.

Ok so Women in wrestling are portrayed in a bad light and we needed a study of this.....Really??

Women are portrayed in a bad light in all of entertainment and most of the time it is a lot worse than WWE. You think of Soap Operas and Reality TV. I mean really i would think that AJ Lee as a crazy chick is a much better example to women that Paris Hilton or Kim Khardashian or freaking Honey BOO BOO (She must die....) or any of the mothers in Toddlers and Tiaras. The argument is that these reality shows are not geared to kids.

Lets take it further then. The in cartoon Phineas and Ferb the main female Protagonist is a crazy teenage girl whose sole purpose in life it seems is to get her brothers in trouble...yeah great female role model there. In Peter Pan, Tinkerbell is constantly trying to get Wendy offed. To the point where she sells the whole group out to Captain Hook, Why because she is jealous and goes crazy....great role model there.

Women in general are portrayed in a bad light in the media and entertainment.

They can take thier study and shove it and LEAVE WRESTLING ALONE!!!!

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

I'm not gonna defend wrestling and particularly the WWE at all here. It's misogynistic as hell.

There's a reason that most Divas have a 2 to 4 year career there and then get the hell out on their own accord. Yes, other shows have similarly negative stereotypes of women, however, many also have a counterbalance to them with strong female characters.

The WWE has virtually none and I don't think they would know how to create one.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Well, Stephanie McMahon is a power-driven woman....in fact, she's essentially a male version of her husband. I don't know how that plays with you guys, but even as I can appreciate a strong, assertive woman executive, there's something about Stephanie's persona that's like biting on tin foil, and it certainly goes against the norm for the wrestling business.

Over-the-top applies to pro wrestling in more ways than just tossing someone out of the ring in a battle royal.....it's inherent in the way this form of sports entertainment is portrayed. Everything is exaggerated. Are women presented as most women you meet on the street? Of course not; all men aren't presented as Joe Everyman, either.

What pro wrestling is represents what people have historically wanted to see in their leisure time. In carnivals and movie dramas, men are portrayed as strong while women are sexy. As much as some folks will object to this, it's a time-honored formula. Yes, you can name exceptions to this; anything can be proven with individual examples.....but on the whole, this is how the entertainment industry is cast.

Pro wrestling follows the trends; Vince McMahon is the greatest promoter since P.T. Barnum and knows what the public hungers for. Actually, he's been progressive, if anything, and unafraid to cast his performers against the grain when he sees fit. My best example of that was the Ultimate Warrior-Randy Savage match years ago, a reversal of the "Beauty and the Beast" scenario in which beauty saved the beast. Think of how totally against the mores of society that act went.......yet, it played.

It amused me when Sable was suing WWE for $100 million, claiming the company "exploited her body."

Hell yeah, they exploited her body! That's what she was hired for and she was well aware of it when she signed her contract. She didn't think they employed her for her wrestling or acting ability, did she? No less than Chyna came forward and charged that "No one exploited her own body more than Sable herself."

It's the name of the game. Personally, I have no problem with how women and men are portrayed in pro wrestling. It is what it is. As I said, you can cite individual examples of how characters differ from the norm: for every Sable, there's a Stephanie McMahon.....for every Kelly Kelly, there's a Vickie Guerrero.

Honestly, since they've lost the Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler types, most (not all) of the gals are better in the ring than we saw in the past. Yeah, there's still plenty of room for improvement but at least we've gotten away from the 45-second matches and watched as divas are given more of a chance to work their matches.

Hear us roar.

 

[Jaiye]

Yes, women are portrayed in a negative light everywhere. And that is exactly why it is studied, not just in professional wrestling, but in other areas as well. This isn't something new. Honestly, female wrestlers are not given much time to really build their own character or to display their wrestling ability. They really are just used as time-fillers if you ask me.

But anyways, I myself am doing a study on perceptions of female professional wrestlers. It's a project for my last course in college. If anyone could take the survey and help me out I would definitely appreciate it. The link is below.

https://qtrial2014.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_7PTdpnqEHlwJ0Pz

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

Wrestling is a reflection of society. Society is sexist.

Yes, many wrestling female characters are gold diggers, crazy exs, etc, but those are people "archetypes" which is the basis for wrestling. You have heels and faces.

Wrestling isn't at all unique in it's representation of women. Look up the entertainment industry statistics as a whole. The proportion of roles, awards, directors, etc is all heavily skewed towards men.

Personally, I think wrestling has gotten better than it previously was. You don't have Sable or Kat or Chyna walking around anymore. Girls promoted either as "BOOBS" or "FREAK SHOW".

 

[Jack-Hammer]

The study isn't wring in it's assertion that women are generally portrayed as inferior to men. However, the assertion that the portrayal of some women as "gold diggers", "psychos", "cougars" or "vengeful scored crazies" is somehow degrading is, in my perspective, another example of political correctness running wild. I honestly fail to see why it's WWE being taken to task when every other form of popular media have female characters that fall into the same categories. Sex and the City was a huge success due in large part to painting some of its female characters as any or all of those things. I suppose that's okay, however, since that show was critically hailed and won a slew of television industry awards.

Sometimes, I honestly wonder if these political pundits, various rights groups and so called intellectuals are so ignorant that the either don't know or can't tell that professional wrestling is, as it pertains to characters, feuds and storylines, as scripted as any traditional television show. Why was it okay for Kim Cattrall to portray a materialistic, shallow, man hungry cougar that made her a household name, but pro wrestling gets called out for portraying a female wrestler in a similar but very watered down type of role?

