Do you hit girls?

Dr Alex Channon is a Senior Lecturer at Brighton University's School of Sport and Service Management. His research has explored the relationship between gender, sexuality and participation; the value of martial arts within physical education curricula; media representations of professional fighters; the construction of meaning around notions of ‘violence’ among martial artists; the provision of medical support in combat sports; and the experiences of referees in mixed martial arts competitions as they pertain to risk management. Alex is one of the founders of Love Fighting Hate Violence http://lfhv.org/ which is a campaign aiming to raise awareness of the important moral difference between sport-based combat, and violence.

Alex and Georgia discuss: 

• The importance of explicit consent 
• How martial arts can be used to teach kids about consent 
• The impact of learning to fight on victimization
• Why men have trouble hitting girls in class
• Valerie Loureda: The sexualization of female mma athletes

Links to the papers Alex mentions:
Jocelyn Hollander self-defence research review paper – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/soc4.12597

Randall Collins violence and confrontational tension/fear – https://www.isegoria.net/2018/06/confrontational-tension-and-fear-make-most-violence-incompetent/

Helen Owton’s reflective piece about her boxing career – https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137439369_14

Thank you so much to Nari for the beautiful song "Shape Me" heard at the beginning and end of this episode. Nari wrote this song about Shape Your Life, a boxing program for self-identified women survicors of violence in Canada. She wrote this song using the words and experiences shared by participants with Cathy Van Ingen. You can find out more about Shape Your Life in my interview with Cathy in Episode 8. You can hear more of Nari's work by going to her Instagram: @narithesaga