Academic literature on the topic 'Women’s bodybuilding'

The present article examines the transformations that have taken place in female bodybuilding in France from a sociological point of view. Adopting a comprehensive approach, we describe the contextual influences thought to be responsible for the decline of female bodybuilding. Starting from the premise that the extremely muscular female bodies seen in women’s bodybuilding are the reason for the downfall of the discipline, the analysis focuses on three subcultural influences: the appearance of Beverly Francis on the competition scene, the aesthetic criteria favored by the federations, and the use of nutritional supplements and doping substances.

Women’s bodybuilding manifestly challenges hegemonic understandings of the female body as weak, fragile, and limited. Because it has acquired characteristics that are traditionally deemed masculine, the muscular woman is thought to be in need of having her femininity “restored”. Perhaps for this reason, in bodybuilding competitions, female competitors are required to display femininity and implied heterosexuality on stage through their attitude, gestures, posing, make-up, hairstyle, and adornments. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences of competitors in the Bikini category to understand the ways in which they perceive and negotiate the expectations of idealized femininity within bodybuilding competitions. Semi-structured interviews, supplemented with ethnographic fieldwork, were conducted with nine female bodybuilding competitors. The data gathered indicated the contradictory views that some female bodybuilders hold of female muscularity and of femininity. The participants were able to negotiate the judging criteria, albeit at times reluctantly and with frequent expressions of criticism and disapproval.

Women’s bodybuilding has attracted attention from gender researchers. However, increasingly popular fitness shows that feature different competitive tracks—bikini and figure—have garnered very limited scholarly consideration. This study draws on interview data from twenty bikini and figure competitors as well as ethnographic research conducted at several prominent bodybuilding shows in Texas with fitness competition tracks. Our investigation provides a comparative analysis of women’s participation in bikini versus figure fitness competitions as an embodied gender practice. Participation in this relatively new sport underscores the interconnections between gender and variegated forms of embodiment that we call athletic, aesthetic, erotic, and everyday bodies. Pre-competition regimens pose challenges for women’s management of their bodies due to dietary deprivation, rigorous workouts, and the specter of track-specific judging criteria. Pre-competition strains are often evident in primary relationships as women’s bodies are prepared for aesthetic presentation in a way that, for bikini and especially figure competitors, can undermine physical functionality and social capabilities. Competitions themselves reveal relationships marked by a mix of camaraderie and hierarchy among competitors, with those in the figure track often viewed as more “serious” athletes but less conventionally “feminine” than their bikini counterparts. Post-competition, women often struggle to accept the return of their “normal” everyday body. This study reveals the agency of women and their bodies in the context of a fast-growing sport while considering the broader social implications of fitness competitions given their tracking of women’s bodies.

Strength training does not constitute women’s favourite physical activity. It is demonstrated in the survey conducted by Budzyńska at the University of Szczecin in 2013 among students of the Pedagogical Faculty. Only 1% of the surveyed students showed interest in strength training. The vision of a bodybuilding silhouette discourages women from taking up strength training. It is displayed in the survey conducted by Zaustowska in 2001 among junior high school students. Out of 78 respondents, 71 stated that they did not like the muscular figure. These fears are unfounded since a woman’s body is not disposed to achieve a bodybuilding figure. It depends on the structural, morphological and biochemical properties of one’s body. Some women who practice bodybuilding rely on strength training additionally supporting the growth of muscle mass with nutrients. This paper presents the advantages of applying strength training in everyday physical activity. These include fat reduction and a slim figure. Furthermore, the result of strength training is a relative increase in muscle mass and strength development. Another benefit of this form of activity is the strengthening of the structures which stabilize joints and bones thus reducing the risk of injury. The duration of static exercise depends on the applied load. Due to the short duration of static effort and relatively high strength commitment, energy for working muscles comes from anaerobic changes. ATP, phosphocreatine and a small amount of glycogen which are hydrolyzed. During the static exercise blood pressure and heart rate are increased. These changes are dependent on the size of the strength developed to oppose resistance. A heavy load used during the static exercise often causes reflex respiratory arrest, a dangerous phenomenon resulting in fainting during the exercise.

Objectives. The objectives were to study the specifics of cognitive empathy in women with aesthetic surgery towards women with different types of corporality. Background. Body modification technologies are becoming more common and feasible, creating variety of types of female corporality, which demand scientific research and understanding. In the article, appearance is understood as text, expressing personal values, goals and meanings within the framework of a certain semiotic system. Study design. The study examined specifics of cognitive empathy, influence of body image on the quality of life, level of perfectionism, and hierarchy of values. The presence of intergroup differences was established by means of Mann-Whitney criterion and chi-squared Pearson statistic. Participants. 25 women, who underwent aesthetic surgery (27 ± 4,6 years of age) and 25 women who did not change their appearance surgically (25 ± 4,5 years of age). Measurements. The author’s “Appearance as a Statement” method, questionnaires “The influence of body image on the quality of life” by T.F. Cash, “The Multidimensional Scale of Perfec¬tionism” by P. Hewitt and G. Flett, and “Value Orientations” by O.I. Motkova and T.A. Ogneva. Results. It is shown that women with aesthetic surgeries show significantly lower cognitive empathy towards owners of all types of corporality, except for their own type. On the contrary, women who did not change their appearance surgically show high cognitive empathy towards all variants of unconventional corporality (anorexia, overweight, bodybuilding, extreme bodily modifications), except for the female bodies modified by aesthetic surgery. Conclusions. The differences found in the women’s level of cognitive empathy towards owners of different types of corporality depend on their own corporality type.

