Recent scholarship suggests that women in martial arts and combat sports have increasingly begun to undo gender by challenging gender norms and constructing new femininities. Most of this research, however, has focused on gender dynamics within martial arts and combat sports settings, rather than outside of them. For this study, I conducted semistructured interviews with 40 professional women’s mixed martial arts athletes to examine the extent to which these women challenged gender norms in their intimate relationships. My data revealed that because they possess traits that are traditionally interpreted as masculine, many of the heterosexual women in my sample actually oversubscribe to gender norms in their intimate relationships to combat feelings of feminine insecurity. I argue, therefore, that rather than undoing gender, these women overdo gender in their intimate relationships. This study provides a cautionary tale to the celebrations of undoing gender for women combat sports athletes.

最近的一项研究表明，武术和格斗运动中的女性已经开始通过挑战性别规范和建立新的女性气质来消除性别。然而，大多数研究集中在武术和格斗运动环境中的性别动态上，而不是外部。在这项研究中，我对40名职业女性混合武术运动员进行了半结构化访谈，以调查这些女性在亲密关系中挑战性别规范的程度。我的数据显示，由于她们具有传统上被解释为男性的特征，因此我样本中的许多异性恋女性实际上在与她们的亲密关系中过分遵循性别规范，以对抗女性不安全感。因此，我认为，与其消除性别，这些妇女在亲密关系中过分强调性别。这项研究为庆祝女子格斗运动运动员消除性别的庆祝活动提供了一个警示性的故事。