Breck C. encouraged us to post about these photographs of body building women from a new book. When Feministe and Boing Boing posted about them it, predictably, prompted a rash of comments to the effect of “those women are gross/disgusting/unattractive.”
I think Roy at No Cookies For Me says it best:
It doesn’t matter if you find those women attractive or not. They’re very likely not doing it for you. That you find body building “grotesque” is completely beside, behind, or even miles away from the point. Nobody gives a shit that you find it disgusting. If you find it disgusting? Don’t do it. [And n]obody is trying to make you become or date a body builder…
Nicely put. This reflexive judging of women’s attractiveness reveals the entitlement that many feel to be aesthetically pleased by women’s appearance and, thus, the expectation that women owe it to the world to be attractive (as the world defines it, of course). It also demonstrates the related idea that women are, first and foremost and no matter what else they do, sexual objects.
Tazzi Colomb:
Rosemary Jennings:
Nicole Ball:
28 Comments
What I find interesting about body-building women is that their self-presentation in competitions is governed by some of the same standards as for body-building men, such as having an even [fake] tan and showing lots of veins across one’s body. At the same time, the body-building women are expected to play up signs of stereotypical femininity, including makeup, plucked eyebrows, plump lips and styled hair.
I think the bodybuilding women and men are both creepy. Part of that is that the shape they are in is not really beneficial for anything other than these competitions. Weightlifter’s don’t usually do this to themselves, similarly the best olympians are often toned but never overtoned, this is to the point of extreme. As far as who they’re doing it for, most people that body build have extreme issues of confidence relating to their physique.
Of course, there will be differential reactions to/treatments of the bodies of men and women — under any circumstances — resulting from ideals of (hegemonic) masculinity. And that’s obviously problematic.
That said, I personally find these kinds of extreme-muscled bodies quite revolting, whether their men or women. Furthermore, you can’t tell me that these bodies were “naturally” achieved; these are prime examples of the chemically-induced steroid grotesque.
Spelling correction: their = they’re. (Wrote that too fast.)
I hope you realize the women you pictured above are pumping themselves full of anabolic steroids. The androgenic effects are particularly pronounced on women since their bodies are not used to hormones of those kinds (have a look at Denise Masino’s clitoris for example).
So yes, I think these women look disgusting and unnatural.
Have a look at Women’s Bodybuilding Fitness models (essentially a figure competition) if you want to see something more within the realm of sanity. The women there are very toned and muscular without the disgusting androgenic effects and bulging muscles seen above.
For the record, I think men’s bodybuilders are disgusting too. Ron Coleman looks like he’s fucking pregnant with his huge growth hormone-induced gut, for god’s sake.
Ugh, I want no part.
You can contrast these women with, say, someone like Huang Huan, who competes in the 75kg+ women’s weightlifting class.
I just want to go on record saying I think male body builders look gross, too.
That being said, I get violently angry the way people flip out over any woman choosing to violate conventional beauty standards.
In this thread: People not getting it.
Some of these arguments are taking the side that it’s still somehow “better” to be “naturally” “women.” Or, at least that Lisa’s post was saying that these women are more “natural,” whatever that is. But that’s not the point. It’s complicated, of course, but the supposed naturalness of their bodies has nothing to do with it.
I am a woman who naturally has big, muscular thighs, but the rest of me is pretty petite. Just recently, I was trying on pants at the store and realized that my efforts to conform to the standard ideal of beauty mean finding pants that hide the bulging of my thighs. Skinny pants accentuated my thighs, but the fashion is to have legs that are the same width all the way down (like the girl in your other post with the naked male model). If I wore skinny pants, I imagine there would be tons of comments on how “gross” I looked (whether I heard them or not), but why should my natural form be considered disgusting? While this post shows extreme cases, the responses to these body builders and every other woman who can’t go out wearing Photoshop are part of the same problem.
Ugh, I want no part.
Luckily, nobody is trying to force you to take part. What is being suggested is that maybe you should check your reaction, consider where you’re reacting from, and think about the complete disrespect you’re showing for other people.
Whatever, Roy. People judge me, and I judge other people. I wouldn’t deny a bodybuilder a mortgage, but I don’t have to like the way he/she looks. Just as plenty of people don’t like the way I look with my preferred outfit of a T-shirt and 30$ levis.
