Female fighter Jane Couch has made sporting history by becoming the first woman in the UK to be granted a professional boxing licence.

Jane Couch: "It's a great birthday present"

Ms Couch, AKA the Fleetwood Assassin, earned her licence after winning an industrial tribunal claim against the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) who told her that, as a woman, she was unfit to box.

In future, she can box where and when she wants. The BBBC is also to set up a licensing scheme for women boxers as a result of her win.

But the game can be a bruising nightmare for the biggest and best male boxer so should a woman really be allowed in the ring? Are some sports just too brutal for equality to carry any clout?

The BBBC originally said that women could not box because periods, pre-menstrual tension and the pill makes them too unstable.

John Morris of the BBBC: The future will tell if this is good day for boxing

Now despite her win, some medical experts continue to say the sport is too dangerous for the female form.

Sports commentators are divided. Some say women's boxing attracts more voyeurs than true followers. While some truly ardent fans find the idea of women with bloody noses, thrashing it out in the ring plain "barbaric".

But women in the game will not be put off. They argue that any objection to female boxers is just another case of "stereotyping".

They say they enjoy boxing and have just as much right to take part as men. If men want to keep them out, it is only a desperate but futile attempt to hold on to one last all-male bastion.

It is a sentiment boxer Barry McGuigan shares. He says: "We cannot be chauvinistic about it. If we are going to defend boxing as a sport, we must allow women to take part too."

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