Women’s wrestling is not for the weak. It was made for those who fought for their place on that mat and battled until the world saw their strength, but sadly women’s wrestling has not always been the phenomenon that it is now. Just in the past few years there have been drastic positive changes in the world of female wrestling. With the help of many female athletes and supporters on the sidelines, the sport of female wrestling has started to make its mark on the world. 

Starting in the late 1930’s is when the first female wrestlers came out onto the mat. Mildred Burke was the first female world champion of wrestling in 1933, and was considered one of the strongest female competitors to ever participate in professional wrestling at this time. Mildred set the tone for the rest of the insanely strong women around the world, and before you know it the first varsity female wrestling team was started in 1993 at the University of Minnesota-Morris. After this big step, they began to create official age groups and convinced other colleges  to create an all girls college wrestling league with them. Not only was this a big step for those female athletes, but it also opened up an opportunity for the younger generation of girls. 

Looking ahead to where we are now in 2021, we have so many female athletic programs, and wrestling continues to  improve. Age groups start as young as 5 years old for aspiring little girl wrestlers, and continue on till the professional league. There are over 10 age groups that girls and women can join whenever they feel ready to hit the mat. Not only does wrestling help women feel more confident and strong, but it is becoming immensely more popular and supported by the world. Found on NWCA they said: “Women’s wrestling is one of the fastest growing sports at the scholastic and collegiate levels,” and many programs are trying to help it continue to grow. Since women’s wrestling is growing so fast, it is important to continue to shine the spotlight on female wrestlers. 

Being a female wrestler myself, I am always trying to get new people to come and try it out, although it can be a pretty intimidating sport. With the help of other amazing female wrestlers, and myself of course, we can come up with many ways to promote and keep female wrestling alive. To get some ideas I talked to a few of the amazing female wrestlers that I look up to as a high school athlete. When I spoke  to my friend Carson Williams, who is a female wrestler at the collegiate level at Corban University she said, “I think the wrestling community as a whole needs to work together to promote and endorse it.” I think she makes a great point, it is so important for the whole community to support our women in wrestling. Athletes supporting other athletes helps bring in new audiences and a great amount of support. Another thing I loved that Carson said was, “I think the best way to help it’s growth is to keep adding programs to all levels of education and give young girls a chance to experience the opportunity.” Wrestling not only helps shape older people into stronger versions of themselves, but it is also so valuable for young female athletes to gain that confidence from a sport. Wrestling also provides constant support from a team while also allowing these younger girls to become independent. Wrestling is such an amazing sport on it’s own, but it’s even more amazing to have yet another female sport be on the rise to greatness and creating so many more strong and incredible female athletes.