Real Women Don't Wear Dresses/Professional Wrestling

Examples of Real Women Don't Wear Dresses in Professional Wrestling include:

• This was turned into a storyline in WWE in 2011 with Beth Phoenix and Natalya's heel turns, the two of them proclaiming they were sick of the models in WWE. Interestingly on WWE's part, they kept both sides with a sympathetic point of view, Beth and Natalya wanting to make the division more serious and about wrestling while the likes of Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres trying to prove themselves as wrestlers.
• This trope is often invoked by many wrestling fans who hold a woman wrestler's previous backgrounds against her. Being a model before going into wrestling is considered some kind of sin among some hardcore purists. Often a pretty woman in wrestling will get labelled as a "model" even if she's never done modelling before. Women who were cheerleaders, dancers and gymnasts will often get labelled as weak as well with many people ignoring how athletic someone has to be to be in one of those sports. Dancing and gymnastics are just as challenging as wrestling but get labelled as weak because they are feminine.
  • Completely averted by Trish Stratus who started out as just another busty, blonde, bit of eye candy, but who took the sport seriously and went on to become one of the most popular and respected female wrestlers in history.
• This article discusses this trope in relation to the WWE Divas and offers a neutral stance on the debate.
• During her time in Right to Censor, Ivory had no choice but to wear pants in the wrestling ring despite her character being a conservative watchdog. This was because of the impracticality of a dress in such a situation, where pants didn't have this issue.

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