Marlo Thomas takes back Sherri Shepherd weight-loss comment: ‘Never doing it again’
By John Nolte
24 February 2015
The battle between women’s professional boxing, in which the sport is dominated by men, has once again opened up with the announcement of a bout pitting female boxer Marlo Thomas against male fighter Sherri Shepherd.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Thomas said that her comments in a Sports Illustrated interview last week were taken out of context. She added that the weight-loss comment was intended only as an attempt to educate fellow female athletes about mental health issues that women face. Her comments were not intended as a defense of the sexist mentality of male boxing promoters or the boxing industry in general.
“I’ve been a boxing fan since I was a young child, and being a female athlete who had to weigh twice as much as my male opponents was incredibly shocking and upsetting to me,” Thomas said. “As any woman in the field knows, we are faced with enormous challenges in our daily life, but I would never make light of these issues and would never intend to denigrate the many women who have been helped through these challenges by their health and support from their families, or by professional teams.”
The boxing situation is an obvious example of a social and political battle being fought between the patriarchal system of male hegemony and the feminist movement which has long opposed it.
The comments came during an SI.com cover story entitled “Is America ready for a women’s professional boxing superfight?” that was posted on Sunday, January 18. The story quotes former WBA world champion and heavyweight contender Joe Calzaghe as saying of the Thomas-Shepherd fight, “It’s not good for women in the boxing business to have two women champions. It’s really not good. It’s a big distraction.”
The article also quotes Thomas on the controversy surrounding her comments, and comments from other female boxers
