Wrestling News: Discussing women’s wrestling herstory in WWE with Scarlett Harris

In her new book, A Diva Was A Female Version of a Wrestler: An Abbreviated Herstory of World Wrestling Entertainment, Scarlett Harris looks at women’s wrestling through a feminist gaze. She uses “big ideas like #MeToo and the commodification of feminism as lens to look at wrestling through.” Even for non-wrestling fans, people who are into pop culture events being reexamined such as Monica Lewinksy, Lorena Bobbitt, and Britney Spears will find it a thrilling read (she also explains certain phrases and ideas for non-wrestling fans to understand).

For people who grew up in the last several decades, many of us are coming to grips in which women have been portrayed in various forms of media and everyday life. Of course this is nothing new for generations of women. However with #SpeakingOut, it seemed to bring how women in wrestling are treated back to the forefront.

Harris was almost done with the book when #SpeakingOut broke out. She was able to include a bit about it and was also able to edit out a quote from someone named in the movement that was famous for Blowpops and dick flips. More on that later.

Not like most girls

Wrestling, particularly from the ’90s forward, there was a certain type of woman that WWE pushed: the blonde bombshell (see Sable, Sunny, Terri Runnels, Torrie Wilson…). There were anomalies like Chyna, Luna Vachon, Lita, and AJ Lee who were popularized for being a tomboy. But, it was with the undertone of “pretty women” versus “athletic women”. The “pretty women” were what girls should aspire to be.

Internalized misogyny is something that many women deal with, particularly those who grew up in the ’90s. We were told it’s okay to slut-shame because that’s what they are. We were taught to tear other women down instead of the men, like the President of the United States of America or Tommy Mottola (music mogul and ex-husband of Mariah Carey, whom was abusive to her throughout their relationship).

Harris observed that “wrestling is a mirror to society”. It emboldens people, men in particular, to degrade women and to speak down to them on social media. It has emboldened some men to steal private photos of women like Paige and Toni Storm and post them on the internet. The men who see these photos think it “serves them right”. Even Lillian Garcia tried to shame both women instead of those that leaked the photos on her “Chasing Glory” podcast.

The fallout after #SpeakingOut

As we were reminded last summer, many men take advantage of their relationships with women in the wrestling industry. It’s always been happening, it just took last summer for it to be brought to light in a public, global way.

“I’m obviously glad that people felt the courage to speak up about the abuse and harassment that they experienced in wrestling, but I sort of feel a bit the same as I did when #MeToo happened. It’s not just suddenly this all happened. It’s just the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s sort of a maelstrom of different factors all coinciding to be right now we’re finally going to listen. A lot of people have been saying things like this for years.”

In fact, Harris spends time talking about “The Fabulous Moolah” and her treatment of other women, particularly her students.

The wrestling community is still dealing with the fallout, or lack thereof, of #SpeakingOut. While WWE fired a few expendable men, WWE is still littered with sexual predators. Some of the perform weekly on WWE programming in both the UK and in the States. A couple of them represent the company as champions.

Elsewhere, Marty Scurll tried to sneak his way back into the sport via NJPW. It was only scrapped when fans took to social media to express their ire. PROGRESS had a taped show that had a known predator involved and fans were only made aware after the fact. NWA recently hired Tyrus, who is sued sued for sexual harassment by a former Fox News co-worker.  It was outed that an indie promoter was operating under a false name and no one was aware he had previously been arrested for sexual misconduct involving underage boys.

It’s hard to clean up the business when so many are willing to look the other way. It’s falling on fans to speak up and say, “no, we will not allow this.” But, it can’t solely fall on the fans.

Harris thinks one tangible way to combat sexual misconduct is “creating new promotions where they’re not going to be hiring abusers. They’re going to have codes of conduct in place. They’re going to make sure that the shows are accessible.”

