|
Female
Bodybuilding by
Shara Vigeant -
Female Bodybuilder
Postmodernism is hard to define until you find an
example of what is considered post-modern and it all becomes
clear. It is about the collective, anonymous, ambiguous,
uncertain experience. Everything mashed together with no strict
distinctions separating everything and no definite answers for
everything. It is the end of distinctions, the merging of
subject and object, self and other and a rejection of all
attempts to define humans.
Enter bodybuilding. What is the first thing that
comes to mind? Muscles. For some, Arnold Schwarzenegger or
Frank Zane are the people that come to mind, or perhaps the
reigning Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman or the former Mr. Olympia
Dorian Yates. Regardless of who it is, these humans possess
extreme amounts of muscle. They are big, they are muscular and
they are the epitome of what is “masculine” according to
dominant discourse.
Enter female bodybuilding. What is the first
thing that comes to mind? FREAK! Most people will cringe in
disgust from the thought of a woman’s head on Arnold’s body.
The general reaction is that female bodybuilders are not
“normal”, not “feminine” or just not “right”. Just like men,
these humans too can possess extreme amounts of muscle, but
according to societal ideals in respect to women, they are not
suppose to. Why is this? They do not reflect what is
considered “feminine” by popular discourse. Female bodybuilders
blur the gender boundaries and do not fit exclusively into the
category of what is considered feminine. However, they are what
is considered feminine and what is considered masculine at the
same time and this is what is viewed as problematic for defining
who they are. People want things to fit neatly in categories
they do not like the indefinable. Female bodybuilders are the
confirmation that we are living in a post-modern society - very
heterogeneous, made up of different pieces and parts are mixed
together and hard to categorize. They are big and muscular and
they are graceful and beautiful - all at the same time. Since
Postmodernism leaves you free to choose your own path and make
up your own mind instead of blindly accepting the values,
concepts and categories that “mainstream” society advocates, it
gives way for people to pursue different things, be different
and that is what female bodybuilders are - ambiguous. This is
what is also very post-modern about female bodybuilders - they
are uncertain, indefinable.
What is considered masculine and feminine is one
of the areas that has been rigidly set out by the “dominant” in
society, being men. So what, according to the hegemonic
guidelines, is feminine and masculine? Conventionally by using
the body as a guideline, males, who have muscle, broad
shoulders, face and body hair, deep voices, penises, are
considered masculine. Women, who have more “delicate” features
such as voluptuous, non-muscular figures, breasts, vaginas, lack
of face and body hair and higher voices, are considered
feminine. Feminine has also been defined “pretty”, “helpless”,
“subordinate” or “dainty” which has been enforced through images
in mass media. So what happens when a man has no hair and a
higher voice? Is he more feminine than masculine? Or what
happens when a woman has broad shoulders and muscle? Is she
more masculine than feminine? In either case, the man is still
male and the woman is still female. The characteristics that
define their gender are gone or either been replaced by
characteristics from the other gender. Why is it so imperative
that men and women be in their respective masculine and feminine
categories?
People like dichotomies - a “this or that” type of thinking.
Female bodybuilders blur the dichotomy of masculine and feminine
and this is why they are generally not accepted. The dichotomy
of gender obviously
comes from modernism and the notion of binary
opposites. Postmodernists, on the other hand, commend female
bodybuilders for this reason - for not being dichotomous. She
still looks like a woman, she just doesn’t have those
conventional characteristics of what the traditional hegemonic
society has labelled as “feminine”. She still has a vagina,
breasts and everything biological that is considered feminine,
but with muscle. Unfortunately possessing muscle makes her more
masculine than feminine according to popular discourse. In our
post-modern society gender can’t be simply categorized and just
shouldn’t be. The lines between the feminine and masculine are
blending together. But even if the female bodybuilder could be
put into a category, she would still be excluded because
categories cause exclusion and she doesn’t fit neatly into one
category. She is a biological female with what is considered
masculine attributes, being muscle. Female bodybuilders really
make it harder to define or categorize femininity and gender in
general today.
Female bodybuilders are also multi-layered
individuals. They are doctors, lawyers, mothers, teachers and
students - all traditional and “feminine” roles for women.
