Knocking Down Myth That Women Are Delicate Creatures

I struck a blow for women’s liberation this week.

A real blow.

There I was in a Sherman Oaks mini-mall with five normally well-mannered suburban women, taking my turn at pummeling a 200-pound boxer while the others cheered with unladylike abandon: “The kidneys, sock ‘im in the kidneys!” and “kiiiiill hiiiiim.”

Every punch we landed on John Arthur’s beefy hide was struck against the myth that women are delicate creatures who can be toyed with at will. Maybe Lorena Bobbitt already proved that, but hers was an underhanded sort of revenge.

The women at Billy Blanks’ World Training Center would have put up their dukes, jabbed at John Wayne Bobbitt’s brainless little head and finished him off with a satisfying uppercut.

“I like having the power, and when I punch I feel powerful,” said Patty Tatone, 27, a slim Woodland Hills bookkeeper with long brown hair and muscular arms who sometimes takes relish in pretending that the punching bag is her boss or her husband, Jim.

Whether it is to vent aggression or tone muscles, women have taken to boxing lately with a zeal that has forced the estrogen-challenged to the ropes.

Two years ago, the USA amateur boxing sanctioning authority dropped its 107-year-old ban against women after a plucky 16-year-old from Bellingham, Wash., mounted a legal challenge. The teen-ager, Dallas Malloy, went on to win the nation’s first sanctioned bout between females. This April, women will fight in the legendary Golden Gloves tournament for the first time. And many local gyms like Billy Blanks’, where I recently engaged in fisticuffs, have begun offering “boxercise” classes for women. Even world heavyweight champion Sugar Ray Leonard has jumped on the bandwagon with a boxing video for women.

Why in the world have women demanded an equal opportunity to get the stuffing punched out of them? The answer is obvious to beer connoisseurs.

Boxing is like beer used to be before it began easing away from its working-class image: underappreciated. And like beer in the past 10 years, the new audience for boxing will make it more refined, with the emphasis on more subtle qualities like footwork and strategy, not just strength.

But I was way too busy thinking about how to protect my $5,000 nose job Tuesday to dwell on such highfalutin theories.

My trembling hands expertly taped to protect the knuckles and wrists, and then stuffed into heavy red gloves, I took my place in line with my fellow pugilists.

“Jab, jab, right!” John shouted as we shadowboxed our way in unison across the carpeted gym floor.

What’s a jab? I wondered, then tried a poor imitation of Patty’s quick, short, straight punches. Moments later, I could barely hold up the weight of the gloves, never mind manage a left hook.

Maybe that’s how a fellow female student managed to crack me one in the nose, bending my glasses and injuring my pride, when I let my guard down from fatigue while a series of partners thwacked away for what seemed like hours at my upraised gloves.

But the greatest test was yet to come: Me and each of the other women against John, a 6-foot former cop and FBI agent with a third-degree black belt in karate who has been shot four times and has the scars to prove it.

It turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life, ranking right up there with the day in 1969 when I was nearly 13 years old and the authorities in Tenafly, N.J., finally let girls wear pants to school.

Even better than the time my best friend and I purposely plugged up the washing machines in home economics class, sending water cascading into the woodworking shop supervised by an ex-Marine who stubbornly refused to let us girls take his class.

Judy Blore, a 45-year-old housewife and mother who looks at least 10 years younger, has shed 16 pounds and seen her cholesterol level drop 31 points since she started boxing a year ago. First into the ring with John, who wears a padded vest for protection, she hit him with a flurry of powerful punches.

“I’m a very aggressive person and before this, I had no place to put it,” she said, sweat pouring off her face. “I think it’s made me a lot calmer.”

Her husband might disagree.

“He asked me to stop jabbing him in the shoulder the other day,” Blore said, laughing. “I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.”

Then there was Alisa Gooch, 25, a West Hills housewife and mother who stands 5 feet tall and weighs only 96 pounds.

“Go, spitfire,” the women shouted as Alisa went at John like a feisty Chihuahua snapping at a St. Bernard.

Loxi Greenfield, 33, swam competitively from age 5 until she was 18. She works out every day and her 5-year-old daughter already has a red belt in karate, two belts away from the coveted black belt.

“I get so sore from boxing that I can’t do it often,” Loxi said, sending me into a panic about my lack of stamina.

Suddenly, it was my turn.

All eyes upon me, including a few spectators on the sidelines, I screwed up my courage and clobbered John with a jab and quick right that wouldn’t have harmed a flea.

“Smack” went my glove against John’s left kidney, a legal move but one that prompted me to stop mid-bout, drop my guard and apologize profusely.

“You’re supposed to hurt me,” John said, uttering the most radical words a woman could ever hear.

I went to it with glee.