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View Full Version : The female bodybuilder as a "gender outlaw"



Femphysiquefan
02-04-2010, 03:24 AM
I saw this article posted over on a different board, and was curious as to what folks here on Rx Muscle thought of it. It's fairly long, so be sure to budget some time if you choose to read all of it. Here's the abstract concerning it:

"This paper is a sociological exploration of the female bodybuilder as a 'gender outlaw', a figure who is stigmatised not because she has broken a formal law, but because she has disregarded so flagrantly dominant understandings of what is aesthetically, kinaesthetically and phenomenologically acceptable within the gendered order of social interaction. Illustrating our argument with reference to a two-year ethnographic study of British female bodybuilders, we begin by explicating the contours of this deviance - associating it with multiple transgressions manifest in terms of choice, aesthetics, action/experience and consumption - and explore the costs accruing to these stigmatised women. In the second half of the paper, we attend to the motivations and experiences of female bodybuilders themselves in explaining why they remain engaged in an activity rendered perverse by dominant gendered norms. Exploring their commitment to an interaction order based upon muscle rather than gender, our conclusion suggests these women offend the most fundamental 'collective sentiments', possessing no authorised place in the cultural consciousness of society."

The link to the paper itself in its entirety:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928

What do you think?? Agree?? Disagree??

musclemilf
02-04-2010, 09:03 AM
I bookmarked the article to read later.

I think that when women lift "heavy" or are serious about weight training, they are unfairly stigmatized by mainstream (unless such women train at a muscle head gym). I've been lifting 20 yrs (natty - no aas use) and I definitely feel the eye balls when I lift as much or heavier than some of the men in my gym. The women in my gym are around my => age and are cardio queens. They look like shit and have gotten fatter since I left a year and a half ago. These same cardio queens accuse me of "being on something". Guilt by association, for sure.

I'm venting really, not totally on point here. Sorry.

PFEPerformance
02-04-2010, 01:35 PM
Agree with musclemilf! Women as a "general" group tend to get quite catty and judgemental over females with muscle - hek, with just some good definition and lean build for that matter! You wanna start an all out CAT fest - take two gals who say maybe went to H.S. together and now flash forward 15-20 years - one wears the "mom" jeans, has the "mom" hair, and the tude to accompany it (cmon ladies you know what I mean!!).....
to - hot freakin muscled bod who looks FANTASTIC in and out of her clothes........... good lord - you can here the whispers as she flows through the local town football game to her seat!!!

Just an odd but real thing that takes place - jealousy? dunno - but, most muscle gals are only TRULY accepted within our own group - outside of that, there are plenty of snears, looks, and idiotic comments about "she's on something", "she's trying to get attention"...blah...blah...

And yea - those of that group who may take interest in a gym take up permenant residence @ the Cardio equipment or in the various classes offered and then go on and on about how they can't lose a pound but "workout" ALL the time..........

My two cents..........

baronsrugby
02-04-2010, 04:34 PM
If I had a dollar for every girl I've known that went to the gym to "tone" and a year later, nothing was "tone" about them...

I see women lifting at my gym all the time. Not as much as the guys mind you, although one group of female rugby players do squats, which I think is pretty cool. But one of them is on the national team so yeah.

Maybe I'll read the article later, but I imagine people will probably most likely agree with it, considering what kind of forum this is. If anything, it's become more mainstreamed and accepted, to some degree and in 20 years, who knows?

sassy69
02-04-2010, 05:12 PM
Its fascinating in this society, how, if anyone stands out from the norm, they are some sort of "society outlaw". The two paths you have to take are either to perpetually be apologetic for standing out or take it & own it. I think the apologetic approach makes everyone else feel more superior and the person start to have depression problems. The other is empowering to the person, but threatening to everyone else. Its always a relative thing.

Let's take a look at examples of "stands out":

- musclebound
- obese
- weird looking
- bad acne
- ultra beautiful
- great presence/charismatic

Or look at what people do for a living or a hobby:
- software geek / nerd in general
- dancer
- model
etc

IMO the muscle category is just one of many different, easily stereotyped categories. If you get bucketed into that category, you get all the accompanying positive & negative associations.

I look at myself - I grew up w/ 2 brothers, being the only girl in the family, I've worked in heavily male-dominant areas and was a nerd all before I ever took on the "look" of a gymrat. All of that probablly masculinized me to begin w/. The addition of the muscle stuff just makes it more visual as well. I'm already well acclimated to the responses I get and "where" I fit in society. But I could give a shit. I see no reason to apologize for the physique I have - in fact its the last thing that is important to me in terms of why I go to the gym. It makes me happy& keeps me balanced. I really don't want to think about the person I would be w/o the gym as a constant in my life. I see other women who do apologize for their shape, and it propagates all the way thru to their self-esteem, which IMO is fundamental to your quality of life.

Their conclusion:
our conclusion suggests these women offend the most fundamental 'collective sentiments', possessing no authorised place in the cultural consciousness of society."

If "authorization" was given by the culteral norms of our society, let's be honest, you'd have to be an obese porn pervert w/a drinking problem who believes he/she should be supported by the state, to be considered normal.

