Fight Like a Girl

Gemma Sheehan is an ex-MMA champion. She teaches girls how to fight.

            Deep social conditioning might have led you to reread the first two sentences. I don’t blame you. When I told my sister I was going to interview a former MMA fighter she smiled and asked, “What’s his name?” As a society, we have long internalized a cultural narrative that does not associate girl with fighter— certainly not of the punches-and-kicks variety.

            The good news is that, according to Sheehan, this is changing.

            “It’s why I started Girls Who Fight,” she tells me, referring to the business she founded nearly two years ago. “I noticed that girls were interested in learning how to defend themselves.”

            The girls in question range from ages seven to fourteen. They meet at a local gym and learn kickboxing, wrestling, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu techniques for self-defence. Sheehan offers weekly classes, girls’ camps, and teen workshops. The groups are kept intentionally small: Sheehan is both vigilant and hands-on with her students. She is also conspicuously proud of them.

            “After one class, most of them have learned how to escape a wrist grab,” Sheehan says. “After two or three, they figure out how to escape being pinned down to the ground. I honestly thought it would take them longer, but they just learn so fast. They help each other out, challenge each other… it’s amazing. And they have so much fun doing it!”

            I think back to the physical activities of my childhood: the traditional (and, if I’m being frank, boring) ballet and swimming lessons combo. Would I have taken Sheehan’s classes if they had been around when I was seven years old? I suppose it would depend on my parents. (It was the feminist in me that made me write “parents” instead of “mother”—the truth is that I don’t think my dad ever had a say in what sort of extracurricular classes I took.)

            I ask Sheehan why she thinks her students join Girls Who Fight.

            “A lot of girls have been following wrestling all their lives—they enjoy it. Most girls know who Ronda Rousey is. They’re looking at the sport as something that’s a girl thing, too. Pop culture is also putting much more emphasis on strength in women. There’s also a lot more female presence in movie action roles.” Sheehan says some girls come in asking to learn how to fight like the super-heroines they see on screen.

            “And sometimes it’s their moms,” Sheehan explains. “A lot of women are interested in self-defence. Some have even tried learning before, and they all tell me a variation of the same story: they signed up for a boxing class, got punched in the face by men, and never went back. The problem is that these classes aren’t taught by or designed for women, and so they don’t feel like they belong there. That’s what’s so different about Girls Who Fight: I am a woman—and I’ve obviously been a girl—who is teaching girls. And it’s great because these girls will grow up having known these techniques. It’ll be a part of their skillset.”

            “You seem to love what you do,” I say.

            “It’s very rewarding,” she says, nodding in confirmation. I say nodding, but I really mean beaming. Her energy is contagious. I can see why her students love her classes so much. “Not just the physical aspect of it, but all the work we do as a group. When they walk in, a lot of these girls are speaking in teeny voices and doing ‘the hunch,'” she pauses to pantomime the move, folding her torso inwards. “I teach them how to use their voice and body language to assert themselves. We talk about things like the importance of walking straight in public and asserting boundaries. With my teens, we talk about social media practices, safe party habits, and bullying. I teach them about situational awareness. They all learn how to present themselves with confidence.”

            Sheehan’s own confidence is palpable. What she is saying is undoubtedly inspirational, but how she is saying it— Sheehan speaks with fluency and passion—is even more impressive. It would be easy to forget that she is only twenty-four years old. I remind myself that I shouldn’t be surprised. This is a woman who was ranked the number one female MMA fighter at the age of twenty-one. A woman who won a Pan Am gold medal in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Who won championships—plural.

            “Do you miss fighting?” I ask.

            She seems to consider this for a moment. “No,” she finally says. “I loved it, but quitting was the right decision for me. There’s such a lack of emphasis put on brain health. I didn’t even know about the neurological risks associated with the sport until I did my own research.” She goes on to explain that a close friend of hers, a fellow fighter, got knocked out three years ago, and his life hasn’t been the same since. “If it weren’t for that, I might not have looked into the risks. The culture teaches you to treat brain damage like it’s not a big deal because it’s something you can’t see. I was never given a talk about brain damage. It made me really upset with gyms and coaches.”

            I ask her if she ever worries that people will see her classes as violent.

            “It’s something that I’ve been asked before, by parents and friends. What I say to them is this: any girl can be attacked at any moment. And if they’re attacked without knowledge of MMA, they’ll have to resort to drastic, amateurish measures like biting or eye gouging. MMA is highly technical and scientific,” she explains. “I teach a girl to remove herself from a vulnerable position in a way that’s both safe to her and minimally damaging to others, so it’s actually a much less violent option. I’m giving them tools that might be useful one day. And if they never need them, they’ll still carry themselves with more confidence because they’ll know they have these skills.”

            “This makes perfect sense to me,” I say. And it does. Female empowerment is the buzzword of our post-#MeToo world, but believing in empowerment is not the same as actually being empowered. A hashtag gone viral does not change the fact that, as women (or girls), we are living in a male-dominated world. And changing that will require not just beliefs, but tools. Tools to combat the powerful and omnipresent adversaries that women face every day: insecurity, misogyny, harassment, and violence. Tools like the one Sheehan is offering.

            “MMA is about self-defence, not violence,” Sheehan continues. “People usually understand this if I explain it to them. But unfortunately not everyone asks—it’s one of the challenges that I face as an entrepreneur.”

            It occurs to me that Sheehan has successfully inhabited not one, but two male-dominated spaces: professional fighting, and business. It must have been a big change. I ask her how she prepared for it.

            “I did a lot of research,” she says. “I read over thirty business-related titles in one year so I could open Girls Who Fight. They taught me so much. Really, they were invaluable.”

            This is common ground: I, too, am a book lover. It makes me admire her even more. I look down at my notebook. There’s only one question left. A quote, really—one I love, and that I want to get Sheehan’s opinion on.

            “There’s a famous line,” I begin. “‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ You’re both a fighter and a reader. I’m curious: do you agree?”

            “I’m not a fighter anymore,” she points out. Then she pauses, as though to consider the question of the quote. “And I’m not sure.”

            Neither am I. Although, I used to believe in it wholeheartedly. I still believe—really, I know—that, in a fair fight, the pen is more powerful. But, at the end of the day, it’s all about reach. A pen is only effective if people are picking up books—or magazines. The sad reality is this: not everybody reads. And everyone bleeds.

            I share this—pessimistic? realistic? I never know the difference—sentiment with Sheehan.

            “Good thing anyone can learn how to use a sword, then,” she says.

            Her words bring a smile to my face.

            And that’s when a realization clicks into place: Sheehan is still a fighter, although now she is fighting a different battle. An old battle. By empowering girls, she is fighting the patriarchy. She is fighting for girls.

Girls Who Fight
127 Sunrise Av. 647-889-5912 (gemma@girlswhofight.ca)
www.girlswhofight.ca
Instagram: @girlswhofight_to