We recently sat down with Ilenia, a boxer and creative at Fight for Peace, to understand her journey into boxing, her perspectives on discriminating attitudes against women, and a wonderful women in sport visual campaign that she is spearheading. Here’s her blog in her own words:

“I started sports very young, I started swimming at two years old and I have done dancing and gymnastics. After lockdown and before starting university I wanted to try something new, something to get me out of my comfort zone, out of my box.

Ever since then I have done boxing. It’s been two years on and off, injuries and uni keep me away sometimes. When I was a child, I did sport mostly for health, to keep me active and busy but starting boxing has given me lots more confidence in terms of what my body can do. 

I always had a bit of a struggle with body image and my relationship with my body and so getting into boxing and focusing more on what my body could do rather than what my body was like helped a lot in terms of confidence and skills as well as understanding what I am capable of and how to push my limits not only in sports but outside too.

In boxing I am always pushing myself, to do an extra push up or an extra round. If I manage to do that which I didn’t think was possible for me physically, that means that I can probably do this as well, and that applies to my life and new experiences.

FACING DISCRIMINATING ATTITUDES

While I haven’t had negative experiences of participating in sport directly, there are subtle things. I went to a school that focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and so I am sadly used to being undermined or undervalued because I am a woman. I am able to push past it but there are times when it feels very discouraging.

I have never seen anything directly discriminatory to girls in boxing, as in no one has come to my face and told me anything negative. I think a lot of it is unconscious in terms of not taking women seriously or automatically seeing them as inferior opponents.

I do boxing in the mixed session at Fight for Peace and everyone is a lot taller than me so it is already quite difficult to find my opponent but I found that I have been sometimes undervalued or not taken seriously just because I am girl fighting with a guy. A lot of the time if the coaches pick up on it they make sure that they bring us back – like you are not treating each other equally so you are not training properly.

You see the difference between how guys train with each other and how they train with you, they actually take each other seriously, they aim for the face, they use their full speed and force when it comes to pairing with women they are very delicate or not doing it properly.  I have had people not even looking in my direction when we are sparring. I don’t know if it’s shyness but I have seen them straight up not looking in my direction which is one of the main points in boxing.

In society more generally there are places that are pretty toxic to girls and if you don’t feel welcome, you can lose the motivation to continue because you just feel that you are not being taken seriously. You just feel like a joke if you have put in effort and people just wave it away. This is not just in boxing, it applies to work and school also.

AN EXAMPLE FOR CHANGE 

I know that it’s inbuilt and rightfully taught that you shouldn’t cause violence against girls or anyone in general, but if you are in a gym in a boxing session, everyone that walks through the door is aware of what is going to happen, is aware that we are going to get punched and we are going to punch. 

We are here, we are fully aware of what is going to happen. My message to men who are boxing with women is that you should treat us equally, just because we are girls and you think we are delicate or smaller or shorter that does not mean we are not equal opponents. 

It’s really sad that it took until 2012 to introduce women’s boxing into the Olympics. A lot of people say that women’s sport is not as entertaining or it’s not the same but women’s sport has never been given the space. Seeing more and more disciplines and women’s sports being more and more popular gives a lot of hope for the future because kids are going to grow without the idea that some sports are just for guys, or I am not built that way so I can’t do that. 

The more voices and examples given, the more girls are encouraged to be in sports and not just the traditional sports that they just might not change. I see the change, but I see more and more girls here in boxing. I still think it needs more work but I think the more that women are celebrated in sports the more they are given the space the more they will join. It’s really important for girls to see examples of female athletes, we need to see it, you feel that if they can do it maybe I can do it too.

THE ART OF BOXING 

The women in sport campaign that I worked on recently at Fight for Peace was about getting more girls aware of the women only boxing sessions. I created a visual design which we have used in poster form and displayed at the heart of our Academy, and which we are planning to use in many different formats to get the word out. 

I noticed that a lot of fitness for girls revolves around body image, being skinnier or having exposed abs but very few focus on the feeling that sports gives you, feeling better and more confident. So through my design I wanted to bring the focus away from appearance and more towards what the sports make you feel and showing the power that you gain from such a sport.

Lots of women I have talked to that do boxing express how much more powerful they feel, and more empowered because they are doing something they never thought they would do. So by bringing that feeling out and sharing it we are hoping that it will bring more girls and that they can feel more empowered, safer and more comfortable.

I wanted to represent everybody in the design and also the community we have in the women only boxing sessions at Fight for Peace. So I used silhouette figures working together not competing. I have noticed that in mixed sessions it can feel that everyone is out for themselves. With the women only session it’s more of a community, we help each other out and it feels more like a group practising and training together rather than just being together in the same room. 

I am really happy to be sharing this design with the Fight for Peace community and the world and I hope that it can help inspire more women to feel the power of boxing in their lives!”