After the fight: Claressa Shields and women in boxing, sports, and life

Claressa Shields and many other female boxers have extraordinary talents but are still battling gender inequality to attain their dreams. 

Claressa Shields did an amazing thing on March 5 by becoming the first boxer in the multi-belt era to become an undisputed champion in two weight classes but had to jump through a ridiculous amount of hoops to make it happen.

One of the world’s best boxers couldn’t find a prominent broadcast partner to televise or stream her fight. That’s a glaring indictment on the state of the gender gap in boxing, sports, and the world-at-large.

Shields (11-0,2 KOs) is a proven quantity. As an amateur boxer, Shields won two world titles and two Olympic gold medals. It was easy to predict her professional success, but it’s wrong that she has had to battle systemic gender bias in sports and boxing to do it.

Sports signify a microcosm of the disparity facing women in numerous facets of life. Looking across a broad spectrum of professional fields, women are not compensated equally in comparison to men. That’s a broad statement but one that’s generally a fact.

There are likely numerous professions where that’s not the case, but research shows that the gender pay gap is real. In sports, that gap is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

It’s common for people to deny the realities of the gender pay gap, but those that do likely have political motives or are ill-informed. Pew Research Center studied gender disparities in pay and came to some concrete conclusions.

“The gender gap in pay has narrowed since 1980, but it has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years or so,” stated a 2019 Pew Research article.  “In 2018, women earned 85% of what men earned, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers in the United States.”

A recent article by Business Insider stated, “One of the most glaring issues is the gender wage gap, the difference in earnings between men and women. The gap is especially prevalent during the economic struggles caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.”

The pandemic has hurt almost every business and the overall economy. Like other sports, boxing has continued, but the industry is hurting. Life in and out of the ring is starting to normalize, but it was hard for most boxers in 2020 to make a living. Female boxers had it much worse.

Shields fought once in 2020, and that occurred before the pandemic lockdown. In 2020, she couldn’t get any of the major fight broadcasters to sign on for one of her fights. That’s one of the reasons she and her promoter Salita Promotions had to go it alone for her March 5 bout against Marie-Eve Dicaire. With no major network backing, Shields and Salita Promotions staged their own pay-per-view card with FITE.TV.

Shields did what she had to do to keep her career active and her finances stable. Still, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where one of the world’s best boxers cannot draw the attention of a major network. Before the Dicaire fight, Shields gave her own explanation of the situation.

Claressa Shields shouldn’t have to stage her own boxing matches to be seen. It’s a further example of gender inequalities present in society.

“They’re sexist and can’t handle strong women,” said Shields about major networks, according to The New York Times. “They’re always yelling equality, equal pay, equal opportunities, but they don’t mean it.”

Women’s boxing has moderately grown over the last three decades. In comparison, women’s MMA has progressed at light speed. Why is one advancing so quickly while the other is moving along at a snail’s pace?

That’s a loaded question to answer. One reason is that organizations like the UFC have embraced women in their sport. Boxing promoters are slowly adding women to their rosters, but the sport treated women like a sideshow during the 90s in Christy Martin’s era. Boxing did little to appeal to amateur fighters or nurture their growth into the professional ranks.

Today, Matchroom Boxing and DiBella Entertainment have signed women boxers and given them a platform, but other promoters have been reluctant to follow suit.

Another point to remedy would be to give women the same fighting circumstances as men. Currently, women fight two-minute rounds instead of the three-minute rounds used in men’s boxing. Why?

Having two-minute rounds limits women to 2/3’s of the fighting time as men. That’s another inequality. That’s less time a woman has to display her talent in the ring and for her ability to be seen by the world.

In MMA, women fight the same length of time as men. So why is it different in boxing?

Whether we like it or not, athletes are role models. They inspire youths worldwide to engage in sports, which are healthy for them physically and beneficial to them socially. Sports teach us valuable lessons such as discipline, teamwork, and the value of hard work. They also offer us hope that we can achieve our dreams.

Young female athletes lack professional athletic female role models because of the inequalities in professional sports. You can’t turn on a T.V. and see a professional female baseball or football player because there is no opportunity for women in either sport. It’s also hard to see a woman on a professional boxing card.

It matters to a little girl to see someone like her playing a professional sport. I know firsthand because every time a female boxer comes on T.V., my 4-year-old daughter’s eyes light up, and a smile grows on her face. She loves watching Claressa Shields, Katie Taylor, and Cecilia Braekhus on T.V. because they are like her, and she naturally internalizes that message.

Sadly, a 4-year-old sees women boxers as a luxury. It means that she has also internalized that boxing is a sport dominated by men with very few opportunities for women. That point is further solidified when she only sees men playing baseball or catching a pass on the football field and wonders why women can’t do those things too.

They can, but women need more of a chance…in boxing, sports, and life. Inequality is there, and unless we recognize it for what it is, then there’s little we can do to change it.