In a 2005 study published by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice programs it was reported that between the period of 1998 to 2002 that 84% of spousal abuse victims were female, and 86% of victims of dating partner abuse were female. It was also reported that 78% of victims of rape and sexual assault were female, while the other 22% were male. The perpetrators of this sexual violence, regardless of the gender of the victim, were almost entirely male (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fvs.pdf).
Why are these statistics relevant to the world of professional wrestling?
Because as a form of entertainment wrestling traffics in sex and violence. Since at least the 1980s with World Class running its infamous catfights between Jimmy Garvin’s valets, Precious and Sunshine, sex and violence has been part of wrestling’s vocabulary. Today, it’s almost impossible to find a wrestling promotion that doesn’t offer both in some form, often times mixed together. Is this a problem?
To some extent, yes.
American wrestling has always been a morality tale pitting the good guys against the bad guys. Unfortunately, these morality tales reflect the often times questionable morals of the men booking them. This has lead to generations of fans being exposed to what many times are hypocritical views on male/female relationships.
As an example, the 10/03/2005 edition of RAW (dubbed WWE Homecoming, as it was RAW’s return to the USA Network) featured the entire McMahon family meeting in the ring only to have every member, women included, physically assaulted by long-time WWE hero Steve Austin (http://www.youtub e.com/watch?v=yZFInz99Kew) in what could only be seen as unprovoked attacks save for Shane. Not only this but Austin offers a blunt sexual advance, propositioning a kiss from Stephanie McMahon which, when denied, was met with violence.
Four years later, on a 02/15/2009 edition of RAW, after an unsanctioned brawl with Shane McMahon, top WWE villain Randy Orton offered a similar unprovoked attack on Stephanie McMahon (http://www.wwe.com/content/media/video/vms/raw/2009/february15-21/9379678). He followed this on a later episode of RAW by DDTing her and then kissing a prone and unconscious Stephanie while her husband, Triple H, was forced to watch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zb8eAvnzmY).
What was the difference between these two depictions of male-on-female violence? Very little save for the men perpetrating the violence. In the case of the former, the audience was invited to cheer Austin as he attacked both McMahon females, while in the latter, the audience was supposed to be outraged by Orton’s attacks on Stephanie. In both cases, Stephanie did nothing to warrant such a reaction from either man, and even so, is it responsible for a corporate entity like WWE to promote male-on-female violence under any circumstances?
Unfortunately, this isn’t an issue we can say solely rests with WWE. The American independent circuit has its own cases of questionable moral choices in relation to male-on-female violence.
On 02/23/2008, Ring of Honor presented their Sixth Anniversary Show, which included a highly controversial angle involving male manager Larry Sweeney interviewing female wrestler Allison Danger. The angle unfortunately deteriorated from there, as Sweeney hit Danger with his microphone and then encouraged a lackey, Bobby Dempsey, to rape the unconscious Danger. Even more troubling, the audience attending the show responded to Dempsey’s refusal to actively take part in the rape with chants of, “Man up!â€
Here, we see not only an example of the promoters running with a questionable moral choice, but the audience actively embracing it not unlike in the ’90s when crowds of rowdy ECW fans would encourage Tommy Dreamer to piledrive Beulah or Francine after exposing their half-naked bodies. Why does this happen? Why do audiences allow, and in some cases encourage, it to happen?
Can it be passed off as simple misogyny? Wrestling’s audience skews heavily towards young males, a group that tends to be more concerned with its own sexual satisfaction than anything (or anyone) else. Does this group genuinely get off on seeing young, attractive women harmed? If so, are promoters partially responsible for this based on their typically hypocritical views of male-on-female violence?
Wrestling itself is a violent form of entertainment. This can’t really be argued, although, I’m sure some would try. The point of a wrestling match is to physically assault your opponent until such a time as you can pin his shoulders to the mat for a three count. Part of the enjoyment from this is the vicarious thrill of asserting male dominance through violence, something that has progressively been demonized and marginalized in American culture throughout the last few decades. While some might argue this sort of ritualized violence then acts as one of the few channels left for an American male audience’s more violent tendencies, things become more troubling when women become involved.