As far as women being treated equally in pro wrestling, it's simply not as cut and dry. Pro wrestling is a business, always has been, and the goal of a business is to make as much money as legally possible, legitimate businesses that is. They do that by putting out a product that management feels is the best opportunity they have to maximize how much money they can take in. In the case of women and professional wrestling, there's never been any real money there. It's just simply how it is because women have never been a significant draw. Is it possible for WWE to change that? It's not impossible, highly unlikely, but not impossible. We've at least seen WWE make several noticeable and dramatic improvements in how they use women. A good deal of the time, women are actually given some time to actually wrestle in wrestling matches. They no longer portray them as mindless sexual objects with ridiculous matches like lingerie or pillow fight matches. They no longer have them strip down to skimpy underwear to parade around in front of a hooting crowd.

But will they ever be on the same level of importance as men? Highly unlikely because history simply works against it. As I said, women have never drawn money in American pro wrestling; and this goes WAY back before Vince McMahon took over the company from his father. I'm not saying that women can't be as talented as the men because some of them are. Some of them are more talented than a lot of the men, in fact, and statistics show that women can be every bit as physically durable as men, if not more so. It might not be fair but...well...shit...when was the last time the world was fair? What's happened to those roughly 300 schoolgirls who were kidnapped in Africa to be sold, now that's something that's not fair. When it comes to the women in WWE, it doesn't seem to bother most of them because, at least until recent months, their primary job has been to look attractive and wear skimpy outfits while making a lot of money and traveling the world. The only ones who complain have been those who've left the company, after either being fired or wanting to leave, but they seemed to have no problem taking Vince McMahon's money.

 

[Dan Severn's Moustache]

NOTE: This was originally going to be its own thread, but I noticed this thread, and I felt it would be more suitable to post here

Back in the Attitude Era (don't worry, I'm not one of those fanboys blinded by nostalgia), Chyna was one of the bigger stars of the time, mostly due to how unique she was in comparison to the other women in the roster. Deemed to be too dominant for the Woman's division for the early part of her career, she instead competed with the male wrestlers and amassed a respectable amount of accomplishments, including three reigns as the Intercontinental Champion (the only woman to hold the championship) and even earned herself a Number 1 Contendership position for Steve Austin's WWF Championship at Summerslam 1999 before Mick Foley beat her to take her position in the match.

Focusing on this point, WWF's original plan was to have Chyna defeat Stone Cold Steve Austin in order to challenge gender stereotyping and develop Chyna into a massive force in the WWF, but due to ongoing pressure from WCW in the Monday Night Wars, the creative team backed out of this idea and instead gave Chyna the Intercontinental Championship. While the IC championship reign Chyna accomplished is still remembered, the potential for her to win the WWF Championship could have been ground-breaking and would have changed the view most have on woman's wrestling forever.

Fast forward to 2014, and no woman in the WWE or any other major wrestling company has had the same opportunity as Chyna had as far as my knowledge recalls. Instead, all women are restricted to their own division, never to wrestle men. Beth Phoenix and Kharma have both had Royal Rumble appearances, there's been a few small matches here and there and some Cruiserweight and Hardcore Championship reigns but nothing else seems to stand out.

Because of this, woman's wrestling maintains the stance of focusing more about the sex appeal of a performer as opposed to the wrestling aptitude. Of course, some women have proven to have both (Trish, Lita, Mickie James etc), but in WWE, and to a lesser extent TNA, sex appeal is often favoured over wrestling experience. Of course, some women have challenged such stereotypes in the past, but it's become a cliché for a woman to serve no more purpose in a male storyline as either a reward or a damsel in distress.

Now, obviously there are some problems with allowing women to compete in a male environment. The biggest factor is that WWE and TNA would not wish to promote misogyny on their television show with a male attacking a woman, especially in WWE due its attempt to maintain a PC image in their PG era. As a counter-point, restricting all women to the women's division, whether they like it or not also falls under misogyny. The other problem is that a lot of women simply don't have what it takes to compete with the male performers. This is not me being sexist, because men and women are often split by gender in most sports such as athletics, football, MMA etc for that reason. This also comes back to the stereotypical models that WWE in particular like to hire in that they don't have the skill to compete with male performers. Some, such as Chyna, Beth Phoenix and Kharma do, on the other hand and if a woman is happy to compete with the males on a regular basis, what's to stop them?

My opinion on the matter is this: If a woman wants to compete with the men, the men are comfortable with competing with the female and the woman has enough skill to do so, what's to stop them competing in the male division on occasion at the very least? And I'm not just talking about atypically strong women such as the ones mentioned above, I'm talking about any female wrestler who meets the qualifications above. It's become misogynist in itself that nearly all female wrestlers can only beat up jobbers in matches between a man and a woman and it certainly wouldn't hurt if the line was blurred more than simply a occasional Royal Rumble appearance.

From there on in, it's a matter of whether a female wrestler gets over with the fans enough to warrant a large enough push to compete for and potentially win the world championship.

Should a woman get the opportunity to win the world championship if they want to compete with the men? Should the women stay separate from the males? If a woman was allowed to compete with the men on a regular basis, should it be an atypical powerhouse or should any diva with enough talent be able to compete with the men? With Ronda Rousey as the new face of MMA, should a woman be able to have the same opportunity in wrestling?