However, along with these roles they are transforming themselves
into something very untraditional with bodybuilding. Myself for
example, I am a bookworm university student by day and a female
bodybuilder by night - two “opposite” identities that can
overlap. At school, I am still a bodybuilder eating every 3
hours to feed my body so it can grow and at night at the gym, I
am a student reading my textbook on the bike. I am the epitome
of post-modernism because I can’t be categorized. I don’t fall
into one neat representation and as a subject I am multi-layered
and complex. This is what is especially appealing about being a
female bodybuilder - NOT being one of the masses. I am unique,
individual and not conventional.
Along with the female bodybuilder comes the
stigma of anabolic steroid use. Anabolic steroids are a major
part of the sport and a legendary stereotype that has been
attached to all bodybuilders. However, this stereotype is more
damaging to female bodybuilders. There are female bodybuilders
who do go to a very big extreme through the abuse of anabolic
steroids. As with any substance, being food or alcohol or
money, there is USE and there is ABUSE. Overweight people abuse
food, alcoholics abuse alcohol and SOME (not all!) bodybuilders
abuse steroids. Because of the few that do abuse steroids, the
rest of the bodybuilding community has to deal with this
negative stereotype. The science behind steroids is that it
helps produce more testosterone and more testosterone means more
muscle. They also help protein synthesis and put your body into
a positive nitrogen balance, all of which helps muscle growth.
Testosterone is a male hormone and when it is introduced into
the female body in large amounts and for long periods of time it
can cause havoc. Side effects include acne, change in voice,
clitoral enlargement, excessive hair growth, male pattern
baldness, aggression, cessation of menstrual cycle and elevated
liver values. The longer a woman takes steroids the longer the
side effects, perhaps even permanent side effects.
Why female bodybuilders are shunned for anabolic steroid use is
because they INTENTIONALLY inject or swallow anabolic steroids
to induce muscle growth and INTENTIONALLY face the risks of side
effects. Many women are willing to risk the side effects to
have bigger and harder muscles. This is considered unacceptable
by mainstream society because she shouldn’t have muscle in the
first place and by intentionally ingesting a substance to make
her even bigger and better is even worse. Perhaps she is being
viewed as “injecting masculinity”, or even
more so consuming the very thing that creates the
distinct attributes that conventionally divide the two
genders. The female bodybuilder is feminine with a twist -
recreating herself with the help of a substance, being
testosterone, that creates the very boundaries between what is
considered feminine and masculine.
With or without anabolic steroids, it all comes
down to the manipulation of the body using food and training - a
trial and error system that takes years to perfect. Years of
trial and error, however, can become an obsession - an obsession
to possess the perfect physique. What is perfect in her eyes,
is not considered perfect by others and this may drive her even
further. I know for a fact that having power over the body in
this regard is empowering and very enabling. After the strict
dieting and training and getting up on stage completely “ripped”
there is a huge feeling of power but also the feeling of
accomplishment. After my first competition, I felt like I could
do anything. Along with these feelings also comes the feelings
of power that comes directly from having large muscles. Perhaps
this comes from being “equal” to or even larger than some men.
But is this equality on their terms? She is making herself
equal by enhancing herself to become physically equal with men.
On the other hand, there is no oppression, for she is now
stronger, bigger and the dominant one now. Regardless of her
feelings of empowerment or accomplishment or how she goes about
getting this physique, according to traditional views, no means
justify the end because the end is apparently not justifiable.
Enter the fitness competitor. These women are
considered the “embodiment of femininity” but are just as
muscular as female bodybuilders. They eat the same, train the
same and look the same but are regarded as different than female
bodybuilders. Why are they more accepted and what makes it
okay for them to be so muscular? Obviously it is because they
have the characteristics of what has been used to define
femininity “kicked up a notch”. They have big hair, lots of
make up, stiletto shoes, skimpy outfits, bikinis and breast
implants. But wait a minute - doesn’t a female bodybuilder
possess the same things (minus the shoes)? It is obvious that
somewhere a line has been drawn on how much muscle is too much
or “too masculine” and how much is acceptable. This line is
blurred and hard to find however, because fitness competitors
compete in bodybuilding competitions and vice versa. Regardless
of the categories of competition, you can put all of these women
together and not tell them apart. It must also be said that the
“most feminine and beautiful” fitness competitors also use
anabolic steroids and just as much, if not more, than the
bodybuilders but the female bodybuilders are the ones scorned
for it.
