Russell, Ivy (Sept. 15, 1934). Why Shouldn't a Woman Wrestle! In: John Bull, p. 30. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003234/19340915/214/0030 Why shouldn't a Woman Wrestle! by Ivy Russell, who next week is wrestling for the women's championship I AM told that when the first women cyclists rode timidly out into Regent's Park sometime in the "naughty 'nineties" the public uproar which ensued shook the country from end to end. From a thousand pulpits the doom of the home was prophesied. And in the newspapers the whiskered male of the day was told that he could say good-bye to those ideals of sweet womanhood which he had cherished from his youth. The Home Secretary of that time was asked in the House of Commons if he could do anything to stop the immodest harridans who were undermining the modesty of England's womenfolk. The Home Secretary mournfully answered, "No." So, apparently, it has been with every new department of sport or health training which women have embarked on sicne that day. So it is now with this new sport of wrestling for women. A match has been arranged for me to meet Peggy Parnell at Lane's Club, Baker Street, London, on September 19, in the first wrestling contest for the Women's Championship of this country. From the day the contest was first announced a storm of prejudice, ill-informed criticism and abuse has been directed against it. I am glad of the opportunity to say a word in its defence. First of all there is such a thing as a women's wrestling movement in this country, and any who try to dismiss it as the occupation of one or two cranks are very wide of the mark. It is a movement that is growing from day to day. In fact, in London and the Home Counties alone there are already dosens of women's wrestling clubs. One to which I belong, the Victoria Ladies' Wrestling Club, has been actively in existence for over five years. It is controlled by a London Society woman, Mrs. Austen-Hutson, who gives five evenings a week throughout the year to running it. *** Almost every night you will see scores of girls there from every class---typists, shop assistants, Society girls, dancers, mannequins---all learning the art of self-defence and developing that grace and strength with which most human beings are originally endowed. They wreslte with each other under the eye of instructors, and they wrestle with men! The method used is what is called "free style"---hence, perhaps, the misleading idea that many of its most vehement critics have about this new sport. They have interpreted "free style" wrestling as "all in" wrestling, and assume that our method embodies all the brutalities associated with the latter. They are wrong. There are no brutalities whatsoever in our free-style method---no gougings, strangle-holds, twistings or kickings. But it is as effective, or more effective than any of the barbarous older methods of wrestling. It is a development of jiu-jitsu. It is self-defence first and last, self-defence at its highest and purest. *** Why is it that at some of the clubs the girls wrestle with men? The answer is that it is against the superior physical strength of the male that the method can best be tested. In "free style" the sexes are evenly matched. It is skill which counts, unexpected holds, swift submissions whoch are really forms of attack. The slenderest skilled woman can more than hold her own against the strongest unskilled man. My own club, which I run at Croydon, in conjunction with my trainer, Mr. Ted Streeter, late of the Army gymnastic staff, is a mixed one with more than 200 members, girls and boys and children. As for the objections to women's wrestling, first and foremost is the so-called medical criticism---that it is harmful physically for women to wrestle. I can answer that from experience. At eleven years of age I was a consumptive and for three years I gradually became worse in spite of what medical attention could do for me. At that time I was not expected to live much longer. But beginning with mild exercises, I began to train as a wrestler. Slowly I became better. Then I took up in earnest wrestling, which was just then beginning. From that time onwards my health improved. I have wrestled ever since and have never known a day's illness. To-day I can lift 362 1/2 pounds, and without acquiring the physical appearance of a "strong woman" at a circus. I would like some of the doctors who may have casually ssupported the medical objections, to visit some of the women's wrestling clubs. They would be welcomed. And they would see girls and women there who are graceful and strong, and with the poise and happiness that perfect health brings. What are the other objections? "This nauseating exhibition," said one newspaper speaking about our forthcoming contest. That statement springs, as I have said from a misconception of the style of wrestling we adopt. It is no more nauseating that jiu-jitsu, which can be as graceful to watch as a dance. "It will destroy the feminine qualities," is another objection which has greeted all women's ventures into male sports. Nonsense! You will find as much lipstick and powder, and as many pretty clothes in the dressing-rooms of the women's wrestling clubs as you will find in any boudoir. With the difference perhaps that our members have got healthy bodies to adorn. *** "Outrageous," said a parson the other day. "These women seem determined to rob their sex of the respect of all decent men." There we have the most familiar objection. There the cloven hoof peeps out! The old objection of the male. Is there a tiny, tiny bit of fear in it? Our answer to that is the root of the matter---our set purpose, as well as that of strengthening and beautifying our bodies. It is self defence. It is "outrageous" for a woman not to be able to defend herself. Look in the Home Office reports for last year of the increasing number of attacks and brutal assaults on women if you want to find the justification for our sport. I hope I have said enough to show that the objections to this new women's sport will not hold water. They are as shadowy as were those to women's cycling, hockey, field athletics, cricket, hiking, and so on. And they will vanish just as surely as they have always done.