girls, women and the desire to fight
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Cohen, Leah Hager
- Publish Year
- 2005
- Shelfmark
- VS 4 2005
- Thesaurus
- geweld, ouderschap, sporten, meisjes
- Description
- Learning to box alongside four inner-city teenage girls, Cohen delivers a sensitive, nimbly written account that is part memoir, part sports story and part critical inquiry into the nature of aggression. Cohen tells the story of sisters Jacinta, Sefina and Candi Rodriguez, their friend Nikki Silvano and their diminutive coach, Raphaëlla Cruz, one of the first amateur female boxing champions. Most of those drawn to the Boston-area Somerville Boxing Club are troubled in some way, Cohen suggests. Jacinta and Nikki are best friends, but some see them as too close: Nikki has an oppressive, difficult mother: before boxing, all the girls were quick to use their fists in disputes. Aggression is an essential aspect of female behavior, Cohen says, and its sublimation can result in the 'relational aggression' discussed in Rachel Simmons's Odd Girl Out and other similar books. Cohen links her own forays into the ring to her own issues with weight, parenting and violence.