Strong and Hard Women

by Tanya Bunsell

  Muscles have always been associated with men, as signifiers of masculinity, strength and power. Thus, women who embody these allegedly male attributes are antithetical to traditional notions of women as weak, fragile and soft. Tate (1999: 36) also posits that women with hard, muscular bodies transgress the contemporary feminine ideal of the ‘slender’ body. Indeed, Bartky’s (1990: 73) comments made over 20 years ago could still be said to resonate today: ‘Women are forbidden to become large or massive; they must take up as little space as possible… a body lacking flesh or substance, a body in whose very contours the image of immaturity has been inscribed’.

  This sparse, insubstantial female hegemonic ideal of embodiment symbolizes both invisibility and weakness. In direct contrast, the female bodybuilder constructs a body that takes up space and demands attention. Consequently, in a society where females are presumed to be physically weak (Choi 2000), and where physical weakness is readily associated with mental weakness (Orbach 1988), strong women both physically and symbolically embody power. This counter-hegemonic body has caused feminists such as Fierstein to declare that female bodybuilding ‘is the liberation of the flesh – it’s very threatening but also very exciting’ (Helmore 2000: 32). These spatial issues are explored in more

  detail in Chapter 7.

  Body projects for themselves

  Fierstein believes that through bodybuilding, women are finally achieving the right to manipulate their bodies in whatever way they choose and are creating new discourses of femininity (Bartky 1988). Likewise, Tate (1999: 33) claims that when these muscular women design their bodies according to their own ideals, gaze, self-image and desire, ‘their bodies become sites of empowerment’. Indeed, she states that female weight-trainers

  [c]onstruct themselves almost as art forms, from the inside out. Their inscriptions on their bodies then come to represent them. Their identities are not ruled by the symbolic violence of the gendered habitus and the tyranny of slenderness… she seizes power by operating outside the system which would judge her on the femininity of her appearance.

  (Tate 1999: 47)

  In this way, the ‘body projects’ (Shilling 1993) created by female bodybuilders are argued to disrupt gender-hegemonic norms and generate new bodies that challenge the oppression of conventional beauty. Hewitt (1997) believes that women who customise their bodies in extreme ways are not only rebelling against society,

  Muscle is a feminist issue 41

  but are also taking back control over their bodies and identity. In addition, she argues that the actual experiences/process of modifying the body can potentially be cathartic. Similar to other extreme female body modifications (such as hardcore piercings, tattoos, scarring, sadomasochism – see Pitts 2003), Hewitt (1997) suggests that pain-inducing body customs can be used as a ‘self-help’ process of psychological healing. Likewise, Heywood (1998) postulates that bodybuilding enables women to reclaim control over their bodies and to heal the wounds left by sexual abuse and harassment. Moreover, MacKinnon adamantly argues that strong, muscular women actually challenge the very foundations on which patriarchy is verified and maintained:

  It’s threatening to one’s takeability, ones rapeability, one’s femininity, to be strong and physically self-possessed. To be able to resist rape, not to commu-nicate rapeability with one’s body, to hold one’s body for uses and meanings other than that can transform what being a woman means.

  (MacKinnon 1987: 122)

  Power over nature

  Women, due in part to the symbolic possibilities afforded to others by their possession of reproductive systems, have always been perceived as more embodied and less cultured than their male counterparts. Women’s different and subordinate role in society has therefore been viewed as an ordained and inevitable consequence of the natural order. Specifically, women have been viewed as tied to the natural conditions of their embodiment: menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth. Men’s embodiment, in comparison, has been seen as far less restrictive, enabling their minds much more freedom to engage with and pursue activities within the cultural sphere (Shilling 1993: 43). Thus, whilst men have been associated with reason and rationality as ‘minds’, women have long been associated with bodily, biological processes and seen as ‘walking wombs’. Women’s bodies have therefore been perceived to control their minds, whilst men’s minds have been viewed as controlling their bodies. Furthermore, feminists have argued that the female form has been treated with fearful abject fascination, as the place where life and death are reconciled (Kristeva 1980). Championing this perspective, Shildrick and Price (1999: 3) put forward the following argument:

  The very fact that women are able in general to menstruate, to develop another body unseen within their own, to give birth, and to lactate is enough to suggest a potentially dangerous volatility that makes the female body as out of control, beyond, and set against the force of reason.

