{"id":67123,"date":"2018-10-08T15:11:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T20:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=67123"},"modified":"2018-10-08T21:03:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T02:03:42","slug":"snowflake-as-evolution-approaches-wwe-continues-to-fall-short-when-it-comes-to-presenting-female-wrestlers-and-its-womens-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/10\/08\/snowflake-as-evolution-approaches-wwe-continues-to-fall-short-when-it-comes-to-presenting-female-wrestlers-and-its-womens-division\/","title":{"rendered":"SNOWFLAKE: As Evolution approaches, WWE continues to fall short when it comes to presenting female wrestlers and its Women&#8217;s Division"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-393345699\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>On Oct. 28, WWE will present its first ever all-women&#8217;s PPV in wrestling history. For a company that once made one of the athletes performing at this event bark like a dog on all fours on national television, that&#8217;s quite a major step &#8211; although don&#8217;t expect to see that particular highlight from Trish Stratus\u2019s career in any hype packages.<\/p>\n<p>While WWE has undoubtedly come a long way from its sordid presentation of women, &#8220;Evolution&#8221; is an appropriate title for the show &#8211; not because of how far women have come in the company, but because of how much more there is still to do. Think of it like this: If this were the evolution of life on Earth, 2018-WWE is still in the neanderthal era.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So while WWE puts on its best feminist face, let&#8217;s examine the current landscape.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, why are the championships in the Women&#8217;s Division prefixed with &#8220;Women&#8217;s&#8221;? It&#8217;s not the Men&#8217;s Universal Championship. Who is getting confused if the titles (sorry, Vince) are called by just their names without a gender attached? I don&#8217;t think any viewer will be expecting a Charlotte vs. A.J. Styles match if you bill the Smackdown Women&#8217;s Championship as simply the WWE Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to my second point: Why are the women&#8217;s titles branded to the show and not the men&#8217;s? Because, like the tag titles, the women&#8217;s titles do not carry the same prestige in the eyes of the company brass as the men\u2019s. This problem exists in NXT too &#8211; which, on balance, does a much better job than the main roster with its women. In NXT you have the additional issue of the women&#8217;s belt having a silver X rather than the gold featured on the men\u2019s. They would literally be second place if the belts were medals &#8211; as prizes, they carry the same meaning. It&#8217;s a ridiculously simple thing to correct and by doing so you&#8217;d give the impression that the championships are of the same value regardless of the gender of the &#8220;competitors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The emphasis on looks &#8211; while not as heavy as during the eras of Sable or Stacy Keibler &#8211; is still ever-present in WWE.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nia Jax endured a storyline only slightly better than Mickie James in the infamous piggy James angle; I don&#8217;t remember a time in the 20 years I&#8217;ve watched WWE when the focus of a men&#8217;s main event angle was one of the wrestler&#8217;s weight.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Back in August of this year, Dave Meltzer had a twitter exchange with a fan who reportedly had to go back four years to find a women&#8217;s title match to not feature a blonde, white woman. That is a trend &#8211; a trend showing the myopic view of two men and their idea of what is attractive in a woman. In those four years, here are some of the women WWE have had on their roster who are not white and blonde:<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-991876612\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Sasha Banks<\/li>\n<li>Bayley<\/li>\n<li>Becky Lynch<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Asuka<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Nia Jax<\/li>\n<li>Naomi<\/li>\n<li>Mickie James<\/li>\n<li>Ruby Riott<\/li>\n<li>Ronda freaking Rousey<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You&#8217;re telling me no combination of the above was good enough to be featured?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>But this goes beyond Kevin Dunn and Vince McMahon\u2019s predilections; why in the world does a wrestler competing for a championship have to even look attractive? How is that even a consideration? Can a woman wrestle? Can she cut a promo? Is the audience invested in her journey? How do all those questions come AFTER &#8220;Is she blonde?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yes, looks play a role in how men are presented in wrestling &#8211; both inside and outside WWE &#8211; but men are judged on more factors than their skin and hair color and how much they weigh (okay, as long as they&#8217;re more than 205 lbs.) and there is no man on the WWE roster who is presented like a pornstar &#8211; at least until Joey Ryan joins Mandy Rose on Smackdown.