Femininity and muscularity: accounts of seven women body builders

Abstract

In this study, we interviewed an opportunity sample of seven women body builders, who all compete (or have competed in the past) in Physique-level body building competitions. They were asked about training details, and motivations for body building including social pressures to become more muscular (and not to become more muscular). Women’s accounts were complex and in some cases apparently contradictory, for while emphasising freedom to choose to be muscular within a cultural context where slimness is the norm, they stressed the importance of aspects of traditional femininity. Women’s accounts are discussed in relation to Western cultural pressure on women to be slender. It is argued that these women had shifted their body-shape ideal to a more muscular figure, and their primary social reference group to those within the body building community. Women experienced pressures from within the body building community defining the acceptable size and appearance of their bodies. They were engaged in a ‘balancing act’ where they were trying to attain a body that was muscular but not too muscular, and that maintained some aspects of traditional ‘feminine’ appearance. It is concluded that women who engage in Physique-level body building face complex layers of social pressure from within and outside the body building community.