Strong and Hard Women

by Tanya Bunsell

  What is striking about the debate over women bodybuilders is that no suitable empirical work exists that would allow us to begin to properly adjudicate between these views. Furthermore, the current theories imply that female bodybuilders either resist norms of femininity or are oppressed – as if it is simply a choice of one or the other, rather than a more complex situation that may require us to go beyond this binary opposition.

  Over the past 20 years there has been a small but growing research tradition in this area. However, much of this literature – including St Martin and Gavey (1996), Aoki (1996) and Mansfield and McGinn (1993) – has focused on the textual symbolism of what this flesh represents. Little attention, in contrast, has been devoted to phenomenological issues involving the experience of the lived body. Frequently, the muscular body is referred to as a costume, or a ‘coat of muscles’ (Ian 1995: 75), but this neglects the actual sweat, effort and pain of the bodybuilding process. In order to assess whether female bodybuilding can be seen as resistant, transgressive or empowering, there needs to be in-depth research into the actual processes of bodily activity (Bartky 1988; Lloyd 1996: 91; Bordo 1992: 16). In other words, there needs to be an exploration into the ‘carnal realities of the sporting body’; research that focuses on women’s phenomenological, sensual experiences and those processes involved in the corporeal transformations that take place as they train in the gym (Sparkes 2009: 27). The subculture of male bodybuilders has been documented in some detail (by Klein (1993) in the US and Monaghan (2001) in the UK), but no comprehensive ethnographical study has yet taken place exploring how female bodybuilders construct their identities in this male-dominated environment. In order to assess the liberatory potential of female bodybuilding, more in-depth research is needed into the daily lifestyles, identities, interactions (inside the gym and outside the subculture) and phenomenological experiences associated with this activity. Against this background, this ethnography is a contribution to the ‘filling in’ and ‘fleshing out’ of this lacunae.

  The aim of the study and the problem of ‘empowerment’

  The aim of this research is to investigate whether female bodybuilding can be seen as an emancipatory and empowering transgression from hegemonic standards of femininity. Although the concept of ‘empowerment’ is pivotal to this research, it is extremely difficult to operationalize. Indeed, as will become clear throughout this book, feminists interpret the term in different ways depending on their beliefs and the context in which it is used. Furthermore, in the same way that explicit

  8 Introduction

  definitions of empowerment are rare (Gilroy 1989), indicators measuring progress towards empowerment remain even more elusive. Nevertheless, a useful definition of women’s empowerment is offered by Mosedale (2005: 252): ‘the process by which women redefine and extend what is possible for them to be and do in situations where they have been restricted, compared to men, from being and doing’. Others agree with this approach but argue for a more pro-active definition that affects gendered social roles and structures. For example, Women Win, a charity aimed at empowering girls and women worldwide through sport, suggests in its online mission statement that empowerment must effect an improvement in women’s possibilities for ‘being and doing’ through an enhancement in ‘opportunities for girls and women to gain awareness of their rights and capabilities, the courage and ability to make life-changing decisions, and access to resources, leadership possibilities and public structures’. Similarly, Kate Young (1993: 157) claims that discussions surrounding empowerment must include a ‘transformatory potential’ that takes into account the need to bring about permanent changes to women’s political and social position in society. Thus, whilst some feminists believe that a practice can be considered ‘empowering’ even if it has a very small effect on an individual and personal level, others argue that ‘empowerment’ must have a profound impact on social relations and gender inequality.

  Moving to the dimension of this issue most relevant to my research, whilst there are variants in the definitions provided by sports feminists advocating ‘bodily empowerment’, the following interpretation has been popular in feminist literature:

  Bodily empowerment lies in women’s abilities to forge an identity that is not bound by traditional definitions of what it ‘means to be female’, and to work for a new femininity that is not defined by normative beauty or body ideals, but rather by the qualities attained through athleticism (such as skill, strength, power, self-expression).

  (Hesse-Biber 1996: 127; see also Hall 1990; Lang 1998)

  This can be broken down into two related but distinct aspects:

  1. Individual empowerment. This could comprise a number of elements, such as gaining a sense of self-definition through taking control of the body (both by manipulating the body’s appearance and through bodily practices and processes), body self-possession, bodily self-respect, bodily satisfaction, physical presence, skills and bodily competences (self-strength, autonomy, self-power), own choice and a life of dignity in accordance with one’s values (McDermott et al. 1996; Gilroy 1997; Willis 1990).

  2. Social empowerment. This could include challenging the objectification of women’s bodies and re-defining gender roles by resisting the cultural processes which tend to define or control the female body (Hall 1990; Gilroy 1989; McDermott et al. 1996; Willis 1990).

