By Dominic Arthur, Senior Reporter.
Women in professional wrestling dates back as far as the 1930’s with Professional Wrestling Hall of Famer (2002), Mildred Burke, who doubled as an office stenographer. Since then, professional wrestling has seen a litany of women performers, but it wasn’t until the 50s through the 90s that women in the ring became an attraction on the show. Women’s wrestling took a hit in the 90s as many female performers were used as valets or on-screen eye candy. They were no longer competing in the ring, but instead they were competing in matchups that involved them stripping or performing in some sort of mud to appeal to professional wrestling’s male dominant audience.
Enter the early-to-mid-00s, and women’s wrestling was on fire as we saw women and men competing and slamming one another on a weekly basis for usually the same goal. When women were competing against one another, they were competing in matches such as “street fights,” where they’d bash one another with everything including the kitchen sink, and piledriving each other for the Women’s championship. It was serious, and we even saw Chyna win a championship that’s only been held by men, the Intercontinental championship.
Then, in the late-00s, the Women’s champion was retired, and replaced with the Divas championship, along with the term “women” as a whole, it seems. The women of the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) were turned into “Divas,” and their competitiveness was capped as the company started dropping its cartoonish characters for more “realistic” and “relatable” ones. Women were no longer competing against men or in matches that are male dominant. They were pushed back to valeting and be used as eye candy as models were being hired and taught how to perform while the experienced women of the ring were struggling to make the cut because they didn’t have the “looks.”
Currently, women’s wrestling is on the rise again as our culture demands that women and men be looked at in the same light. The women of the ring are now main eventing pay-per-views in bouts that last up to an hour. This is extremely rare and satisfying to watch. The current era in pro-wrestling is called the “Reality Era,” and there are more women currently in development with previous performance experience than there are models plucked from a catalog for their “looks.”
If this is the “Reality Era,” then it’s time that we have a product that’s marketable to all audiences of all genders. They need to make changes to their one-sided, male driven product, and make people care for women’s wrestling, instead of using their matches as bathroom breaks. They need to become more competitive and inspirational instead of leaving them with no purpose or storyline to follow.
Women are just as strong, competitive, athletic and powerful as men in both reality and in a fictional world, no matter the job, and it’s time for women to have their deserving moment in the sun.
