Round 10 - ‘trapped’ in the gym (chapter 8) and After fight analysis

Deborah argues, ‘Boxing traps men in a culture of ‘respect’ and constructs habits of proactive and reactive violence that at no always conducive to criminal desistance’ (p163) Or are they trapped in masculinity and boxing, joyriding or being a male criminologist is just one way to do it?

I start to wonder if ‘gym-life’ is so all-consuming it might be called a subculture in which ‘delinquent solutions’ are found (Downes, 1966) in which her boxers sought to ‘magically’ solve their problems (Phil Cohen) and Sugden (1985) calls boxing an ‘occupational sub-culture’.

Gilligan (1996) is quoted on activity being seen as the mark of a man which brings me back to what I think is the point of my book that both crime and sport are gendered and gendering and valorise activity over passivity. The reason that sport can be both a cause of and cure for crime is that they are both lodged deeply in the construction of society. Boxing cannot, and should not be expected to, cure society.

Knife and gun crime get a mention with attempts to encourage the use of ‘gloves no guns’ and #putdowntheknivesandputonthegloves. I can’t find any source online but I recall in my youth depictions in popular culture of ‘dastardly foreigners’ - doubly unmanly because devious and not English - resorting to knives whereas the upright English hero only used his fists and strictly according to the Queensbury’s rules.

Referring again to the code of the street Deborah notes it, ‘made violence permissible when it was employed as a resource for enforcing and upholding ideas around interpersonal violence’ (p167) ie it was in some way ‘not crime’.

In policy terms, if boxing is to be supported it must, sit alongside more therapeutic and pro-social identity change mechanisms’ (p171). But there are ‘no magic solutions’ (p173) - for the men or policy makers. 

After fight analysis

Throughout I’ve offered the odd thought. How am I going to score this?

I like the book and the subject which I see she has wrestled with. I hope it is clear this is an epistemological point not a ‘mansplaining’ one but as a man who has done martial arts and spent time in all-male bantering company I personally learned little but I think others will.

You will see I clearly wanted the book to be twice as long and I’m going to blame the constraints of publishing but also the supervision process for a PhD. In my academic gym I’d run a different regime.

The focus is narrowly on the gym and immediate surrounds. We get only brief glimpses of mothers, sisters and girlfriends/wives.

Feminism is mentioned and informs the book but a strong feminist analysis is avoided and issues of racism are absent.

The desistance literature and (self) control theories are examined but a whole raft of other criminological theories might have been tested against the material including queer and cultural ones. Methodologically I wanted more reflexivity on the possibility of a woman being an ‘insider’ in such a setting.

Why nothing on crimes/deviance within boxing such as gambling and doping etc?

I fear that in addition to reviewing the book I’ve also strayed into attempting a secondary analysis of the data she presents. I have also highlighted some of my work but also of others that she has cited and some she has not.

On the penultimate page she admits her love of boxing. I have made clear my ambivalence and perhaps it is for this reason that I feel she has ‘pulled her punches’ somewhat.