Tuesday, December 6, 2011

FightChix claims Dana White is greater than President Obama

FightChix is a clothing brand claiming to be "Empowering Women Worldwide" through the production of women's fight apparel and the support of WMMA.  Several BJJ bloggers are critical of FightChix's recent advertising exploits featuring scantily clad women posing on beds wearing shirts claiming, "Trust no Bitch" but this new shirt from FightChix actually enraged me.


The shirt (above) claims Dana is greater than Obama.  Regardless of your political leanings or general feelings about our president, the fact that Dana White, the president of the UFC and current enemy #1 of WMMA, is considered greater than anything or anyone should be antithetical to a company claiming to 'empower women.'  Dana White is notoriously dismissive of female fighters, recently explaining that the currently talent level is not sufficient to include women in a UFC lineup. 

 So why would a company purporting to support and 'empower' women claim that this man is greater than Obama?  Perhaps he is greater than a nosebleed or 'magician' Cris Angel or a dog turd...

I think FightChix is an interesting study as a business model.  I agree that many of their products do not appear to empower women, but to fetishize female fighters or at least to promote animosity and cattiness amongst women, a conception that is being inappropriately compared to WMMA.  Looking through their product line, it seems as if they are reaching out to two distinctly seprarate groups.


Group 1:
Girls who would wear this shirt and take a crappy picture on their cell phones.  Nothing necessarily wrong with this group except, again, that the shirt suggests that all women distrust each other.  It's a cliche that needs to be killed.

Group 2:  
Fighters like Roxanne Modafferi who need sponsors that want to "Empower Women Worldwide"  These women needs sponsorships in order to build the sport and FightChix does make some pretty legit training gear

I think FightChix has two very interesting focuses and I don't necessarily have a problem as long as they continue to sponsor female fighters and make some training gear that is appropriate for the ring.  I don't mind the sexy Ts and tank tops (and y'all know I have no fear of the word 'bitch'), but let's leave Dana out of it. 

1 comment:

Jiu Jiu said...

"I agree that many of their products do not appear to empower women, but to fetishize female fighters or at least to promote animosity and cattiness amongst women"

Ugh! I completely agree! I really dislike when companies claim to "empower women" but it turns out all they're REALLY doing is trying to get money from the women who care about that. It's one of the reasons I love Fenom gis so much - the owner is a BJJ practitioner, and they support Girls in Gis, and several women. They put their money where their mouth is, and I could never imagine them using straight up sex to sell their products.

FightChix disgusts me.