Weighty matters: control of women's access to physical strength (original) (raw)

Pumping up the Pomp: An Exploration of Femininity and Female Bodybuilding

The female body, over the course of recent decades, has had a turbulent relationship with societal expectations of femininity and beauty. Confined within rigid boundaries of body perfection, women are reduced to naturalized notions of femininity. This paper addresses the issue of normalizing gender roles and femininity in a contemporary framework by focusing specifically on female competitive bodybuilding. Through an examination of the history of bodybuilding and the patriarchal parameters under which this sport operates, the argument is made that, while bodybuilding may represent aspects of social resistance to the gendered norms of femininity, the competitive regulations of this sport enforce compliance to societal expectations of womanhood.

'I'm a woman who can kick ass!' Practices, meanings, and corporeality in female gym-goers

2022

The purpose of this article is to understand how frequent female gym-goers work out in different gyms in Amsterdam, how they understand and live their bodies, and what working on their bodies means to them. Based on a qualitative study, data were collected from twelve months of fieldwork with eight women from different nationalities. My findings contribute to the work of Physical Cultural Studies by arguing how gymgoing for these women form a complex and diverse cultural practice through which both personal and bodily experiences, meanings, and subjectivities become dialectically connected to, and negotiated through, broader socio-cultural contingencies, where gender stereotypes are not only reproduced but, at the same time, are also negotiated and subverted. The women in this article help us to understand that they are not necessarily victims of social pressures, nor are they in search of the perfect body since their adherence to training can also re-enact a space of agency and empowerment. Gym-going for them is not necessary liberating nor oppressive. It is related to the social context and to the individual's awareness of their agency in negotiating their actions and perceptions at the gym.

MSc in Social and Cultural Anthropology Dissertation 'Man Face' : Exploring gender & beauty construction in female strength training in Brazil

MSci Dissertation, 2018

This dissertation seeks to answer the question: “what does female strength training in Brazil reveal about gender and beauty?” Through a critical reading of the history of female strength training, it is argued that while female strength training, in particular weight training and bodybuilding, presents a threat to a traditional understanding of gender and what it means to be ‘feminine,’ the subversive nature of female gender identity within the sport is overshadowed by a hegemonic feminine and masculine framework, which propagates a normalised feminine ideal. Gender as performance was studied by way of three fronts: 1. via a textural and descriptive analysis covering strength training and bodybuilding social media profiles, 2. participant-observation in a Brazilian bodybuilding gym, and 3. analysing reactions of the bodybuilding culture by non-bodybuilding Brazilian informants. Conceptualisations of gender and beauty were treated as socially constructed performances that reveal themselves through temporary micro-actions and the epiphanies and reactions that come forth as a result of those micro-actions. We find that in a given micro-action performance, one can take on traditionally defined male or female gender attributes, or a combination of both. The analysis at once specific to female bodybuilding offers us a chance to explore larger questions about what it means to be feminine and masculine, and how those attributes correspond with personhood and identity. Keywords: feminist theory, gender studies, bodybuilding, strength training

Gender in the Gym: Evaluation Concerns as Barriers to Women’s Weight Lifting

Sex Roles, 2010

Four studies examined why women appear to be less likely than men to lift weights, despite the documented health benefits. An archival analysis (“Study 1”) pointed to a cultural dissociation between women and strength-related exercise goals. Furthermore, a study of women in a university in the mid-Atlantic United States who envisioned lifting weights in public expressed greater evaluation concerns than those who envisioned doing aerobic exercise (“Study 2”); moreover, greater evaluation concerns seemed to deter them from weight lifting. These findings helped to shed light upon gender-differentiated patterns of gym equipment use (“Study 3a”) and reports of psychological discomfort in gyms (“Study 3b”). This work begins to illuminate the sociocultural context of women’s avoidance of certain types of exercise.

“Big Freaky-Looking Women”: Normalizing Gender Transgression through Bodybuilding

Sociology of Sport Journal, 2009

Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with 10 college-level female bodybuilders, this paper focuses on several aspects of female bodybuilding that are underexplored in existing literature, including purposeful gender transgressions, gender attribution, racialized bodies, and the conflation of sex, gender, and sexual preference. We draw on critical feminist theory and the social constructionist perspective to enhance collective understanding of the subversive possibilities emerging from female bodybuilders' lived experience. Collectively, female bodybuilders' experiences affect somatic and behavioral gender norms in a wider Western-type industrialized society such as the United States.

Living the Paradox: Female Athletes Negotiate Femininity and Muscularity

Sex Roles, 2004

Sportswomen live in 2 cultures: the sport culture that is inherently masculine and the larger social culture where femininity is celebrated for women. In this investigation, which was grounded in feminist cultural studies, we pursued the research question: how do female athletes negotiate and reconcile the social expectations surrounding femininity with athleticism? Twenty-one female college athletes participated in focus group interviews about body image and perceptions of muscularity and femininity. Data analysis resulted in 3 higher order themes: the influence of hegemonic femininity, athlete as other, and physicality. These athletes expressed that being feminine contrasted with being athletic. They further conveyed that as athletes, they were marginalized and perceived as different from "normal" women. Yet, they also were proud of their strong, developed bodies and expressed feelings of empowerment that generalized beyond the sport context.

Preliminary Insights as an Outsider Researcher in Female Bodybuilding and Physique Athletes

Testnevelés, sport, tudomány, 2020

Ethnographic methods provide meaningful treatment and interpretation of data, especially in doing Sociology of Sport Research. Experiences of different researchers imply a variety of challenges in gathering data, especially coming as an outsider. Different studies highlighted the access of "insiders" to their chosen discipline to provide better rapport with their participants, and that the "insider" access might provide perceived convenience in data gathering. Studying bodybuilding has also been dominated by this point of view. The paper aims to present the initial experiences and insights as a first step in doing research related to women's bodybuilding and physique competition, as someone coming from outside the subculture. The article offers a review on contemporary studies related to the discipline, especially on the discussions on methods and being an insider or an outsider researcher.