Women's Boxing in Cuba: When Ignorance Kills Dreams

Their voices clamored for the opportunity for a long time, but their claims always fell on deaf ears. Shielding the machismo or misogyny in an alleged concern for women's health, delaying it in time under the excuse of medical and psychological studies, the official practice of women's boxing was banned by the authorities for many years. Women's boxing was banned in Cuba after the triumph of the revolution in 1959*.

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However, on December 5, 2022, the sport was officially approved. Above all, due to the conjunction of two main factors: the pressure exerted by women to exercise their right and the need to obtain sports results at the international level.

Even so, not even those who "approved" it are comfortable with the decision. This can be deciphered in the justifications given as to why women were denied the right to practice a sport in Cuba that has been practiced in the world for decades and of which the island was a pioneer.

For example, according to an article published in the officialist newspaper Trabajadores, Alberto Puig de la Barca, president of the Cuban Boxing Federation said:

We were convinced, but we needed to persuade those who were not. There were people who did not like it and now they accept it.

Persuade who? How is it possible that some people decide what sport a woman can or cannot practice professionally? Contrary to the idea that women in Cuba have all their rights guaranteed in Cuba, this episode shows that there are still many remnants of institutional machismo that violate them.

Not even the Federation of Cuban Women made any effort to support the claims of the women who enjoyed boxing. Demonstrating that its objective is closer to institutional interests than to women's social rights.

Even, Puig de la Barca gives as one of the reasons the ¨preocupación¨ was related to the dangers for women's health due to the practice of this sport. And it seems that this is something rooted in the Cuban sports movement, since this same excuse was already used before to stop the practice of female wrestling and weightlifting.

It is even more improbable when such justifications were never used to accept and stimulate the practice of these sports by men.

Many may say: let's leave this in the past, it is already approved. But I want to tell you something, precisely for not saying or analyzing anything when it happened previously with other sports is that this nonsense was repeated with women's boxing. If we do not put this in perspective it will happen again, it could be with MMA (mixed martial arts) or with some other sport activity.

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Where are the dreams of women like Namibia Flores? Time does not come back, and at 46 years of age after spending decades fighting for the right to compete and represent Cuba, the fact that the practice has been made official is a bittersweet balm for her wounds.

Joy for the women who will now be able to do it and sadness, perhaps anger, for the opportunity that was denied her.

*In an interview to Felicia Mesa, a female cuban professional boxer before 1959, she expressed:

Fidel (Castro) put an end to boxing for women because he said it was a danger, that something bad could come out in the breast. And I had to stop boxing.

Originaly posted on Hive