Reflections When I pose naked in front of my bedroom-mirror, resolving once again that I will never look like bodybuilder Lenda Murray, I tend to think that my breasts are the problem. I am size 36C. I am just not willing (or disciplined enough) to diet all my roundness away in order to show off the pecs that actually do exist underneath. I work out at the gym for lots of reasons, but one, definitely, is to gain more muscle. It’s a butch thing, sure. Yet, unfortunately I can’t get my muscles to bulk up in more butch – or is it manly? – ways. And within the limits of my laziness, I really do try. My muscles would look a lot more impressive if that womanly fat and these breasts would disappear. If I just worked harder. Or maybe it’s genetics, after all. The heavy leg presses and lots of lat pull downs just will not compensate for the distinctly womanly roundness of my hips and belly. For any or all of these reasons I just can’t work my body into the androgynous hyper muscular double-V that I admire so much in the bodies in the magazines which are delivered to my door. Do I view my reflections realistically? What and how do I see (when ‘seeing’ is so heavily mediated)? How am I to view my body when desire and perception and interaction with others do not result in the same message, the same coding, the same re-view? I learn – through repetition and practice – to reassess and adjust my performance in order to become what I am supposed to have always been. Review Hardly a day goes by that I leave my house and am not addressed at least once as “Sir” or taken to be a man in some other way. Yet, I rarely wear suits or a tie. “Don’t these people notice my breasts?” I ask myself. Often, when in my more terrified mode, I open my jacket and tighten my shirt, sticking out my breasts when I walk into the women’s bathroom, trying to preempt the usual confusion about who is in the wrong restroom this time. It rarely works and usually does not cast off the angry or confused glances, or the persistent stare. However, in the successful cases, when I don’t have to enter a verbal exchange, something (my breasts?) seems to provoke a shift from being perceived as man to being seen as a dyke. Thankfully, I guess, “dyke” is one kind of body that is allowed in the women’s bathroom, although suspiciously so and only upon thorough review (signaling that any transgressive behaviour will be observed). Viewed and re-viewed I continue to (want to) shape shift. I admire and look at the big bulky boys in my gym and imagine how cool it would be to have a chest like that: massive shoulders, huge arms, and chiseled abs. Most of the women, especially the “cupcakes” as Marcia Ian labels them, aren’t so interesting to me as objects of identification, or objects of desire. However, I don’t really try to become a man. At the same time I definitely try not to look like a (hetero-normative) woman. And I succeed more often than I expect, it seems. Not That Either Despite the fact that I do not identify as transgender, it makes no sense to me to think that the confused sales person is mistaking me for a man … because addressing me as “Miss” or “Ma’am” would be just as wrong. Truth be told, when I am not terrified, I (kind of) enjoy interfering with how and what I am expected to “embody.” In some ways, I do like the confusion, the necessity for repeated glances. Granted, my pleasure in this regard (or is it jouissance?) must be viewed related to some of the privileges my body enjoys (Halberstam, Female Masculinity). For example, my skin is viewed as “white” and is part of the enormous safety my body also/nevertheless enjoys/demands in public in the particular culture I inhabit. In terms of my gender and my body, what exactly do I try to do with my muscles, what do I intend to do when working out in the gym (where I continuously review progress or lack thereof in mirrors all around)? If it is the case that I try to approximate a strangely, but somehow distinctly gendered ideal that I can’t quite describe, and don’t ever quite reach, could I also build my body to conform to a recognizable – or normal, for a change – gender? What exactly happens in the various misperceptions of (my) gender? Can I plan my gender-presentation/perception? How? What kind of body can one have and still be a “real” woman, what kind of muscles does one need to be(come) a man? And clearly, these are not the only two (gender-)options (Halberstam, Queer Time and Place). Besides, do muscles have anything to do with it? What exactly makes bodies or muscles “queer”? Not (Merely) a Personal Story The account above is not (merely) a personal story of confused gender identity. Rather, it is an example of a conceptual problem characteristic for the political and academic discussion of gender. Interestingly (to me), many feminists, queers, lesbians, and other deviants would agree that gender and its operations in contemporary culture are a problem and need to be transcended/transgressed/overcome/replaced or challenged. At the same time, our useful, necessary, and highly sophisticated academic discussions about fluctuating gender, hyper-muscular built, cyber-bodies and their transgressive potential, or various gender-fuck-practices of other sort nevertheless replicate the binary gender division – for example, by reviewing books and articles about male and female bodybuilders, drag kings and drag queens, or by gathering in conference meetings or academic classrooms neatly divided into gay and lesbian studies, men’s studies and women’s studies, and all without too much cross-over. It appears that a division of bodies into two genders remains compelling even to those of us who are “against” it. How could we re-view this issue? Can we begin to imagine some ways of thinking about or describing the bodies we are, see, interact with, or will become in ways not linked primarily to one of two? How can we make sense of the body that wishes to refuse the comfort of being “recognised” and called into safety as “dyke” – instead of the man he/she/I could never quite be(come)? What would it take to think of identity and bodies in ways that are not implicated in masculinity and femininity in ways that replicate heterosexist or binary gender-categories? Thinking of bodies outside of – or without being implicated in – existing discourses of male and female and masculine and feminine, which are set up in binary opposition precisely because they are definitionally inscribed in heterosexuality, requires reviewing available methodologies and imagining new terminologies and (scholarly) practices. And that seems a project worth another look. References Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke UP, 1998. ———. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Subjects, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York UP, 2005. Ian, Marcia. “From Abject to Object: Women’s Bodybuilding.” Postmodern Culture 1.3 (May 1991). Citation reference for this article MLA Style Schippert, Claudia. "Reviewing Gender." M/C Journal 8.5 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/10-schippert.php>. APA Style Schippert, C. (Oct. 2005) "Reviewing Gender," M/C Journal, 8(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0510/10-schippert.php>.