The automatic response for most American men when they see a woman in danger is to come to her rescue and to protect her (whether she needs it or not). This sort of behavior has become ritualized in the male psyche for centuries, with the women being viewed as “damels-in-distress.” Within the last fifteen years, though, this sort of behavior has been subverted and in many cases audiences have been encouraged to cheer the would-be hero assaulting the damsel-in-distress.
The general excuse is, “She had it coming.†Be it because she interjected herself in a match where she “didn’t belong” or she took it upon herself to physically assault the man first, this excuse grants the male free reign to assault the female, and the audience a reason to ignore their own objections. Granted, one might still be able to argue self-defense, but how exactly can someone condone a 200+ lbs man with shoulders the size of boulders and arms like tree trunks responding to an attack by a barely 100 lbs woman with violence? He isn’t defending himself at this point, and it would be hard to argue proportionality given the dramatic size difference between the two. How did she have it coming? Isn’t there a much less violent form of revenge to be had?
A likely possibility, as mentioned, is that the audience could be gaining a sort of sexual satisfaction from seeing the male-on-female violence. Starting in ECW in the mid ’90s, this sort of fetishistic violence became commonplace. While there are countless examples in ECW’s history of this, the prime example would be the aforementioned Dreamer/Beulah confrontations.
Upon debuting in ECW, Beulah represented a sort of emasculation for Tommy Dreamer. Portrayed as a popular jock in high school, Dreamer wouldn’t give a “fat girl” like Beulah the time of day. Now she had returned as a Penthouse centerfold, clinging to the arm of his hated rival, Raven. She had reversed roles, becoming the one who refused to give Dreamer her attention, or if she did, it was purely scorn. Frequently, she would help to prevent Dreamer from attaining his one goal of beating Raven. In this, she continued to emasculate Dreamer for his past misdeeds. A large part of Dreamer’s ECW persona was built around being a masculine alpha male. Even while he was the underdog, he would always display virtues associated with “manliness.†He would never back; he was always willing to fight; and he would fight anyone, regardless of who they were (gender included). This allowed the mostly working class ECW audience to identify with a man they could see a lot of themselves in (or wanted to see as themselves). So not only did this allow Beulah to emasculate Dreamer, but also the audience that supported him.
Unfortunately, Dreamer’s response to this emasculation involved violence and sexual humiliation. On numerous occasions, after Beulah would interject herself in Dreamer’s matches to prevent him from beating Raven, he would set her up for a piledriver at which point he would lower her dress, allowing the audience an opportunity to gawk at her half-naked body. He would then finish this by completing the act, driving her head into the mat.
The worst was yet to come, as Raven had been portrayed as a psychologically abusive boyfriend to Beulah in his own right. Upon finding out she had become pregnant by someone other than himself, Raven became incensed, wanting to know who the father was. The ultimate reveal that Dreamer was the father in effect reversed roles, now emasculating Raven and allowing Dreamer to regain some sense of revenge against both Raven and Beulah. In effect, she had run from the psychological abuse of Raven to the physical abuse of Dreamer, vindicating the very sexual violence Dreamer had perpetrated. This also allowed the audience to revert back to a state of sexual normalcy, Dreamer now proven to be a “real man†through his violence.
This sort of fetishistic violence would continue throughout ECW’s history, even influencing the more popular then WWF to adopt a similar approach in their “Attitude†era and beyond. Women in wrestling popular culture became objects of sexual desire to either please through appeasement by subjecting themselves to sexual ridicule (Trish Stratus’ barking like a dog for Vince McMahon) or through the violence perpetrated on “whores†that deserved what they got (Cena delivering an FU to Lita after her “Live Sex Celebrationâ€).
The desire to see women harmed has become engrained in wrestling to such an extent that it’s almost passe now to just see a woman get hit, which has lead to other unfortunate events like the ROH rape angle. Is it possible wrestling further feeds that desire? If so, will there ever be a point when those that promote wrestling and/or those that watch it refuse to take part in that sort of mutually abusive relationship?