Lee Penman
02-05-2010, 12:59 PM
Wow....I just scanned this document...obviously written by someone with WAY too much time on his hands and a serious inferiority complex.

If being a 'gender outlaw' labels me as someone who rebels against the restraints of society's behavioral rule book then pass me that label....I will wear it with pride!!!!

sassy69
02-05-2010, 03:43 PM
Wow....I just scanned this document...obviously written by someone with WAY too much time on his hands and a serious inferiority complex.

If being a 'gender outlaw' labels me as someone who rebels against the restraints of society's behavioral rule book then pass me that label....I will wear it with pride!!!!


Exactly. You either conform to 'mediocrity' and 'average' or you get to be ostrasized and feel like you have no right to live because you're violating the 'rules of society' (which, btw are "unwritten").

Hmmmm, isn't that sort of the basis of Communism..? I don't recall anything about Communism that promoted growth, creativity, innovation, or basically anything good except enable everyone collective to be mediocre.

MacFlashGordon
02-05-2010, 04:05 PM
If you're a bit different then in some respects you're more likely to be happy. We all like to associate with people who have a common mind set, view of like, similar interests etc. You'll know that when you're approached and complimented but i guess that's the other positive side.

It's almost becoming clichéd that its an 'inferiority complex' as to why females get such a hard deal if they shift weights etc. As you say Sassy, there are no rules. It angers me that people feel the need to express their dislike for something when it does not affect them.

Respect to you who are 'gender outlaws'. I for one am more likely to want to associate with you.

s2h
02-05-2010, 07:30 PM
I saw this article posted over on a different board, and was curious as to what folks here on Rx Muscle thought of it. It's fairly long, so be sure to budget some time if you choose to read all of it. Here's the abstract concerning it:

"This paper is a sociological exploration of the female bodybuilder as a 'gender outlaw', a figure who is stigmatised not because she has broken a formal law, but because she has disregarded so flagrantly dominant understandings of what is aesthetically, kinaesthetically and phenomenologically acceptable within the gendered order of social interaction. Illustrating our argument with reference to a two-year ethnographic study of British female bodybuilders, we begin by explicating the contours of this deviance - associating it with multiple transgressions manifest in terms of choice, aesthetics, action/experience and consumption - and explore the costs accruing to these stigmatised women. In the second half of the paper, we attend to the motivations and experiences of female bodybuilders themselves in explaining why they remain engaged in an activity rendered perverse by dominant gendered norms. Exploring their commitment to an interaction order based upon muscle rather than gender, our conclusion suggests these women offend the most fundamental 'collective sentiments', possessing no authorised place in the cultural consciousness of society."

The link to the paper itself in its entirety:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928

What do you think?? Agree?? Disagree??shit you need a phd to understand that????

AnglicanBeachParty
02-05-2010, 08:50 PM
shit you need a phd to understand that????

Nah. Everyone can understand that.

You get the Ph.D. for translating what everyone knows into such jargon-dense, obfuscatory language that no one is quite sure any more what you said! :p

Femphysiquefan
02-06-2010, 02:10 AM
Nah. Everyone can understand that.

You get the Ph.D. for translating what everyone knows into such jargon-dense, obfuscatory language that no one is quite sure any more what you said! :p

HAHAHA!! Too true, ABP. Not only that, but I'm convinced that some academics couch their research in such language for one or a combination of three reasons:

1. So that they can disguise the simple fact that they have no idea what they're doing or what they're talking about;
2. So that they can make their research sound far and away more important than it actually is in the scheme of things; or
3. So that the idiot rich person(s) or corporation(s) that provide them with grant money won't wise up to either (1) or (2) and cut off their funding.

"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called 'research,' would it?"
-- Albert Einstein

BTW, best of luck to you at the Arnold!!!

-BLP-
02-06-2010, 02:20 AM
muscular women are sexy, many men like it, i never seen a single in shape women , taste is nature and it might be counter nature but i am counter nature, i date female bodybuilder and whatver this person said when they go in the club they got a attention rarely seen, envy , lust , desire , jealousy , judgement , the hole nine yards,, i think it fun... this person will tel me paris cokaine hilton mindless with nothing to offer out of a image of emptiness in gucci shoes is more appealing

sassy69
02-06-2010, 02:43 AM
LOL I like that - Paris Hilton = emptiness in Gucci shoes....

MacFlashGordon
02-06-2010, 04:47 AM
LOL I like that - Paris Hilton = emptiness in Gucci shoes....


muscular women are sexy, many men like it, i never seen a single in shape women , taste is nature and it might be counter nature but i am counter nature, i date female bodybuilder and whatver this person said when they go in the club they got a attention rarely seen, envy , lust , desire , jealousy , judgement , the hole nine yards,, i think it fun... this person will tel me paris cokaine hilton mindless with nothing to offer out of a image of emptiness in gucci shoes is more appealing

+Reps

Steve Wennerstrom
02-15-2010, 10:43 PM
shit you need a Phd to understand that????No, but thank gawd you don't need a PhD to ignore it.
Einstein's old quote which I posted in another thread fits here as well, "Great spirits will always encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds".

