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Crowd Control: Boxing in Weimar Germany
Here, Rumpelstilzchen contradicted some of his earlier comments from the 1921
article regarding women, boxing and “delicate sensitivities.” Instead, he argued
against women attending boxing matches not because it would offend their
natures, but precisely the opposite – because it would arouse their natures and
appeal to their basest desires. Contrary to the standard assumption that women
would reject boxing after witnessing its true nature, the article feared that women
would embrace it.
Other commentators also saw something in the female nature that drew women
to the violent aspects of the sport. In a 1928 article in Sport und Sonne, boxing
elicited the repressed, violence-loving side of its female spectators. Just as in the
short story “Inge und der Boxkampf,” the article invoked the bestial image of a
bull fight:
The women . . . Honor the women . . . but not at a boxing match. There the superwoman
steels her gaze; nature reveals itself as cruel, cold and lascivious . . . ‘Oh God, Hans, look,
he’s bleeding!!’ I look at [the woman who just said that] . . . I suspect that this woman
has only one regret: that we still do not have bullfights here. 82
The woman described in this article wore an expensive fur and the latest fashions
and clearly came from the upper class. Interestingly, reports generally characterized
the women who attended fights as middle or upper class, whereas many
of these same reports continued to portray the majority of the male spectators as
working or lower-middle class. Commentators who decried male behavior at
boxing matches attributed it primarily to the crowd’s working-class origins.
Descriptions of improper female spectatorship, however, attributed it to the nature
of women themselves.
Due to the inhibitions and superstitions surrounding women’s attendance and
to the fear that the physical aggressiveness of the sport would either upset or arouse
them, boxing associations in the 1920s often sought to restrict women’s presence
at fights. During a meeting of the Boxsport-Behörde Deutschlands (German
Boxing Authority) in 1927, the council reminded officials not to seat women
ringside at any fights. 83 The minutes mentioned no specific reason for this
reassertion of existing policy, but it probably aimed both at safeguarding boxing
from the presumed deleterious effect of women on the performances of the
fighters, and at protecting the sensibilities of women from the violent scenes visible
at such close proximity to the ring.
A very few boxing commentators, however, took the opposite stance. Rather
than seeking to restrict women’s access to boxing matches, they sought to increase
it. Erwin Petzall, in his analysis of women at the fights, pushed for greater female
attendance, arguing that this would encourage better behavior on the part of the
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