Once known only as Bodybuilding and Women’s Bodybuilding, the sport has grown to include multiple competition categories that both limit and expand opportunities for female bodybuilders. While the creation of additional categories, such as Fitness, Figure, Bikini, and Physique, appears to make the sport more inclusive to more variations and interpretation of the feminine, muscular physique, it also creates more in-between spaces. This auto ethnographic research explores the ways that multiple female competition categories within the sport of Bodybuilding define, reinforce, and complicate the gendered experiences of female physique athletes, by bringing freak theory into conversation with body categories.

The question of what constitutes femininity has been widely debated, not only in gender studies, but also in the broader social world. A venue for this debate is the 1985 documentary, Pumping Iron II: The Women, in which gender and femininity in particular become part of the central plot of the film when Bev Francis, a woman bodybuilder more muscular than any other competitor, enters the competition. While feminist scholars have analyzed gender and sport from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, little attention has been paid to female bodybuilding in particular. To fill this gap, this thesis will examine the ways in which Bev Francis’s portrayal in Pumping Iron II: The Women reinforces and challenges ideas about gender, femininity, and embodiment. In Pumping Iron II: The Women Francis performs gender subversion, actively rebelling against gender norms while the film adheres to rigid definitions of femininity, resulting in her punishment. I seek to understand how female bodybuilding symbolizes larger cultural tensions around feminine gender performativity.

Ethnography of women's bodybuilding competition Bc. Adriana Mandíková Thesis supervisor: PhDr. Marek Halbich, Ph.D. Abstract The aim of this diploma thesis is to provide a comprehensive ethnographic picture of women competing in bikini fitness, wellness fitness, bodyfitness and physique. The research on the chosen topic took place between 2017 and 2019 through participatory observation at competitions in fitness and bodybuilding organized by the Association of Bodybuilding and Fitness of the Czech Republic. The observation was continuously complemented by interviews with competitors, coaches, dieticians, members of the association and other informants who helped me to complete the picture of this subculture. In my work I focus on selected domains, such as the days of competitions and preparation for them, doping, the fight against criticism coming from the society, the financing of sports and the overall impact of this lifestyle on the health and personal life of competitors. Key words Fitness, bodybuilding, women, bikiny fitness, wellness fitness, bodyfitness, physique

The final chapter of the study examines Acker’s practices of ekphrasis and reappropriation of mythology in her final works. Chapter six offers a close reading of ‘From Psyche’s Journal’, Acker’s creative critical piece on Cathy de Monchaux’s sculptural work, examining the ekphrastic impulse of the work. Ekphrasis is read as enabling Acker to access the materiality of sculpture in her writing. Acker’s writing practices are placed within the context of postwar abstract sculpture by women, with a particular focus on Eva Hesse’s idea of absurdity that ‘is not a “thing” but, “the sensation of the thing.”’ Acker’s ekphrastic practice is brought into dialogue with her practice of the reappropriation of mythology, and the conceptual practice that is termed here ‘literary calisthenics’, which arises from her experiments with language and bodybuilding. Acker’s two later texts, Eurydice in the Underworld (1997) and Electra (1997) are addressed in light of Elaine Scarry’s work on the difficulty of expressing physical pain. Acker’s experiments that move towards a non-verbal language against ordinary language, and the silent languages of the body, facilitate the voicing of pain, and in particular the relation between physical pain and imagining.