  This vivid depiction contrasts sharply with the image of the self-contained male body and the heroic masculine ideals of a ‘strong, stoic, resolutely independent, self-disciplined individual who holds himself erect with self-control, proud of his capacity to distance himself from his body’ (Bologh 1990: 17). Against

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  this backdrop, Tate (1999) argues that dedicated female weight-trainers enter into the ultimate male realm of having power over nature. Self-management, discipline, control and power have been typically associated with notions of masculinity, whilst ‘leaky’, ‘unruly’ and uncontrollable bodies have been equated with the subordinate feminine body. However, female bodybuilders challenge this traditional belief by exerting extreme control over themselves –

  creating muscled, ‘fat-free’ bodies. More importantly, perhaps, as female bodybuilders strive for ‘hard’, low body-fat, ‘vascular’ and ‘shredded’1 bodies, they

  challenge the binary oppositions of the identities dictated by the ‘gendered habitus’ (Tate 1999: 41).

  Deconstructing the feminine and breaking down dichotomies

  Proponents argue that female bodybuilders not only break down the feminine/

  masculine dichotomy, but also contest other traditional Western binaries such as nature/culture, body/mind and sex/gender. This deconstruction of gender results in both a questioning of the ‘natural’ and an undermining of the ‘natural gender order’ (Kuhn 1988: 17). The female bodybuilder, then, ‘threatens not only the current socially constructed definitions of femininity and masculinity, but the system of sexual difference itself’ (Schulze 1990: 59). Aoki (1996), from a slightly different perspective, also believes that female bodybuilders disrupt gender categories by appearing to create a hybrid human being – a woman’s head on a man’s body. Aoki (1996) argues that due to the radical gender-destabilizing potential of this practice, female bodybuilders negotiate their bodies by becoming hyperfeminine through emphasizing supposed feminine attributes such as posing, hair, make-up, breasts and dance routines. Indeed, Mansfield and McGinn (1993: 64) claim that ‘the female body is so dangerous that the proclamation of gender must be made very loudly indeed’. However, Aoki (1996) points out that far from making female bodybuilders’ bodies more acceptable, these feminizing activities actually raise more questions over the natural body and the social construction of femininity, in a similar fashion to the ‘man/woman in drag’ and/or ‘female impersonator’. Butler (1990) asserts that as ‘drag’ discloses the artificialness and unauthenticity of ‘gender’, it has the power to undermine traditional notions of a natural gender/natural sex binary. Championing both Aoki’s and Butler’s argument, Coles (1994: 452) explains the confusion caused by the female bodybuilder:

  [She] enact[s] a double impersonation, her ‘female’ body fills out a masculine body drag, laced with super-feminine embellishments. The spectator cannot resolve what she ‘ought’ to be – a woman – and what she appears to be: the impossible juxtaposition of feminine/masculine, female/male, femme/butch.

  The ‘uncodability’
of the female bodybuilder, then, challenges not only the essentialism of gender, but the very foundations of reality itself. As Aoki

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  (1996: 65) notes, her contradictory appearance ‘is the disturbing intrusion of the real’. The potentially subversive appearance of the hyperfeminine bodybuilder is further elaborated upon in this comment by art historian Maria-Elena Buszek (cited in Frueh 2001: 104):

  I, myself, read it as holding a very sneaky potential for the feminist ‘bait-and-switch’ that I love in pin-ups. I mean, if these women wore no make-up, cut their hair very short, dressed extremely butch and were all fairly young, they’d be living up to the stereotype of what a female bodybuilder (much like the lesbian) is supposed to be – a male wannabe.

