Teaching for Equity: Feminist Pedagogy in Martial Arts and Combat Sports

Mariana Simões Pimentel Gomes

Faculty of Physical Education  - State University of Campinas - Brazil

Laboratory of Sports, Diversity and Adventure

Sports Sciences Department

Why Gender in Martial Arts 

When I began my trajectory in Martial Arts and Combat Sports (MACS), still in middle school, biology classes presented XY chromosomes as markers of the “male sex.” At the time, that understanding led me to assert repeatedly that “on the mat I was XY,” as a strategy to demand equal treatment from peers, mostly boys and men, so they would not “go easy” on me or presume less strength or effort when facing a girl.

Thirty years after that beginning, now a black belt in two disciplines, I revisit this path as one marked by trials and denials. At various moments, I performatively denied my womanhood to secure my continuity; I fell silent in the face of sexist remarks; I trained hard while disregarding my menstrual cycle; and sometimes I proclaimed, with pride, that I “fought like a man.” I now recognize these gestures as survival tactics within an institutionally gendered environment and as evidence of that frame’s limits.

Coming from a generation in which girls and women were demeaned, called “tomboys” when they practiced extreme sports or sports socially coded as “male”, I experienced a binarized context with very low female representation and pedagogies oriented toward a default subject: a male, white, cis-heteronormative, athletic competitor. Such a model often operated at odds with the interests and desires of those actually present in class, reproducing expectations and norms that I now seek to analyze critically and transform.

These experiences are not merely personal; they are symptomatic of how MACS have been historically organized and taught. The sections that follow move from this lived diagnosis to possibilities of change: first, the challenges that shape girls’ and women’s participation; then, the pedagogical differences needed for equity; and, finally, why this matters in education.



Barriers on the Mat

Upon entering a martial arts space, it is common to find on the wall the image of the master or the founder of the style, displayed for ongoing reverence and remembrance. The figure of the teacher, sensei, or master typically operates there as the main authority and reference for knowledge. If, however, we ask how many women occupy those walls, framed to be remembered, or how many we recognize as historical references in that practice, many people will likely be unable to recall any name or portrait. This visual absence is not a decorative detail: it signals who is legitimized to represent tradition (Korsakas, 2023; Channon & Jennings, 2014).

In the absence of representation, girls and women tend to feel insecure when beginning to learn combat modalities, never knowing whether they will be treated equally, whether they will have to “prove” they are strong enough to occupy that space, or whether others will “go easy” on them because they are women. Korsakas (2023) and Ferretti (2011) show that male instructors may reproduce the notion of the female body as fragile, placing women in the position of those to be protected, with lowered expectations for development and performance, or with reduced physical demands compared to men (Korsakas, 2023; Channon, 2014).

If, on one hand, there may be insecurity in dealing with practical and physical aspects, on the other there is often fear of harassment (moral or sexual), fueled by a sexist and misogynistic imaginary still present on many mats. Phrases such as “being tough is being a man” or “be a man and fight” are common in these environments and may come from peers as well as from masters/senseis. Toxic masculinity operates here as a silent norm: it rewards aggressiveness as a virtue; silences those who say “you are using unnecessary force” or ask to change partners; trivializes signs of pain, fatigue, or fear; and associates “technical quality” with athletic male bodies.