What is a women’s revolution anyways? I ponder this while re-watching WWE’s inauguration of the new Women’s Championship.
The same championship that merged and replaced with the Diva’s Championship in 2010. This event happened in 2016, one year after the “diva’s revolution” (or women’s revolution depending on who is talking about it) that happened in 2015.
Let’s jump to 2017, the year where Bayley (one of the Four Horsewomen of this new era) was treated to a “This is your life” segment, in which she was shamed.
Maybe we should consider the entire gimmick of Mickie James, being that she is old … at the age of 38. What about how the winner of the first women’s Money in the Bank ladder match won because a man helped her?
Prior to 2014 (though, I have to admit I might be wrong on the timeline), WWE was notoriously bad with their women’s division.
In the past, they would only hire female supermodels in their division, and would only hire wrestlers for their looks (for more information, look up the Diva Search).
Many women were given gimmicks that involved body shaming and cat fights. Management would also go as far as telling off their women’s division for being “too good” and outshining the men’s division.
So this new direction is a step up, I get told over and over again.
Stephanie McMahon, the commissioner of RAW and one of the head writers at WWE, has stated herself that no one treats women more seriously than WWE.
Yet Shimmer, an independent wrestling promotion, has been depicting women as “bad asses” since 2005. And Shimmer is just one of the many promotions that contribute to treating women as wrestlers. If the indies can do it, why can’t a big corporation?
WWE calls themselves revolutionary when it comes the women’s division, but they keep falling short in so many aspects.
You can convince yourself that we’re in a “post-feminist era,” but I’m never going to just accept things as they are.
Ju Hyun Kim
4A Sociology and French