  Furthermore, Frueh (2001: 104) declares that bodybuilding defies an ageist society:

  ‘the older bodybuilder/pinup/fatal woman is a killer; she destroys erotically outworn strictures of female beauty’. Thus even the aesthetic erotic presentation of the female bodybuilder could be seen as holding possibilities for liberation and empowerment. Unlike any other professional sport, many bodybuilding competitors reach their peak in their 30s and 40s, with many athletes still competing at Ms. Olympia in their 50s. Frueh consequently argues that bodybuilding has the potential to give women confidence in their bodies, appearances and sexuality regardless of their age.

  Third-wave gender activism

  Heywood (1997: 57) believes that female bodybuilding can be seen as a form of third-wave gender activism. Not only, she claims, does it empower and liberate the individual, but it can also ‘work to facilitate change [in society]

  particularly on the levels of perception and consciousness’. Thus third-wave feminism, according to Heywood’s perspective, can not just impact on an individual’s self-development, but can also be used to improve women’s role in life.

  This occurs, she claims, ‘on an individual level, one woman at a time, women change how they see themselves and their positions in relation to the larger world, and how they are seen by others’ (Heywood 1997: 57). For example, as a woman increases her strength in the gym and bench presses more than she previously believed possible, the suggestion here is that this in turn trickles into all areas of her life and empowers and enriches her to strive for more. She starts to believe that she can achieve greater things and begins to shrug off the internal socialized cultural beliefs that ‘women can’t do that’. Heywood consequently argues that female bodybuilding has the potential to transform a person, to make them more confident, more in control, more assertive and more positive in their work and home lives. Against the criticisms of female bodybuilding (which will be explored in the next section of the chapter), Heywood declares:

  I have to believe that consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or not, any babe who sports a muscle symbolically strikes a blow against traditional ideas about male supremacy and such practices of male domination as domestic

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  violence…. that any woman with muscles makes a statement in support of women’s equality, self-realization, and women’s rights.

  (Heywood 1998: 192)

  In a related argument, Nelson (1994: 31) claims that ‘feminism is about freedom; women’s individual and collective liberty to make their own decisions. For women, sports embody freedom… women find it, use it, and insist on retaining it’. Bodybuilding allows women time for themselves, for their own project and their own needs. As Nelson (1994: 58) asserts, ‘[t]hey become the person, the project, who needs care. They take care of themselves. For a group of people who have historically been defined by their ability to nurture others, the commitment to nurture themselves is radical’.

  If Heywood’s and Nelson’s arguments are to be believed, then spending time on sports – such as bench pressing in the gym – could be seen as ‘committing feminist acts’. I now turn to the opposing feminist perspective, which declares that far from empowering women, female bodybuilding is a destructive and detrimental practice.

  Feminist reactions: female bodybuilding as another form of

  control over women

  The searching, the waiting, the hoping… Using bodybuilding as a way of filling the void in people’s lives, giving purpose and meaning. The absurdity of it all. Ghosts play in masquerades of femininity and masculinity. Hollowness.

  Void. … deluded souls trying to make a stand, make a mark against backdrops that reveal every moment their absurdity, their puny selves, their delusions, their heartrending, pointless futility.

  (Heywood 1998: 124)

  The myth of the empowered female bodybuilder: the similarities

  between anorexia and bodybuilding

  Bordo (1988) questions the ‘so-called empowerment’ of female bodybuilders.

  She claims, from a Foucauldian perspective, that while the phenomenologist centres on the malleability of the body (as evident in the notion of ‘body projects’), power over the body in terms of regulation and discipline is often overlooked. She believes that activities such as bodybuilding and jogging lay on the same ‘axis of continuity’ as anorexia. According to Bordo, there are at least three interconnected yet distinguishable axes: first, the ‘dualist axis’ (dualism of separated mind and body); second, the ‘control axis’ (over the ‘unruly’

  body); and third, the ‘gender/power axis’ (fear of women ‘as too much’). Bordo refers to the ‘dualist axis’ as the Western philosophical binary that privileges the rational, intellectual and spiritual mind against the ‘unruly passions and appetites [of the body] that might disrupt the pursuit of truth and knowledge’

  Muscle is a feminist issue 45

  (Shildrick and Price 1999: 2). Thus the body here becomes ‘alien’, representing

  ‘confinement and limitation’, ‘the enemy’ and all that ‘threatens our attempts at control’ (Bordo 1988: 92).

