Stephen A Thompson makes a contentious statement on women’s participation in combat sports.
It is a widely accepted concept that men and women are equal promoters of sports. Both the categories move hand in hand and carry the same importance in terms of the major attributes. However, some age-old baseless thoughts still exist and come back to life whenever a famous personality highlights them.
Popular ESPN presenter Stephen A Smith recently put forth his thoughts about women in sports, which apparently hold no value in the current world scenario.
Smith appeared in the recent episode of “Black on the Air” podcast, and conversed about the recent appointments of women in the jobs, where men were apparently seen as the prime choices. Smith, who has in the past faced criticism for his comments on “women and sports”, shares his thoughts on women in combat sports now.
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‘I don’t want to see women fighting in the octagon’
The 53-year-old says he ships Women’s participation in several fields but, when it comes to their participation in areas where physicality is needed, then he says he “off the bandwagon.”
“First of all, I love it. I think that there’s an awful lot of women that are incredibly qualified to do the jobs that they’re doing. Where I jump off the bandwagon is when they try to engage physically. For example, I don’t ever want to see a woman boxing a man. I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to see a woman in the UFC fighting a man even though there are some women out there that’ll kick a dude’s butt. We get all that.
“When I think about pugilistic sports, I don’t like seeing women involved in that at all. I just don’t like it, I wouldn’t promote legislating laws to prohibit them from doing so, but I don’t want to see women punching each other in the face. I don’t want to see women fighting in the octagon and stuff like that, but that’s just me. What I would adamantly be against is them fighting men. I don’t think that’s cool. Plus, you don’t ever want to give men license to believe that it’s all right to be physical with a woman, to be quite honest with you. You don’t want to do that.”
‘I support it, I’m a fan of it’
“ Outside of that, when you think about them in executive positions, first of all, they’re smarter than (men) a lot of times, they’re more composed than us a lot of times, they’re incredibly knowledgeable about these respective sports. They’ve had to go through trials and tribulations one couldn’t even imagine most of the time. For them to get to that point, they deserve the opportunity to showcase their skill sets. Just like we have women in corporate America doing an incredible job leading companies, being executives, pushing businesses forward, etc., etc. There’s no reason on earth why they can’t do the same in the sports world. I support it, I’m a fan of it, and I hope we see more of it.” (Source- MMA Junkie)
The stature which Stephen A Thompson holds, he can without a doubt represent his opinion, however, being a representative of sports and then disseminating what in his eyes is improper, may draw the attention of many critical eyeballs.
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