  Introduction 9

  The purpose is not to provide an all-encompassing definition, but rather to advocate the multiplicities of ‘empowerment’ which will be considered during this study. Furthermore, empowerment must be viewed as complex, sometimes contradictory, and a multi-dimensional concept that can be understood as a process (involving minimally individual and social dimensions) rather than simply an event.

  Chapter outlines

  Chapter 2 sets out to explore the underpinning theoretical and methodological

  issues of my research. There are two main purposes of this chapter. The first is to describe how the research was conducted and to justify the methodological tools employed. The second is to discuss the epistemological and ontological concerns of the investigation using a reflective approach as, ultimately, the shape and nature of ‘what’ is known is inevitably entwined and intimately connected with

  ‘how’ it is known (Stanley 1990). In Chapter 3, I outline the neglected history of

  female bodybuilding, before moving on to review the small but increasing corpus

  of literature on this subject in Chapter 4. Much of this work comes from feminists

  who have had strongly divided reactions to this relatively new but growing phe-

  nomena. Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 draw upon my empirical data. Chapter 5 focuses

  on the identity, experiences and lifestyle of the female bodybuilder outside the gym environment. As the first substantive empirical chapter, it also introduces the recurring and prominent theme of the ‘Janus-face’ of female bodybuilding. In

  Chapter 6 I continue this theme by turning to the most deviant aspect of female

  bodybuilding – muscle worship and steroid use. In Chapter 7, I explore the ‘life-

  world’ (Husserl 1971 [1936]) of the female bodybuilder in the gym. Here, I argue that female bodybuilders perceive the gym as ‘home’ – as a hospitable sanctuary that, at least in part, shelters them from the negative interactions of wider society.

  Chapter 8 investigates the actual phenomenological experiences of the female

  bodybuilders as they train in the gym, looking at how the women’s subjectivities

  are expressed, lived and created through their bodies. In Chapter 9, I turn to the

  most important part of the life of the female bodybuilder – the competition: an event that deals with the culmination of their ambitions and ‘sets the seal’ on these women’s identities. In addition, this chapter follows the journey of ‘Michelle’ (a bodybuilder of five years and my key informant) from the start of her preparation to competition, to that moment of climax. In the
concluding chapter I return to my main research aim and use my findings to assess whether female bodybuilding can indeed be an emancipatory and empowering transgression from hegemonic standards of feminine embodiment.

  This book explores the lives and experiences of the fascinating world of female bodybuilders. It explores the double-edged sword and ‘Janus-face’ of muscular female body projects by looking at the positive and negative processes, practices and interactions associated with this lifestyle.

  2

  Researching

  female

  bodybuilders

  It feels like there’s a black hole, a vacuum pulling me towards it, one minute I’m running towards it and the next I’m trying to pull back. But the lure is there. The obsession. It’s all-encompassing. Bodybuilding haunts and comforts my dreams and waking hours. Maybe it’s the hardest place to be – sitting on the fence. Feeling the power, the draw, but still being unable to commit.

  Sometimes I delight in it, but other times it feels like a weight, a burden. The religion of ‘muscle’. Today I feel overwhelmed. My brain and body both hurt.

  Ethnography was not the easy option. I’m both hooked and fascinated – yet want to run away. The bizarre world of bodybuilding is taking over.

  (Field diary entry, 4 September 2007)

  Welcome to my world, or what was my world. As I am opening myself up yet again, by reliving the events which consumed my being for several years, I stand on that fault line and recall my vulnerability, my confusion, my dedication, excitement and passion as I became engulfed by the domain of the female bodybuilder. As Anne Bolin (2009) persuasively argues, reflexive ethnography must encompass embodied knowledge, which can only be procured through somatic engagement.

  Hence ethnography is an experiential and emotional affair which turns the life of the researcher inside out. The aim of this chapter is not only to explain the methods which were employed during the research, but also to explore the intimate relationship between the ethnographer and the case study under investigation –

  thus illustrating how the particular methods and techniques chosen and used when conducting research have a profound impact on both the research process and the substantive findings.

  Fleshing out the theory

  The overriding aim of the research was to facilitate a rich portrait of the values, practices, norms and, above all, lived experiences of female bodybuilders. With this aim in mind, my research approach sought not only to analyse the wider milieu in which female bodybuilding occurs, but also to explore via ethnography and interview the interactions and phenomenological experiences associated with this activity. Phenomenology is a very broad term that encompasses a

  Researching female bodybuilders 11

  range of diverse academic theories. Simply put, the origins of phenomenological thought focused on ‘lived’ experiences as understood from the first-person perspective. Throughout this book I use the term to refer to the school of philosophy associated with the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who describes this technique as ‘a manner or style of thinking’ without any prior formal experience or education (Merleau-Ponty 1962: viii). As Wertz (2009: 3) notes, ‘in focusing on the person’s ways of being-in-the-world, phenomenology descriptively elaborates structures of the I (“ego” or “self”), various kinds of intentionality (experience), and the constitution of the experienced world’. Like others within the phenomenological tradition, such as Heidegger and Sartre, Merleau-Ponty postulated that the body, as a mode-of-being in the world, was always embedded within the social and contextual fabric of society. The search for a ‘pure’

  form of transcendental bodily essence would consequently be a futile endeavour. However, these phenomenologists adeptly argued that as all experience is embodied – the body is a living, breathing and moving phenomenon that actively interprets and interacts with the world – nothing can be done or understood without the medium of the body. Merleau-Ponty took this theoretical approach one step further, postulating that consciousness itself is embodied, and consequently

  ‘we are our body’ (1962: 206).