  In the second axis, the ‘control axis’, Bordo asserts that modern society is even more obsessed with mastering the ‘unruly’ body. She claims that anorexia is primarily a result of a sufferer becoming ‘hooked on the intoxicating feeling of accomplishment and control’ (Bordo 1988: 96). Likewise, sporting activities (such as jogging and bodybuilding) are purely about control and appear to be self-destructive and self-loathing practices that ‘have no other purpose than to allow people to find out how far they can push their bodies before collapsing’

  (Bordo 1988: 97). She goes on to claim that whilst ‘on the surface’, the woman who builds her body appears to be the direct opposite of the diminishing and frail anorexic, in actuality they are very similar: in both cases the women feel alienated from their bodies and there is an emphasis on control and invulnerability, with little attention directed to matters of health. Furthermore, both the anorexic body and the muscled body are united against ‘a common platoon of enemies: the soft, the loose; unsolid, excess flesh’ (Bordo 1990: 90). In accordance with this perspective, bodybuilding is then yet another way to control and create docile bodies (Foucault 1981).

  In the ‘gender/power axis’, Bordo (1988: 108) points out that the ‘female body appears… as the unknowing medium of the historical ebbs and flows of the fear of the woman-as-too-much’, in the sense that women’s anxieties spill out over their uncontrollable hungers: wanting too much, needing too much, being too emotional, too loud, too passionate and so on. Dieting and exercise are consequently implemented as a contemporary form of control, in order to discipline, chastise and contain the disobedient body. Bordo therefore argues that the anorexic, the compulsive jogger and the female bodybuilder are all trapped in a relentless and compulsive battle with their bodies: forever encaged in a life of self-destructive obsession, self-monitoring and surveillance, damaging both their health and their imagination.

  In a later work, Bordo claims that the modern heroine, as presented in the media and advocated by ‘power’ and ‘muscle’ (agency2 and third-wave) feminists, must

  have ‘as much gut
s, willpower, and balls as men, that they can put their bodies through as much wear and tear, endure as much pain, and remain undaunted’

  (Bordo 1997: 28). In capitalist consumer society, she further posits, the ‘Go for it!

  Know no boundaries! Take control!’ mentality has taken hold. This has resulted in the celebration of plastic surgery, jogging, bodybuilding and other practices as personal and individual decisions, which people take purely for their own gratification. However, Foucault (1981) and Bordo challenge this ‘self-belief’

  and point out that in reality, many of these products are actually ‘normalization’

  agents – conning people into believing that such undertakings are their own choice. Bordo critiques ‘agency’ feminists (such as Davis 1995) who view this as a way for women to take back control over their lives. She claims that ‘freedom’,

  ‘choice’, ‘autonomy’, ‘control’ and ‘self-agency’ are delusions that cover up the pain, self-doubt, compulsions and disorders which result from trying to live up

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  to societal ideals. Thus Bordo argues that the image of the female bodybuilder as confident, proud and accepting of her body is an illusion. Instead she is driven by self-imposed cultural enslavement, strict self-discipline and body dysmorphia, resulting in dangerous and oppressive acts.

  Elite male bodybuilder Sam Fussell’s 1991 autobiography is an insightful view into the trials, tribulations and irony involved in the world of bodybuilding.

  Although seen exclusively through the eyes of a male, some of his descriptions resonate beautifully with Bordo’s work, pointing out the pain and despair of an encaged life forever doomed to a routine of self-surveillance and discipline.

  Fussell claims that bodybuilding is about a ‘masculine cosmology’, where the need to rule, control and conquer dominates every aspect of their everyday lives, including sleep, food, sexuality and training. When he steps on stage to collect his trophy at the San Gabriel Valley bodybuilding contest he is struck by the irony and the discrepancy between how he appears and how he feels. He claims that the façade of the ‘joyful and spontaneous’ image of composed strength and power is faultless, and yet: