In today’s reading by Dworkin, the issue of femininity and
body-building is assessed on varying levels. There is hard female body; which
is women who have muscles that are so big because they have taken testosterone,
and there is the soft female body; which is women who work out with no
additional supplements or hormones. In this piece, Dworkin focuses on the soft
female bodies to explain the “glass ceiling” of muscular female bodies. He
interviews many female gym-goers and while some were non-lifters and other were
moderate lifters, they all shared two things in common; the fear of getting too
big, and feeling that the fit body is the new attractive body.
When we
think of female weight lifters we often imagine the extreme; women with muscles
as large if not larger than the men in their gym.
The problem with this is that it follows the common
misconception that the more you lift, the bigger you will get. This is not true
because women are not biologically able to achieve extremely large muscles
without testosterone supplements. This does not stop many women from trying to
push the “glass ceiling”in an attempt to get society to accept that women can be muscular and still feminine and beautiful. They have come a long way recently since the "fit" female body is seen as sexy. I found the ethnographic research presented in this
reading to be helpful in understanding that even those women who actively
weight lift fear growing to big because of the attachment society creates
between masculinity and muscles/athletisicm.
In the above video you can see a female bodybuilder modeling
for the camera. She is wearing a skirt and a feather boa which symbolize
femininity. She also has her had done and has breasts that are obviously unnatural. Muscles are so synonomyous with
the male population that she must drape herself in female symbols to prove that
she still identifies as a woman. Dworkin notes that in female body building
competitions, the competitors earn more points if they put an effort into
looking more feminine.
As women become more involved in male dominated arenas,
they will face the problem of being slowed down by the idea that they shouldn’t
act to manly. Being assertive in the corporate world is a manly characteristic.
Being buff in the gym is a manly characteristic. Playing sports and getting dirty
is a manly activity. Women are taught from a young age to act like a lady. The media advertises women with 'soft bodies' as being beautiful. This
is precisely why all of the women in the study constantly have the fear of
being too bulky preventing them from pushing themselves past societial boundaries. This is why women are still under the impression that they can be as 'big' as a man simply by lifting weights.
Although, I do agree with you that women will always be "pushing the glass ceiling" I think that the ceiling is much higher than it used to be. With sports such as crossfit emerging into society, bigger muscles are becoming more popular amoungst women now a days. There will always be women who are afraid to "get big", myself being one of them, but now there are more and more women who are lifting or doing other sports that result in bigger muscles than they might have in an earlier time. Like we talked about earlier in the course the ideal attractive body changes over time. I don't think it will ever be as masculine as the examples you've showed but I do believe it has evolved into a more athletic body than in the past.
ReplyDeleteI agree wilt both of your points. Through my experience I have realized that part of the reason why many females focus on getting big, or getting stronger has a lot to do with being independent. Now a days, I have witnessed females get offended when a guy opens up the door, or offers some help when it comes to females lifting something heavy. Because society has influenced being more independent, I think a lot of females have taken it up on their selves to be as independent rounded as possible, and one example is being bigger and stronger to be able to do things that "only" men can do.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brooke in saying that the ideal body changes, and recently more athletic bodies have become more appealing than in the past. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is interesting how these “most attractive” bodies can continuously change. The media in our society has such a influence on us that it is baffling sometimes. This is where many of these ideals come from. And in addition to female musculature, they create unrealistic male musculature as well. Reading the article about Christian Bale and seeing the transformations he has gone through is crazy to me. The media just constantly puts out unrealistic body images that cause many people in our society to obsess over, and that is an issue.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of your points, but like lucas said I dont really think these women creating their own subculture is a bad thing. Like we talked about on Friday, the standard of beauty is constantly changing, which is in part due to the media. These women who chase after an over masculine concept are impart misunderstanding and overstating the concept of masculinity. They are comparing themselves to an ideal of masculinity that males don't compare themselves to. Do women need to be over masculine and bulky or have soft bodies to be accepted into manly activities as Layla stated? As long as these “manly” activities are dominated by men who are misinterpreted by both society and the media, then women will never fully assimilate to manly subcultures.
ReplyDeleteYou raise some good points in your observations on women bodybuilds. Some women do attach the idea of maleness to muscles just as much as society at large does. I believe that extremely large muscles give socially constructed and very gendered views on the physiology of the human body. When i saw the picture of the female bodybuilder, i was taken a pause to the almost unbelievable amount of muscle she had on her body. Right there is the biggest distinction between the soft and hard bodies you mentioned. Now, i find myself asking, other than societies apparent need to push femininity of women does there body type matter? This seems like the fat acceptance piece we covered. Now we need muscle acceptance.
ReplyDeleteAnytime I hear a woman say , "I don't want to get big, I don't want to look like a man," I immediately get angry. Women have been made to believe that lifting weights makes you look like a man. No it makes you look like a human lifts. If a female body wasn't meant to be muscular then a wouldn't get any muscles at all when she lifts. This whole idea that women shouldn't lift weights or try to be muscular, is extremely stupid. I've always thought it was just another way to keep women weak and subjugated. Another way that this is done, is to trivialize women's athletic accomplishments. Have you ever noticed what news reporters ask women after they finish races or matches? Some of the questions they ask are so infantile. I remember reading an article about a Canadian tennis player, who became the first Canadian woman to advance to the semi-finals of the Australian Open in nearly thirty years. After her match, the reporter, instead of asking her how she trained for the match or anything sports related asked her what celebrity she would want to date....to which she laughingly replied, Justin Beiber.
ReplyDeletehttp://jezebel.com/female-tennis-player-makes-history-has-to-answer-sexis-1506318718
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/tennis/canadian-tennis-glamour-girl-eugenie-bouchard-says-shed-date-justin-bieber/story-fn791xvz-1226807014107
This is one way to make sure that female athletes aren't taken seriously or making their doing of sport to be on the same level as men's. We see the same in how women are paid. Abby Wambach from the USWNT is worth 3 million, while Cristiano Ronaldo made 80 million last year.
As all the readings have said today, being "fit" is the new ideal body image. But when is comes to women, there is an imaginary and undefined line drawn where attractive turns into to manly and unfeminine. So those that who cross this imaginary line into unfeminine territory tend to emphasize their masculinity in other aspects such as perfect hair, fake nails, or implants. We can see this being replicated in all area of sports though, not just the extreme body builders. When the WNBA first started, it wanted to portray an imagine of the good, womanly, basketball player to show that the muscular women were in fact, still feminine. Sheryl Swoopes was one of the poster faces for the WNBA because she had a child, talked about her children, and was a pretty face. When interviewed, she was often asked questions about how hard it was being a mother while playing basketball instead of questions that reporters ask male athletes about the actual game. We can see emphasized femininity across the board in the sports world replicating the same idea that women must subscribe to the roles and ideals put in place by society.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Brooke in saying that the ideal attractive body changes with time. I used to want have the skinny body with the flat stomach and the thigh gap all through out high school. Once I started to play more sports and gain more muscle I got a personal trainer and started to train to compete in different weight lifting competitions and the bigger more muscular body became my “ideal attractive body”. I also think that girls want to “get big” to show how independent they can be and that they can handle their own in any situation given. The picture you provided of the woman is quite the extreme, obviously she has taken a lot of testosterone, and wants the figure of a male.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that most women fear that lifting weights will make them "get big" as Katarzyna put it. This is interesting to me because I have a sister who compulsively exercises. At one point she was running 10 to 14 miles everyday. I always tried to recommend starting up weight training as an alternative to running and as a way to give her body a much needed break. But she never entertained the idea because she feared she would lose her "fit" body and gain a "bulky" one. I wonder how this misconception was born. It seems we are beginning to become more accepting of muscle as Billy put it. Yet, it is still rare to see more than one or two females in the weight room of the gym. But head upstairs to the cardio room and it's the complete opposite.
ReplyDeleteI agree that most women are afraid to get too "big" because of societal standards set on women's bodies; however, in my opinion this fear is completely justified given the women in the image and video you have shown. Like Brooke said in a previous comment, the ideal attractive body changes over time and I think women with 'fit' muscular bodies are gaining ground in society. There is still a 'glass ceiling', and I believe there will always be a glass ceiling for women, especially in body building. Dworkin talks about how this glass ceiling originated in the professional world where women just simply can't achieve the same success in business that men do. We have and will always live in a male dominated society where females are constantly compared to men. Society has historically set standards for men and women in the work place and these walls are very slowly being taken down, but I'm not entirely sure they will ever be gone.
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