So now it is understood how a female bodybuilder is viewed by
the general population, how is she viewed by other bodybuilders,
male and female? She is simply “commonplace”. Other
bodybuilders see female bodybuilders as nothing out of the
ordinary. Female bodybuilders are given just as much respect
and admiration as the male bodybuilders within the bodybuilding
community because bodybuilders look past the social constructs
of how a female or male is suppose to look and appreciate the
human form and as a work of art. There is an appreciation for
each muscle and the complex training and diet and intense
devotion that is involved to develop each muscle. It is not a
matter of whether or not she looks masculine, it is all about
the muscle. There is also camaraderie among all bodybuilders
because each of them can relate to each other in respects to the
intense training and dieting. It is truly a thing of beauty to
see a man and woman training together in the gym, doing the
same exercises and pushing the same weight,
instead of doing different exercises and lighter weight because
of the difference in gender. Bodybuilders look at each other in
terms of each individual part or muscle group. For example,
some builders take on a nickname that is analogous of their best
muscle group, such as Tommy “Glutezilla” Thorvaldson.
Bodybuilders work on each individual part to assemble a whole
muscular body and for female bodybuilders she is reconfiguring
the ideology of femininity piece by piece, muscle by muscle.
Professional bodybuilding, both male and female,
is just like many other sports today - capitalistic. However,
apparently female bodybuilding doesn’t appeal to the masses thus
not drawing the crowds that male bodybuilding does which means
that it is not making as money as male bodybuilding. That is
why there has been debate over judging criteria and presentation
of female bodybuilders in magazines. But isn’t that is what so
great about it? Female bodybuilders do not have mass
appeal and that says something in itself. Perhaps for some
feminists female bodybuilders are just trying to be men, trying
to be equal on men’s terms. But that is not the case. Whether
or not muscle is purely a male characteristic has been decided
by men themselves. Female bodybuilders are distinctive yet
blurry, indefinable and ambiguous. They are subject and object.
The main issue seems to be whether or not women
with muscle are feminine or fit into conventional definitions of
femininity. Ideally, femininity is equated with beauty and if
you are not feminine then you are not beautiful. Society gets
this message from the images that surround every aspect of
everyday life – advertising, etc. We get mauled every single
day with these messages of ideal femininity by the media.
Therefore, since the consensus is that female bodybuilders are
not feminine because they have the masculine feature of muscle,
then they are not beautiful. The saying that “beauty is in the
eye of beholder” is more evident today than ever. Beauty,
femininity, and masculinity cannot be put in an absolute
category anymore. There are men and women everywhere that are
smearing the gender boundaries and making everyone question how
we define or characterize people and things and perhaps even
realize that we just can’t be put into a category anymore.
It doesn’t matter if female bodybuilders can’t be
put into a single category, she should be celebrated for this
simple fact. She takes each part of her body, which according
to some feminist thought has been fragmented, and puts it
together and builds it up to this one empowered, enabled human
being. She becomes powerful because she is not the ideal, she
fragments herself only to empower herself - the sum is worth
more than each of her parts. And then she “capitalizes” on this
phenomenon. She shows off her body, celebrates her sensuality -
a sort of Amazon feminism. However, her sensuality is a new and
unconventional sensuality because of her physique. It is
mysterious, intriguing and disturbing all at the same time. The
female body is beautiful, sensual and intriguing - no matter
what it’s form. Female bodybuilders just build on this form -
appreciating the human body for all its potential.
The human body
is truly a wonderful thing and people are unaware of its’ full
potential. In my eyes a female bodybuilder is beauty - the
human form at it’s finest moment - all it’s potential jumping
out at you - not hiding behind clothes, make-up or fat. I don’t
do this for attention, I don’t do this to attract men, or to
make money. I do this for me - a self-realization journey.
Seeing how much I can handle and pushing my limits – realizing
my true potential as a human being, not just as a female who has
been defined and categorized by society. I am not just a
brainless baby factory with a pretty face – I can’t be defined,
I am all over the board!
~ Shara Vigeant
(Shara is available for
personal training -
www.sharavigeant.com) |
