Publication
Title
Gender transgression in the (trans)national domain : Laura Serrano and women's boxing in Mexico
Author
Abstract
This chapter examines the gendered ways in which the (auto-)portrayals of Laura Serrano both challenged and supported narrative myths about boxing in relation to transnational projections of Mexican virility through a historical discourse analysis of Serrano’s autobiographical text La Poeta Del Ring and of Mexican newspaper articles from the 1990s. Women who displayed aggression and strength transgressed their supposedly physically and emotionally docile and ‘motherly’ nature. The development in women of aptitudes for a sport that was considered exclusively a masculine activity threatened the symbolic boundaries between male and female sport, as well as the broader constructions of masculinity and femininity as projected onto bodies. Serrano’s efforts to balance her identity as a serious boxer with that of her as an ‘appropriately’ gendered woman helped to claim acceptability for women’s boxing, which opened new possibilities for women and allowed for the imagining of a Mexican female boxer.
Language
English
Source (book)
Boxing, narrative and culture : critical perspectives / Crews, S. [edit.]; Lennox, P.S. [edit.]
Source (series)
Routledge research in sport, culture and society
Publication
London : Routledge , 2023
ISBN
978-1-032-32056-4
DOI
10.4324/9781003312635-16
Volume/pages
p. 194-206
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Gender, Nationalism, and Sports: Women's Cycling, Boxing, and Catch-Wrestling in Belgium and Mexico in the 1920s to 1990s.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Record
Identifier
Creation 26.10.2023
Last edited 27.10.2023
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