Staged Strength: Intergender Kushti in North India as Spectacle and Sociocultural Commentary

Abstract

Intergender kushti matches, where male and female wrestlers compete, have emerged as provocative spectacles in North India. Though often staged for entertainment, these events offer rich terrain for sociological inquiry into gender performance, media framing, and symbolic disruption. Drawing on Guy Debord’s theory of the spectacle, Judith Butler’s gender performativity, and the emerging discourse of sociological reckoning, this article situates intergender kushti within broader debates on visibility, agency, and cultural resistance.
Based on an analysis of 100 publicly available intergender kushti matches exclusively from India, the study codes outcomes, formats, and staging signals. Results show that women win in 38 cases, men in 44, and 18 end in draws or ambiguities. These outcomes underscore the performative nature of many bouts, where empowerment is staged as much as it is contested. The analysis also considers training floor realities, where women wrestlers such as the Phogat sisters, Sakshi Malik, and Reetika Hooda spar with men due to the scarcity of female peers in akharas. This dual lens—spectacle and everyday practice—reveals how intergender kushti dramatizes symbolic disruption while reflecting structural gender imbalances in Indian wrestling culture.