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Women who wear kimonos, when the fight, they have to keep their knees together, and when they use a sword, they have to move the sleeves otherwise it gets caught.

When it comes to girl bands, we're all rivals.

I'm a woman who's been in a man's sport since the age of 15, and to see people finally seeing what I saw right from the start, that female fighters are just as good 'pound-for-pound' as our male counterparts.

I always dressed as a man when I was at school. I loved wearing a tie and a shirt, and I was always wearing suits. Annie Lennox was my hero. I was always playing men in high school.

Whether we like it or not, gender differences matter in a combat situation.

When I first started designing sportswear, I felt that women weren't represented in sports performance. I felt that men were dressed really well both technically and visually, and women were almost like an afterthought.

On the contrary, woman is the best equipped fighting machine that ever went to battle.

I grew up in a cloistered, conservative culture that adhered to strict gender roles. So it's easy to understand why the 'girl dressed as a boy' trope resonated so much. In a world that didn't want to give people like me adventures or significance, books with cross-dressing girls were treasures.

I've twice run against women opponents, and it's a very different kind of approach. For those of us who have some chivalry left, there's a level of respect... You treat some things as a special treasure; you treat other things as common.