It wasn’t long ago that the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) was considered too violent, and something that should go away. In time, the sport has been considered much more professional, even more technical.

But it is still popular to believe that the sport is too violent for women. And some male MMA fighters consider the sport too manly for women. On the other hand, in many ways the popularity for women competing in the MMA seems settled. They have become the focus of reality TV, corporate advertisements, and headline MMA events—and Jessica Eye (bantam weight ranked 6th) noted that there are not many sports where women can be more of a draw than men.

By comparison, the Olympics have allowed women to participate in these contact sports only recently, adding boxing (2012), judo (1992), wrestling (2004), and taekwondo (2000).

And every now and then, popular discussion begins to center on the possibility of women versus men MMA matches. On this issue, the preeminent female fighter, Ronda Rousey, said she will not professionally fight a man. Domestic violence is a pervasive illness and men and women fighting in the MMA will not help prevent the violence. Even Ronda Rousey said: “there should never be a venue where we’re celebrating a man hitting a woman.” As it stands, there does seem to be a bit of an upper-body strength mismatch between men and women, and boys and girls are often funneled into different sports long before biology gives boys an advantage. At the same time, it is not uncommon for women to have abnormal strength in other areas of their body, like the legs, or a body type beneficial for a certain sport. And, again, women’s athletics in general has become more and more popular. Therefore, it seems with more women practicing sports eventually women will professionally compete against men. That is, when there is no stigma for women playing sports, then there will be top female athletes competing with men, and the MMA might prove to have been an unlikely trend center.