Last night, a team of iron-biceped ladies descended upon Union Pool to arm wrestle for fame, feminism, and charity, at the first-ever match of The Five Borough Ladies Arm Wrestling Organization. Eight competitors, with names like Jackie O'Nasty, Bitchy Strongstocking, and Momatron, decked out in full costume and backed by cheering entourages, hit the table to strong-arm each other to victory.
"Originally I had wanted to be a '50s housewife and make myself a large vagina, to play with the idea of the ultimate woman," said Momatron, nee Rachel Garber Cole. "Momatron is a retro-faux idea of feminism. She can skin a bear and then make cookies for a PTA meeting, because Momatron can do it all. I've been training really hard." Bitchy Strongstocking, a.k.a Addie Mae Horan, told us, "I thought about characters I like to dress up as and one of them is Pippy Longstocking...We're about bein' kids, doing whatever the hell we wanna do, not letting the adults get in the way of our fun and mischief, and if they do, we fuck 'em up."
The crowd of 200 bet on winners, with the money raised going toward Safe Horizon, an organization that provides legal services for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse. And while a headdress-bedecked Coyote Ugly put up a good fight, in the end, Jackie O'Nasty took the crown, declaring in her winner's speech, "Ask not what your country can do for your biceps, but what your biceps can do for your country."
Take a look at our photos from the event, and here's a clip of some previous Lady Arm Wrestling events in other cities from documentary filmmakers Billy Hunt and Brian Wimer:
With additional reporting from Melanie Parker
