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| Could the Bucks integrate SHIMMER? It's a possibility Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
Any time I bring up wanting to integrate promotions along the gender line or have them feature female talent once more, I'm met with a similar refrain. "How about being equal opportunity and demanding that men be booked in SHIMMER?" Without context, it's a fallacious argument. Men do not need integration to have things be equal. A male wrestler can go to any company in America and theoretically find work. Women still don't have that opportunity, although it's getting better. SHIMMER and other women's only companies were started out of necessity so that the burgeoning number of females coming up through wrestling schools had a place where they could regularly find work and get better at their craft. Companies such as those have done a tremendous job of cultivating an environment where women can grow and improve to the point where they're not just good women's wrestlers, but that they're good wrestlers, period.
Obviously, with companies like Chikara, Anarchy Championship Wrestling, and Combat Zone Wrestling among others starting to do work in dissolving the gender barrier, the kneejerk reaction is to say SHIMMER is not needed anymore, that they should be forced to integrate just like companies across America are "forced" to integrate women. I know I run the risk of building a straw man here, but I have heard/read sentiments similar to the one I put forth in that previous sentence. The thing is that no one has forced any of those three promotions or any company that has run intergender wrestling (or at the very least has had a women's division that is more than one feud at a time) to do so. Pressure that has come down has come from fans who want to see things integrated, but companies are either slow on the draw or for whatever reason have withdrawn their own forays into leveling the playing field along gender lines. They can do what they want, and because many companies choose to be either sausage fests or to keep their treatment of women limited to a novelty act (it's all in treatment, not roster size... Chikara has one woman on the roster right now, only one, but no one should deny that they're at the forefront), women's wrestling companies seem to be necessary.
However, the argument that the women-only promotions should integrate is not one without merit. Far from it. I just think that the reasoning should be sound behind it. A "men's rights/misandry" argument of "SHIMMER should integrate cuz equality" comes from a terrible place of misunderstanding at the very least. However, there are at least two really solid arguments for having men compete in SHIMMER.
The first one is the most obvious one in any wrestling promotion. If there's a story to tell, you should probably think about telling it, and whoo boy, there's a whopper of a yarn to be spun by having men invade an all-girl's club. The easiest and some might say cheapest way to introduce testosterone into SHIMMER would be through a story based around the fallacious men's rights arguments. Having an "equality" crusader come in and petition to bring balance to the company. This is a full-service story that would provide the opportunity for character building, promo time, a slow burn series of matches, and a conclusion that ends up with a title match of some sorts. It would be a unique subversion of the underdog story, where the established order of the company, oftentimes the archetype of villainy, ends up being the thing that's rallied into action against an insidious but innocence-claiming invasion force.
I've floated the idea in the past that the Young Bucks would be a great team to test this story. Dirty Dirty Sheets have floated Robert Evans as a prime competitor. Honestly, any male performer who's up to the task could run with this angle with varying degrees of execution. Depending on the kind of character is invading makes this story so versatile, and as we know, versatility in wrestling is a beautiful thing.
The second reason, to unrefined ears, might sound like it's the same as "SHIMMER should integrate cuz equality," but when taken in focus, it sounds like something a progressive chap like myself might think about saying. The truth is that in a perfect world, SHIMMER and companies of its ilk should not have to exist. Wrestling is wrestling, and companies would continue on with appropriate demographics regardless of label. See, here's the dirty secret that some people don't really want to accept; there is no such thing as women's wrestling or intergender wrestling. To reiterate, wrestling is wrestling.
For example, in retrospect, the thing that made the Resistance Pro at National Pro Wrestling Day match to me disgusting and abhorrent wasn't that D'arcy Dixon couldn't lift up Robert Anthony with ease like the men could. It was that she was physically weak (natural psychology) comparatively speaking, but also cast aside as an inferior competitor through the use of misogynist slurs that weren't used as bait to give those who were the creepy cretins comeuppance. Gender and sex were only given a role in that match because the competitors within it decided to make it so. Strip all four competitors of their gender and their voice boxes in that match, and you get something that pro wrestling was built upon.
In order to build up a new order, we first must have to break the old one down. That means looking at wrestlers through completely androgynous lenses as they step into the ring with each other. The sad thing is that it's hard enough for the fans to do, let alone the heads of certain companies who have tons of money and the requisite television time to go with it. That being said, SHIMMER is a company that has both fans and people running it who know that boobs don't make wrestling ability go away and that a vagina isn't a mark of weakness.
It wouldn't so much be a statement of men righting something that was a wrong against them, as ridiculous as that sounds to a rational human being, as it would be one of women proving that they don't need special treatment, that they are just as good as the men and can be counted among them as wrestlers with no qualifier. Founding SHIMMER as a place where women could wrestle like people instead of like sexy cattle in bras and panties was the first step. Logically, the next step would be turning the industry on its head and making the statement that the "Women's Athletes" portion of the company was as permanent as a cocoon for a caterpillar.
The butterfly that results from that metamorphosis would be the most beautiful thing for pro wrestling to embrace. The question then would be how ready the business at large would be ready for such a large-scale transformation? I am not sure we're as close as we need to be, sadly. The fact that a call for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla to have women on their shows is met with such vehement resistance tells me that we've still got a long way to go. However, understanding SHIMMER's role in fostering women as wrestlers doesn't necessarily mean that it's a permanent one. There will be a time when SHIMMER won't need to exist in its current form, and when men and women are no longer separated from competing against each other because of anatomy or sexist attitudes from the fans. Whether that day is tomorrow or in 2112 is something I don't know. But just because arguing that men should be in SHIMMER because "it's the same thing as arguing for women in PWG" is an awful argument doesn't mean that men in SHIMMER, period, is a bad idea unto itself.