Steve Wennerstrom
02-15-2010, 10:58 PM
Just scanned the paper. It's a load of scatology. Even the term 'gender outlaw' has a negative connotation. Outlaw? Can that be construed as anything else but negative?
It reminds me of an argument I had with an English professor in college who insisted in using the word 'distaff' to describe the female side of a subject. It ALWAYS sounded negative to me, and I take special offense to it when it has been used often in sports related articles. On the distaff side....................

Musclepapa John
02-16-2010, 08:14 PM
Interesting postulate. While one can sling quotations of various social scientists together to form conclusions such as these the article goes on to basically say female bodybuilders are no worse off in the view of society than overweight men.

"Contemporarily, albeit with context-based exceptions, the gendered interaction order remains the place that men are expected to display at least their capacity for physical dominance, as a counterpart to their social dominance, even if the manner of such displays has become increasingly subtle (Goffman 1974 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0029), pp. 196-197, 1979, p. 9, Bartky 1988 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0002), p. 68). This gendered interaction order does not physically compel men and women to present themselves in particular ways, though disrespecting this order can have serious consequences (Rudacille 2006 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0064)), but provides strong incentives to conform. For Goffman (1983 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0031), pp. 2-8), as for Mead (1962 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0055)[1934]) and Cooley (1922 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0013)[1902]), these derive from the fact that our ability to experience ourselves positively is strongly affected by the responses of others. If we transgress gendered norms in our actions or appearances, stigmatising feedback makes it difficult for us to cognitively or affectively evaluate our self-identity in anything other than negative terms. Transgressors also stand to be excluded from the 'order' of respectful interaction as morally culpable individuals facing 'an unaccepting world' (Goffman 1990 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0033)[1963]). Female bodybuilders are not, of course, alone in transgressing the gendered interaction order. Men seen as fat, at least in Western culture, risk emasculation given the negative meanings ascribed to their corporeality (Monaghan 2008 (http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928#CIT0060))."

I realized at an early age in life that social norms were standards that can be both beneficial and potentially harmful to the individual. Growing up in the sixties a man's wife and child were considered property essentially. Divorce was relatively unheard of. Abuse of women and children wasn't considered abuse at all as it was the norm a natural outgrowth of male dominance and supposed superiority intellectually as well as physically. :no:
During the time when slavery was legal Free Blacks were in this context "racial outlaws." Now we have a black president in the USA. If a woman works out too much and dares pay an entry fee to a bodybuilding competition it is apparently okay to call her a gender outlaw based on some societal interest in keeping women submissive, meek, and weak. NOT! If I want a woman who will tell me how very dominant I am and say things like "Oh it is so big!" (lying to me for the sake of my own ego) I can visit S.E. Asia and various other countries where the women play these games. The truth is though that women are the stronger sex. Women bare the children, raise them and take care of their men. The women in the U.S. now outnumber men in the universities and have shattered the glass ceiling held together by good old boys chauvinistic glue.
That said, we do need social order, but individuals should feel free to break that order meant to apply to the masses not regulate or legislate individual actions.




I saw this article posted over on a different board, and was curious as to what folks here on Rx Muscle thought of it. It's fairly long, so be sure to budget some time if you choose to read all of it. Here's the abstract concerning it:

"This paper is a sociological exploration of the female bodybuilder as a 'gender outlaw', a figure who is stigmatised not because she has broken a formal law, but because she has disregarded so flagrantly dominant understandings of what is aesthetically, kinaesthetically and phenomenologically acceptable within the gendered order of social interaction. Illustrating our argument with reference to a two-year ethnographic study of British female bodybuilders, we begin by explicating the contours of this deviance - associating it with multiple transgressions manifest in terms of choice, aesthetics, action/experience and consumption - and explore the costs accruing to these stigmatised women. In the second half of the paper, we attend to the motivations and experiences of female bodybuilders themselves in explaining why they remain engaged in an activity rendered perverse by dominant gendered norms. Exploring their commitment to an interaction order based upon muscle rather than gender, our conclusion suggests these women offend the most fundamental 'collective sentiments', possessing no authorised place in the cultural consciousness of society."

The link to the paper itself in its entirety:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a911700322&fulltext=713240928

What do you think?? Agree?? Disagree??

Musclepapa John
02-16-2010, 08:21 PM
Dayam! I thought you were talking about me to you mentioned the welfare state aspect;)
Call me normal with a bit of a Welfare State Rebel Outlaw Spirit!



If "authorization" was given by the culteral norms of our society, let's be honest, you'd have to be an obese porn pervert w/a drinking problem who believes he/she should be supported by the state, to be considered normal.

whatdayaknow
02-16-2010, 08:28 PM
Well for me I do not care who likes it other than myself. I need to be happy doing what I like doing. I do not judge other people and if I am judged so be it. It does not matter.

Musclepapa John
02-16-2010, 08:55 PM
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Talk about outlaws :yep: