Fight!? Empowering women through martial arts and combat sports

A discourse of women’s empowerment in martial arts and combat sports (MACS) through self-defence training is widely spread, although not indeed effective. Despite the promises of women’s ability for self-defence, they have remained over the years at the margins of MACS, specifically karate, both at an elite and amateur levels, in the Global North and South. The structure, tradition, hierarchy, and pedagogy are kept usually by men in MACS positioning them at the centre of a circle of power from where they can tell women what to do for women’s safety. Through life-long research, we have developed a project that aimed at changing this story by centring women and their voices and needs. Such project was piloted between 2024-2025 in Canada with a group of migrant vulnerable young women, who are active in their sustainable empowerment process, co-creating a different story way beyond self-defence. We report this innovative approach here.