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Why is Becky Lynch shoehorned into a heel role the audience don&#8217;t want her in just so that Charlotte can play the heroic face who ultimately wins the feud and championship (tell me that&#8217;s not how this ends)? Why is Asuka, easily the best wrestler on the roster, languishing in a dancing duo instead of main eventing shows? Why is the very embodiment of the Divas Era expected to main event the first ever all-women\u2019s PPV?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of booking decisions, let&#8217;s take a look at the people making them. As far as I am aware, there is a grand total of zero women writers for storylines and, apart from Stephanie McMahon, no women decision-makers in the top brass on the creative side. Is it any surprise that the wrestlers sound inauthentic if men are exclusively writing for them?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>How many times has WWE presented the idea that all women hate each other and can&#8217;t get along? How many times has WWE presented bickering women as the baseline for female relationships? How many times has WWE presented the idea that women can&#8217;t be trusted &#8211; including as managers of male wrestlers (see: every on-screen wrestling couple ever)? After all, this is the company that had The Rock &#8220;slut-shame&#8221; Lana in the midst of what was then the Women&#8217;s Revolution. Yes, the same Lana who is now cast in an infidelity storyline.<\/p>\n<p>Getting back to Evolution: When is the event taking place? Oh that&#8217;s right, less than a week before the second Saudi Arabia show where women aren&#8217;t expected to even be in the country &#8211; including announcers, backstage personnel, and even the savior of all womankind, Stephanie McMahon herself.<\/p>\n<p>Wade Keller has spoken extensively in his podcasts about the gulf between the presentation of the returns of Shawn Michaels and Trish Stratus, so I encourage you to listen to that as well.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><div id=\"pwtor-879100075\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>On the VIP Podcast &#8220;The Fix,&#8221; Todd Martin and Wade Keller speculated that the pay of the women performing on the Evolution show would be 15 times less than what Undertaker and Triple H will earn at Crown Jewel. I expect that&#8217;s not a one-off. Aside from Rousey, I do not believe any woman is paid equivalent to the men in their tier (i.e. Becky Lynch does not earn the same as A.J. Styles &#8211; or even 80 cents on the dollar for that matter). You could argue that the women don&#8217;t put butts in the seats like the men. Yeah, Dana White thought the same thing before Ronda Rousey broke drawing records faster than she could break arms.<\/p>\n<p>Gender equality in WWE may be asking for a bit much, but a modicum of pretense in attempting it is, I believe, reasonable. And this is not even about fighting for social justice; it would behoove the company to improve its record of presenting women because it will help their bottom line.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The very idea of the Evolution PPV is throwing a bone to the women to distract from the entire steak being given to the men a week later (served on gold plates at the Saudi palace, no doubt). Well, at least Trish won&#8217;t have to bark for that bone.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><i>(<\/i><i class=\"\">Salman Muhajir has been a pro wrestling fan for 20 years. He writes the recurring &#8220;Snowflake&#8221; column in the &#8220;Specialist&#8221; section of PWTorch.com\u00a0<\/i><i class=\"\">examining how the pro wrestling industry deals with social issues today and in the past. \u00a0<\/i><i class=\"\">He has a degree in history and international relations and currently resides in London, England.\u00a0<\/i><i class=\"\">He can be reached on Twitter @SalmanTM11.)<\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-2469388744\"><div id=\"pwtor-926771274\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>On Oct. 28, WWE will present its first ever all-women&#8217;s PPV in wrestling history. For a company that once made one of the athletes performing at this event bark like a dog on all fours <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/10\/08\/snowflake-as-evolution-approaches-wwe-continues-to-fall-short-when-it-comes-to-presenting-female-wrestlers-and-its-womens-division\/\" title=\"SNOWFLAKE: As Evolution approaches, WWE continues to fall short when it comes to presenting female wrestlers and its Women&#8217;s Division\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,52,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlightarticles","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2018\/07\/WWEEvolutionPPV_3x2_600.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67187,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67123\/revisions\/67187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}