“We know that we can’t necessarily change systems that have been around forever, but we can create some new stuff as well.” Safeguarding protocols have to be enforced in existing and new promotions. “We need outside bodies as well. People who aren’t invested or who are like, ‘oh, I like how this person wrestled or this person is my friend.’ We need people who can remain impartial.”

Background checks are a start, however a background check won’t show certain things. If no one has come forward about a person, then there will be nothing there. A “whisper network” may keep some people safe by staying away from certain people, but that isn’t enough either. The wrestling industry has a lot of work to do.

Women wrestlers and disgusting storylines

When asked when was the best time for women’s wrestling, Harris seems a bit hesitant to say now “but… there’s a lot of s–t happening (laughs) or not happening, as it were. Like WWE not utilizing their women’s roster or just the fact that there’s a pandemic and no one can wrestle. But for me, it would probably be in the last five years or so, as a time that resonates with me and that I’m inspired by. It’s probably still to come as well, like when we have gender parity, we have equal pay, people feeling safe because half the roster isn’t full of abusers. I think it’s still to come, to be honest.”

We discussed people romanticizing the Attitude Era, although a lot of disgusting things happened to women then. People tend to forget the horrible things that Trish Stratus and Lita were forced to do because of their in-ring work. When Stratus was portraying Vince McMahon’s mistress, she was made to get on all fours and bark like a dog. After being made to live out her real life relationship with Edge, Lita was forced to do a “live sex celebration” and recently said on a Twitch stream that WWE threatened to fire her if she didn’t comply. Harris goes more in depth in her book about both women.

The water is a little muddied when pinpointing when the “Divas Era” started. Trish and Lita were more of the “Ruthless Aggression Era”, but did overlap with the “Divas Era”. Harris questions if it was “when they introduced the Divas title? Is it when they retired the women’s title? It’s contentious to what that (Divas Era) even means.” She stopped watching from 2010 until about 2013 or 2014, so she missed a lot of what people consider the “Divas Era”.

It is undeniable that some of the things that Lita and Trish had to go through was disgusting, the argument can be made that “at least they were getting to do things and at least they were integral parts of the storyline. Because one of the hallmarks of the Divas Era is like, how many shows were there where there were no women’s matches at all? Women’s storylines weren’t given the time of day.”

“Throughout all of wrestling, it’s like women were sidekicks or romantic interests. Like how many men was AJ Lee linked to? How many was Eve (Torres) linked to? The Bellas? Their storylines were about the men, not about their own agency or interests or goals. So to me, I think that will be the legacy or whatever the opposite of legacy is.” One question we both have was when did people schedule their bathroom breaks when there weren’t even women’s matches on the card?

The Total Divas Effect on women’s wrestling in WWE

In her book, she discusses Total Divas a lot. It gave the women something else to do. “It re-centered them and gave them legitimate stories.” Total Divas allowed them to develop their characters while adding in some reality and manufactured drama. Harris points out that “reality television is just another version of kayfabe, right? Wrestling fans want to say ‘Total Divas’ ruined wrestling, it’s like well, don’t get all high and mighty because The Kardashians and the Real Housewives are just another version of kayfabe.”

She also points out that Total Divas has added to career longevity. “I sort of think as Trish and Lita as always being there, but Trish only wrestled for about seven years and Lita retired a few months after. There’s not much career longevity.” She points out how the Bellas have added to their brand with their podcast and clothing line.

After Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Asuka carried the company through the “no fans show era”, the women started getting less time and storylines. Now, John Laurinaitis (who is now the stepdad to Nikki and Brie Bella) is back as Head of Talent relations. In the past, he made some awful comments to AJ Lee related to her looks.

When asked how his return might affect the women’s division, Harris says she doesn’t know “how much worse it can get in post-Women’s Evolution. Obviously, we’re not going to go back to all of the things we just talked about like problematic storylines because it’s just not going to fly in today’s climate. I don’t know how much worse it can get, especially on RAW. It’s not good to have someone like that who is saying things like that to women. I would hope maybe that he’s changed or doesn’t feel as emboldened to say those kinds of things. We can’t stop him from thinking it, but hopefully the backstage culture has changed.”