Your blind political correctness may make you feel good about yourself, but it doesn’t describe the way the world works.
I’m not asking you to like the way someone looks. I’m suggesting that maybe calling people disgusting is crappy behavior.
Nobody has to like the way you look in your t-shirt and $30 Levis, but calling you names over it is:
1. Rude
2. Stupid
3. Out of line
It’s interesting how often accusations of “you’re just being PC” come across sounding like “how dare you tell me I shouldn’t treat people like crap!” Because, really, that’s what you’re talking about here–you’re calling me PC because I dared to suggest that maybe, just maybe, calling someone gross or saying that they’re grotesque might be, you know, rude.
Maybe the world doesn’t work that way, but I tend to think that if we could muster the bare minimum level of respect for other people that it would take to not treat other people like crap by calling them names or shaming them over their bodies, maybe it’d be a better place. I guess that’s just too PC, though.
I agree completely with Duran. And it’s disingenuous to say that anyone who states that they don’t like the bodybuilding look is “being a jerk.” No, being a jerk would be walking up to one of these people and saying “you are ugly!” I’m not doing that. Duran isn’t doing that. Calling people jerks for simply stating an opinion which contains no attacks or profanity but isn’t PC is, well, jerky.
On with the rotten tomatoes, I don’t care. I’ve never been silenced by a rotten tomato comment and I won’t be now.
You don’t see a world of difference between “I don’t really like the bodybuilding look” and “those women are disgusting”?
People weren’t just saying “that’s not my preference”. They were calling them grotesque, disgusting, and deformed. I don’t know about you, but, yeah, I’d feel a bit attacked if someone called me grotesque, disgusting, or deformed.
Doesn’t this strike people as a bit of an entrapment operation?
Find a group of photos of women who deviate quite dranmatically from our society’s norms of feminine beauty, post them on a website and invite people’s responses, people respond by stating, in informal language perhaps, that these women deviate quite dramatically from their norms of feminine beauty, and we’re all supposed to be shocked.
Were the various people who put these pictures up on different sites hoping that only the minority who found them attractive would respond, or that the majority who don’t would lie?
Because these pictures were selected specifically because the selector knew the majority would find them unattractive. and they didn’t ask ‘which do you think could lift the biggest dumbell?’
On the positive side, it must be nice to know that sitting on your arse watching TV and snacking would actually make you more attractive (if only to the worthless scum who make up the majority of the male population).
One of the problems that I have with bodybuilding, as well as any sort of contest that is defined by working towards a specific physical goal, is that it is purely physically/visually based. While these women are working towards a goal that is not the ‘norm’ of female beauty, they are still working towards a physical feminine bodybuilding goal. I can only wonder what would happen if these women didn’t use some feminine norms (i.e. makeup, lipstick/plumped lips, breast implants (more noticeable because of the muscle, as the breast implants are pushed forwards more and show their round shape)).
What if there was a contest show that had women working towards ‘masculine’ mental goals? And it was actually popular? And what would those goals be, anyway?
What I do notice, however, is that I don’t think any of these women look especially happy. While it’s impressive to break gender norms, are they happy doing so? And if not, are they not happy because society enjoys telling them they’re unattractive, or because working towards a merely visual goal doesn’t make them happy?
This is going to sound awful, but I’m not convinced that Rosemary is a she. I think Nicole is the best looking one, but only because she looks the most natural. She doesn’t have all those muscles around her neck and shoulders, but she still looks strong.
I agree with Annabelle. Personal preference aside, what I don’t like about the bodybuilding “industry” (for lack of a better term) is the same thing that I don’t like about the modeling and acting industries: women are pressured to look a certain way, and to focus on their bodies above all else, and to make their bodies fit someone’s idea of what a female bodybuilder’s body “should” look like. How is that different or better than the pressure that female models and actresses are under to look a certain way?
Why is it okay to make that argument about the modeling industry and the acting industry, but not about the bodybuilding industry? It’s not inherently sexist.
And just becuase someone says “the bodybuilding look is not my thing” does not make them a sexist jerk. I do think it’s jerky to criticize anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with the person who posted the photos, regardless of how nicely they express their difference of opinion.
The androgenic effects are particularly pronounced on women since their bodies are not used to hormones of those kinds (have a look at Denise Masino’s clitoris for example).
I was going to post “Exactly how am I supposed to do that?” but then I Google Image Searched and I guess that is how you do that.
“The androgenic effects are particularly pronounced on women since their bodies are not used to hormones of those kinds (have a look at Denise Masino’s clitoris for example).
I was going to post “Exactly how am I supposed to do that?” but then I Google Image Searched and I guess that is how you do that.”
Yeah…her clitoris looks like a small, but noticeable, penis. Any doubts left as to whether she’s using steroids or not? I’m sorry, but the bodybuilding industry seems to put just as much pressure, if not more, on women to look a certain way, than the modeling and acting industries. How is that a positive thing for women?
“those women are gross/disgusting/unattractive.”
I’d have to agree with that statement. But then, I also say the same about male bodybuilders. Anyone who overdevelops their muscles to the point that they look like the Incredible Hulk, with veins popping out everywhere and no neck, looks inhuman and unattractive to me regardless of gender.
Graham:
If I posted images of special olympics competitors wearing swimsuits in wheelchairs, and noted that these picture “predictably, prompted a rash of comments to the effect of “those women are gross/disgusting/unattractive.”” Would you think it was entrapment also?
Would commenters here feel the need to post how disgusted they were by the handicapped womens’ bodies? What if they were male? Would that make a difference? What if they were images of overweight physicists? What if they were images of elderly nudists on a nude beach?
The whole point here is that we feel the need to criticize people, especially women, based on their looks. We especially like to do it when we feel that the woman in question CHOSE to be unattractive. We find that very offensive. And ugly. And it is important that everybody know that it is Offensive and Ugly.
I think it’s fascinating that people think that if they couch their revulsion in an exercise in justification through vaguely sciencey language (”androgenic effects” in place of, oh, “she looks like a MAN! GROSS!”) it will somehow be different from what you discussed in the post.
I also think it’s interesting that the “unnatural” nature (wow, meta) of the results these women have achieved is conceived as a justification or a different kind of dislike. Extensions, plastic surgery, makeup, nail polish, highlights, and high heels are all unnatural, but that’s no problem, is it? (With good plastic surgery, at least.)
It all comes back to the same notion, which is that women are supposed to look a certain way and this is not it, and furthermore that this is everybody’s business.
What I dislike about these women is that they’re all heavily made up, and scantily clad. Also their skin looks really damaged and over-tanned. They would look much better with normal faces, that didn’t try to overcompensate and “feminize” their faces just because their bodies are muscular. “masculine” women can be very attractive. Women with muscles can look beautiful in my opinion, but these women are very unattractive in my eyes.
At the end of the day, I think if you are weirded out by anorexics or women with an obsessive relationship with cosmetic surgery, then you ought to also express a basic revulsion towards the men and women who engage in these sorts of extreme body modification cultures, whether it’s bulking up on steroids or piercing holes in your armpits and hanging from metal hooks a few hours a day. I mean, I’m glad people have the freedom to do these things to their bodies, but that doesn’t mean I have to find it physically alluring.
I found this website while using StumbleUpon, and the section about women, immediately reminded me of this particular entry. I, also, think body building is unnatural. However, this website, which I believe is marketed at men, treats the male and the female body builders in a very different way. The pictures of the men, are all ridiculous, possibly photo shopped pictures of people who have gone over the top with their steroid use. However, the pictures of women, are regular sized bodybuilders, and it is mocking them for participating in the body building world. The captions that accompany the female pictures are also extremely misogynistic, with such gems as “We’ve never said this to a woman before but could you please lower your skirt?” and “we could assume that back in the 80’s you were quite the piece of meat. It’s so sad that it had to spoil.” and “A waste of some perfectly good breasts.” Quite annoying.
I forgot, after all of that to include the website in the comment.
http://www.bigstupididiot.com/2009/06/20-pictures-that-give-steroids-bad-name.html
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[...] November 30, 2008 · No Comments After these photos were posted to some Russian website (and subsequently to Boing Boing), an undeservedly large brouhaha broke out amongst feminist bloggers. Here are some examples: 1, 2, 3. [...]