Sunday, December 22, 2013

Keep the Jiu Jitsu Community Respectful

Through social media, people have an easier time staying connected with each other and every day news that goes on throughout the world. For the jiu jitsu community, there are many Facebook associations and pages that help us all to stay connected, some more well-known than others. However, I recently discovered that a lot of my tournament photos, as well as some other women competitors i know, were being posted by a sketchy, unknown jiu jitsu Facebook page called Jiu Jitsu Girls



At first I thought it was kind of cool that my pictures were being shared by other jiu jitsu pages, but then I started to feel uncomfortable when I looked deeper into the site. This Facebook page consists strictly of pictures of women training jiu jitsu or sporting jiu jitsu gear. I started to see more provocative photos of women wearing gis or sports bras, along with men leaving comments like "thats hot" or "she can triangle me any day." I thought to myself, "I don't want my photos being posted on this page next to all of these other pictures." 




I think I speak for all girls who train jiu jitsu when I say that we do everything we can to be taken seriously in this sport. I work so hard every day to be a high level competitor at tournaments and to be seen as a role model, but when my tournament pictures are being displayed on a website where photos present women as sex symbols rather than hard working, that is not okay with me. 
Blue belt, Jess Papi, of Scranton MMA comments on the situation by saying, "i think it is unfair to not ask for somebodys permission to use their photos. A lot of these pages are places for men to gawk at women, and a lot of women don't want that." 
Small Facebook organizations looking to repost and share photos should ask permission from the competitor(s) in the picture, as well as the photographer who takes credit. Ju jitsu facebook pages should be used to promote the sport and the competitors in a positive, mature manner. If this is too much to ask from these unreliable Facebook pages, then they should be banned. All of the jiu jitsu women, who put all of the time and effort into the sport, should be respected in every way, and not taken advantage of in situations like this. 

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