Kill the Body, the Head Will Fall: A Closer Look at Women, Violence, and Aggression

Drawing on research and her own experience in the boxing ring, the author shows how aggression equals success in every arena of life, debunks the idea that women are less aggressive, and shows women how to unleash their rage. Tour.

Denfeld (The New Victorians) began boxing on the amateur level in 1993 and two years later won a Golden Gloves championship. Opening with a survey of technique, followed by an apologia for the sport and an account of her first sparring session, she then develops her principal thesis: women sometimes can be as aggressive and as violent as men. In support of this contention, she examines anger in the female; abuse and violence committed by women against children or adults with whom they have relationships; female criminals; and females in the military and in sports. Although few will disagree with her view that the differences between men and women are not as significant as has been thought, the book will raise some hackles. At a time when many psychologists are arguing that the "masculinizing" of boys and young men can create more problems than it solves, Denfeld's unspoken assumption that females can be just as macho as males may not win universal approval. Fight fans will find her views on the sport of interest. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A writer's thoughtful look at the personal and social implications of her foray into the ``manly art'' of boxing. In 1993, after lawsuits had forced the opening of amateur boxing to women, Denfeld joined the Grand Avenue boxing gym in Portland, Ore., becoming a competitive and successful fighter. In this book, Denfeld describes her experience in sweaty and bruising detail, and uses boxing as a window on the politics of female aggression. She recounts the suspicion and discomfort of the men at the gym when she began her training and how, as she became more skillful, they came to see her not as a woman but as a fighter. Similarly, as her own confidence developed, Denfeld found that she could be every bit as aggressive in the ring as the men. Denfeld argues that the denial of female aggression and the trivialization of female violence are roadblocks to women's equality--depriving them of opportunities in sports and the military, for example. It is also socially dangerous; women's sexual abuse of children, for instance, is rarely discussed. This book has greater authority than The New Victorians (1995), Denfeld's critique of contemporary feminists: She knows more about boxing than she did about feminism. But it would have been even more interesting if she had woven her own background into this story. She makes no mention of her biracial identity, although society, as she notes, regards the aggression of women of color differently from that of white women. Denfeld also grew up poor, which she briefly mentions; since class, too, shapes women's relationship to aggression, anger, and competition, this warrants more discussion. Despite some holes, a well-rendered personal account of female athletic experience--a rare offering. Denfeld also makes an engaging contribution to popular discussion of female aggression, a subject that clearly merits closer attention. (For more on violent females, see David E. Jones's Women Warriors, p. 1783.) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Denfeld, an amateur boxer who was the first woman to win the Tacoma Golden Gloves tournament in 1995, is uniquely qualified to write a book on women and aggression. She had taken up boxing at age 26 as a challenging and healthy hobby but soon found that it made her question many of her own and society's assumptions about violence and aggression as intrinsically male traits. Women are supposed to be naturally nonviolent and passive. However, Denfeld sees aggression as a "human condition, not confined to one sex." Citing research on women and crime, child abuse, spousal abuse, and women in the military, she supplements her findings with stories of her boxing experiences--training in an all-male gym, sparring with teenage and preteen partners, and her first fight with a woman boxer who could throw punches better than most men. This calmly reasoned yet engrossing book may alter your opinions not only about boxing as a sport but also about the nature and extent of differences between the sexes. George Eberhart