Harris would like to see new people and  asks why we still “have the same five men who have controlled wrestling for the last 20-50 years. Let’s get some new people in there, some new ideas. Let’s shake things up.”

A return to #GiveDivasAChance

As someone who times women’s matches across WWE, AEW, and Impact weekly, I’ve seen the decrease in match times in WWE. It’s mostly on RAW and SmackDown. Lately, we’ve seen Reginald getting involved in women’s matches regularly. Most of the women have little to no storyline. Before Lacey Evans’ pregnancy, the big storyline involved Ric Flair.

Is women’s wrestling in WWE regressing back to the time that led to #GiveDivasAChance? Harris says, “yeah I kind of do, actually. The whole thing was we wanted more time and more storylines. As your research attests, we aren’t getting that anymore. So yes, I think that argument could definitely be made. I write in the book that the Women’s Evolution ended with the (women’s) main event at WrestleMania. Even Michael Cole’s commentary was that; this is the culmination of the Women’s Revolution.”

There is also a chapter about Ronda Rousey that discusses some of the issues that many fans have with her as a person including transphobia, intimate partner violence, and looking out for herself only. Harris points out that when Rousey was there, WWE at least pretended to care about the women’s division. “They thought she was the driving force and without her, there’s not the audience there.”

Women’s wrestling needs new blood

To get the women back on track to post Women’s Revolution, Harris thinks we need to have new people and ideas. She thinks we also need it for a majority of the men’s roster as well. “Let’s get some new ideas in there, people!”

“In terms of tangible things that can be done, I think we need more women writers and more diversity. I would guess that 90% of the writers are straight, white, cisgender men. Get them in on the ground floor because we know they’re not just going to hire a woman of color. Let’s get some women in there on the ground floor to hopefully make some changes.”

She also thinks they need “some sort of quota that’s a certain percentage of this kind of coverage, like wrestlers of color. Otherwise, it’s here are our main five guys–they’re all usually white–and everyone else just falls by the wayside. There’s no one advocating for more coverage of people who aren’t white male wrestlers. They need an external body or quotas to keep them accountable.”

Even if they bring back Evolution as a PR stunt, Harris would take it. “This year, we should be on Evolution 4. We still haven’t gotten Evolution-like, come on! With the expansion into Peacock, just make a little show. I’m sure it would perform, like we are just clamoring for it. There’s so many people on Twitter or certain wrestling circles that are just like, ‘give us the women!’ There’s no fans, so they don’t have to worry about getting certain ticket sales or whatever–but, I still think ticket sales for an all women’s show would be very high.”

‘Your expenditure on this is nothing; you made money during the pandemic. Just put on a sh–y–,when I say no one cares, no one in WWE has to care about it. Just give them an hour or two after RAW in the same freaking venue you’ve been in all year. You’ve already got the lights and the crew there. Just give them like an hour and I guarantee they will show out because they always do. The internal expectations of the women are so low. There’s never been a time when there’s less effort to do it, so just do it.”

Harris covers a lot of ground from early days of women’s wrestling in the 50s all the way to the present. It gives a broad overview of what women have had to go through and put up with just to earn a paycheck. It helps to remind us of the dirty details of eras that are romanticized. Women’s wrestling in WWE has come a long way, but still has a long way to go. It tends to be one step forward and twenty steps back.

Her prologue is entitled “Women’s wrestling fans are suckers for punishment” and it’s pretty apt. It is not easy to be a fan of women’s wrestling as we often beg for scraps and we’re given a fraction of that. Or we get one thing like Evolution and are told to be eternally satisfied. We should never be satisfied with merely tiny little things. Give us a buffet and keep the plates coming.

You can order A Diva Was a Female Version of a Wrestler here if you’re outside of Australia. If you’re in Australia, you can order it from her website. Follow her on Twitter too.