Obviously, with companies like Chikara, Anarchy Championship Wrestling, and Combat Zone Wrestling among others starting to do work in dissolving the gender barrier, the kneejerk reaction is to say SHIMMER is not needed anymore, that they should be forced to integrate just like companies across America are "forced" to integrate women. I know I run the risk of building a straw man here, but I have heard/read sentiments similar to the one I put forth in that previous sentence. The thing is that no one has forced any of those three promotions or any company that has run intergender wrestling (or at the very least has had a women's division that is more than one feud at a time) to do so. Pressure that has come down has come from fans who want to see things integrated, but companies are either slow on the draw or for whatever reason have withdrawn their own forays into leveling the playing field along gender lines. They can do what they want, and because many companies choose to be either sausage fests or to keep their treatment of women limited to a novelty act (it's all in treatment, not roster size... Chikara has one woman on the roster right now, only one, but no one should deny that they're at the forefront), women's wrestling companies seem to be necessary.
However, the argument that the women-only promotions should integrate is not one without merit. Far from it. I just think that the reasoning should be sound behind it. A "men's rights/misandry" argument of "SHIMMER should integrate cuz equality" comes from a terrible place of misunderstanding at the very least. However, there are at least two really solid arguments for having men compete in SHIMMER.
The first one is the most obvious one in any wrestling promotion. If there's a story to tell, you should probably think about telling it, and whoo boy, there's a whopper of a yarn to be spun by having men invade an all-girl's club. The easiest and some might say cheapest way to introduce testosterone into SHIMMER would be through a story based around the fallacious men's rights arguments. Having an "equality" crusader come in and petition to bring balance to the company. This is a full-service story that would provide the opportunity for character building, promo time, a slow burn series of matches, and a conclusion that ends up with a title match of some sorts. It would be a unique subversion of the underdog story, where the established order of the company, oftentimes the archetype of villainy, ends up being the thing that's rallied into action against an insidious but innocence-claiming invasion force.
I've floated the idea in the past that the Young Bucks would be a great team to test this story. Dirty Dirty Sheets have floated Robert Evans as a prime competitor. Honestly, any male performer who's up to the task could run with this angle with varying degrees of execution. Depending on the kind of character is invading makes this story so versatile, and as we know, versatility in wrestling is a beautiful thing.
The second reason, to unrefined ears, might sound like it's the same as "SHIMMER should integrate cuz equality," but when taken in focus, it sounds like something a progressive chap like myself might think about saying. The truth is that in a perfect world, SHIMMER and companies of its ilk should not have to exist. Wrestling is wrestling, and companies would continue on with appropriate demographics regardless of label. See, here's the dirty secret that some people don't really want to accept; there is no such thing as women's wrestling or intergender wrestling. To reiterate, wrestling is wrestling.
For example, in retrospect, the thing that made the Resistance Pro at National Pro Wrestling Day match to me disgusting and abhorrent wasn't that D'arcy Dixon couldn't lift up Robert Anthony with ease like the men could. It was that she was physically weak (natural psychology) comparatively speaking, but also cast aside as an inferior competitor through the use of misogynist slurs that weren't used as bait to give those who were the creepy cretins comeuppance. Gender and sex were only given a role in that match because the competitors within it decided to make it so. Strip all four competitors of their gender and their voice boxes in that match, and you get something that pro wrestling was built upon.
In order to build up a new order, we first must have to break the old one down. That means looking at wrestlers through completely androgynous lenses as they step into the ring with each other. The sad thing is that it's hard enough for the fans to do, let alone the heads of certain companies who have tons of money and the requisite television time to go with it. That being said, SHIMMER is a company that has both fans and people running it who know that boobs don't make wrestling ability go away and that a vagina isn't a mark of weakness.
It wouldn't so much be a statement of men righting something that was a wrong against them, as ridiculous as that sounds to a rational human being, as it would be one of women proving that they don't need special treatment, that they are just as good as the men and can be counted among them as wrestlers with no qualifier. Founding SHIMMER as a place where women could wrestle like people instead of like sexy cattle in bras and panties was the first step. Logically, the next step would be turning the industry on its head and making the statement that the "Women's Athletes" portion of the company was as permanent as a cocoon for a caterpillar.
The butterfly that results from that metamorphosis would be the most beautiful thing for pro wrestling to embrace. The question then would be how ready the business at large would be ready for such a large-scale transformation? I am not sure we're as close as we need to be, sadly. The fact that a call for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla to have women on their shows is met with such vehement resistance tells me that we've still got a long way to go. However, understanding SHIMMER's role in fostering women as wrestlers doesn't necessarily mean that it's a permanent one. There will be a time when SHIMMER won't need to exist in its current form, and when men and women are no longer separated from competing against each other because of anatomy or sexist attitudes from the fans. Whether that day is tomorrow or in 2112 is something I don't know. But just because arguing that men should be in SHIMMER because "it's the same thing as arguing for women in PWG" is an awful argument doesn't mean that men in SHIMMER, period, is a bad idea unto itself.