I would like to write about something I personally experienced the other weekend, because I never have thought it would be something I would face in BJJ. I had just competed at Pan Ams a couple weeks before and decided last weekend I would jump into a small, local tournament. (I have decided to leave the name out because I want to focus on the principal of what happened.)
Competing in any tournament, big or small, is always good experience. Upon looking at the prizes, I thought it would be a fun tournament to do as well. The winner of the absolute division wins $200, qualifies for The Ultimate Grappler in Florida, plus a year of free competition within this specific tournament. I read the rules. I noticed it stated that these prizes were applied to the winner of the Men’s absolute. Now, excuse me if this is an ignorant assumption, but I figured the same would be applied to the women’s absolute as well. I mean why not? We are in 2014. Jiu Jitsu is a sport for everybody and if you are going to offer cash prizes and other rewards to men the SAME should be applied to women. You simply cannot argue that point.
Anyway, I arrived to the competition and they called me over and told me essentially there were not a ton of girls but enough to add in extra matches including an absolute division. All of us girls were kind of thrown into a pool, and we were just doing back to back matches against each other, but I thought it was great I was able to have 7 matches. So the day went on, I competed in my matches and I ended up winning my nogi absolute division. After winning, I was given a medal and a nice little trophy. I went up to one of the refs there and I politely asked about the cash prize. I asked, “I saw men win $200 for winning absolute, so I am assuming the same goes for women, do I receive the cash prize as well?” He nervously laughed and apologized saying all of those prizes were specific to the men only because they were “unsure about how many women would be there.” Right there, I became extremely upset. It saddened me honestly. What a horrible excuse for such a double standard especially in this sport. The fact of the matter is, registration ended early that morning, so they had PLENTY of time to see how many women would be there and to make any adjustments. Furthermore, it should not matter how many women are there, whether there are 2 or 35, awards should be the same.
I decided to approach the main person in charge. I first thanked him for giving the girls plenty of matches, but then followed up on the discrepancy of the awards for the absolute divisions. He gave me an almost sarcastic answer asking, “Well you received a trophy right?” and “You got all those extra matches, the men had to pay for theirs.” I realized at that point, I was not going to win this argument. I was so offended that he threw the extra matches in my face as an excuse. The girls never asked for those. They were offered to us. Of course we were going to accept matches if they were offered. Not once did they say anything such as” we are willing to give you extra matches for free, however this will replace any cash prizes for your division.” The excuses given were unacceptable.
I am writing about my experience because this absolutely should not be accepted in the sport of BJJ(or any sport for that matter). Men and women should be viewed as equal. We all work just as hard as the next person and when we compete women should be treated the same as anyone else. It is so condescending to treat us differently. Personally, it made me feel like as a woman in this sport I was not being taking seriously; none of us were for that matter. Setting a double standard is not a good way to portray the sport. We want more women to join BJJ, and this type of behavior will only do the opposite. It is 2014 for crying out loud. Now, I have never experienced this before this tournament but I want everyone, especially women, to be aware that it does exist. If you see it, make it known that it should not be tolerated. Needless to say, I will not be participating in this tournament again. From here on out, I will be checking anyone that I do compete in. If prizes are offered I want to know it is for both genders not just the men’s. Women: please do the same and share this article so we can pass this on!
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