Violent Femmes

As more and more women seek out tension-releasing workouts that pack a punch—literally—is combat the new self-care? asks Maya Singer.

- Maya Singer

FIGHT NIGHT ISN’T AS ROWDY as I expected. When I invited a few girlfriends to take in an evening of amateur Muay Thai, a form of boxing that utilizes elbows, knees, punches, and kicks, I pictured us jostling for space amid a whooping mass of blood-lusty men. But the audience at this venue off Wall Street is rather tame—polite gaggles from gyms in Philadelphia and the outer boroughs, here to cheer on their fighters, and banker types who seem to have only just escaped from their desks. The bouts are pretty tame, too. Until two women step into the ring. An electric current runs through the crowd when Carmen Corchado and Julie Cohen dart out from their corners: This is a fight. They go five rounds, battering each other. Everyone is rapt. I hear my friend Amanda, beside me, murmur: I want to do that.

It’s a common sentiment these days. In the two years since Donald Trump was elected president, the story that just won’t quit is of women getting in the fight. Marching, organizing, striking. Demanding pay parity. Calling out abusers and harassers. Running for office. And—less commented upon but a trend nonetheless—trading in their yoga mats and detoxifying bath salts for boxing gloves and starchy jiu-jitsu gi.