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FEMALE
BODYBUILDING
THE DARWIN FACTOR
Female bodybuilders have borne the brunt of the inherent gender
struggle that affects the acceptance of women as athletes. While
still trailing their male counterparts in popularity and rewards,
female athletes in general are taken more seriously than ever
before, but female bodybuilders seem to be going in the other
direction, finding it difficult to assimilate even into the
bodybuilding subculture from which they were born. This fact has
been blamed on everything from inadequate media attention to
mismanagement of the sport, but maybe it's something more primal.
On one level, female bodybuilding appears to violate Darwinian
imperatives of our hardwired sex roles, while also allowing for the
evolution of the human animal to transcend culturally defined
preordained destinies. Women's bodybuilding is a progressive
cultural movement that defies long-held conventions and traditions.
While many people accept the existence of women bodybuilders--i.e.,
society at large is used to seeing them--the sport still has its
sworn enemies. Depending on your point of view, female bodybuilding
is either a step forward in human potential or an insult to nature.
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All bodybuilders can elicit strong
visceral reactions in the general public, but none more so than a
female bodybuilder. The general acceptance level for muscle on women
has changed dramatically in entertainment and sports over the years,
but a hyper developed muscular woman can still conjure awe,
intimidation, resentment, fear and envy, as well as complicated and
powerful sexual responses, especially in men. This confrontation
with unwanted feelings can induce irrational hatred, sometimes even
within the bodybuilding world itself.
Appreciating a muscular physique on a
man or a woman makes you a person who appreciates a muscular
physique on a man or a woman and nothing else. All other assumptions
are irrelevant in the context of the sport of bodybuilding. The
phrase "get over it" comes to mind.
YES, BUT IS SHE CUTE? For whatever reason--those Darwinian
imperatives again?--no female athlete can escape being sexualized or
having her personal appearance become the dominant factor in her
perceived worthiness. When the WNBA began their first season,
popular sports radio jock Jim Rome regularly insulted the physical
appearance of some of the league's professional female basketball
players, calling one star in particular a "horse." It was a cheap
shot, one out of step with treating women as athletes, much less as
equals, and Rome later said he regretted making the comments.
Of course, female bodybuilders endure the same harsh scrutiny for
their looks, regardless of their physique achievements. Just check
out some bodybuilding bulletin boards and see how nasty the
appraisals can get. Yet, inversely, at the same time a different
audience eroticizes women bodybuilders solely for their
physiques--as a burgeoning underground muscle-fetish industry
proves. But does this industry exist because women bodybuilders are
being pushed beyond the fringes of their own subculture into this
underground? Their options and opportunities in the bodybuilding
mainstream seem to expire by the day. |
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