  Feminists have criticised traditional phenomenology and the work of Merleau-Ponty for overlooking women’s experience and omitting any gender-specific analysis. This neglect, however, has been rectified – at least in part – by the pioneering work of Iris Marion Young in the late 1970s and the explosion of research into female embodiment in the late 1980s by feminist scholars such as Sandra Bartky, Christine Battersby, Susan Bordo, Judith Butler and Elizabeth Grosz. Young (2005) argues that the increasing popularity and significance of

  ‘the lived body’ in women’s studies is understandable, given that much feminist thought has focused on the ways in which women’s bodily differences have been used to justify structural inequalities. Furthermore, feminists such as Kruks, Marshall, Grimshaw and, increasingly, Grosz have joined Young in advocating the importance of phenomenological descriptions of the lived body experience to feminist theory and practice. It was Iris Marion Young’s 1990 paper ‘Throwing like a Girl’ which initially drew me to this theoretical approach. By reworking Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception this essay seeks to explore the ways in which women’s movement and motility are restricted. Young suggests that ‘it is the ordinary purposive orientation of the body as a whole towards things and its environment that initially defines the relation of a subject to its world’

  (1990: 134). However, she also argues (drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s work on immanence and transcendence) that women’s bodily movement is experienced and inhabited in a different way to males’. Taking this difference as the starting point for her own feminist analysis, Young suggests that there are three commonalities of female embodiment in relation to action/movement. Her first point is that women tend to live their lives in ‘ambiguous transcendence’ (2005: 35), refraining from throwing their whole bodies into movement and viewing their bodies as a ‘fragile encumbrance’ (2005: 34). Secondly, the female body suffers

  12 Researching female bodybuilders

  from ‘inhibited intentionality’ (2005: 35): instead of believing in their bodies and physical capacities, women limit themselves by thinking ‘I cannot’ (2005: 36).

  Last of all, Young identifies a ‘discontinuous unity’ (2005: 38) between women and their bodies, as well as between their bodies and their environment, including the space that surrounds them. Young’s work on female bodily experience and space provides a useful tool to aid the investigation of female bodybuilders and ‘empowerment’, helping us explore how these women use their bodies, feel about their bodies and experience their bodies – not with the belief that a ‘pure’

  embodied experience can be identified, but as a unique and useful contribution to the analysis of female bodies. As Grosz (1994: 236) convincingly points out, phenomenology remains essential, as ‘without some acknowledgement of the formative role of embodied experience in the establishment of knowledge, feminism has no grounds from which to dispute patriarchal norms’.

  Despite recent work on embodiment carried out by feminists, phenomenological theorists have been criticized for their lack of engagement with empirical data (Kerry and Armour 2000). In this context, Sparkes (2009) and Hockey and Allen-Collinson (2007: 117) have called for insights from other critical perspectives in order to ‘flesh out’ the analyses. Research into ‘body pedagogics’

  using ethnographic work, alongside interviews, may potentially bridge this gap and provide a more holistic, grounded and empirical account incorporating the carnal realities of the lived body. Shilling (2007: 13) defines the analysis of body pedagogics as involving the study of

  the central pedagogic means through which a culture seeks to transmit its main corporeal techniques, skills and dispositions, the embodied experiences associated with acquiring or failing to acquire these attributes, and the actual embodied changes resulting from this process.

  Thus body pedagogics involves ‘deploying the body as a tool of inquiry and vec-t
or of knowledge’ (Wacquant 2004: viii). If, then, as Bourdieu (2000 [1997]: 41) declares, humans ‘learn by the body’, it is imperative that researchers become immersed in the culture being investigated and ‘strive to acquire the appetites and the competencies that make the diligent agent in the universe under consideration’

  (Wacquant 2004: viii). In this context, body pedagogical accounts not only fit in well with and complement ethnographic approaches of research, but are also vital in unfurling the knowledge, values and beliefs embedded in athletes’ bodily experiences (Bolin 2011: 22). In summary, an underlying theme of my investigation was an attempt to explore the ‘body pedagogics’, or corporeally relevant aspects of education and socialization (Shilling 2007, 2008b; Shilling and Mellor 2007), involved in becoming and being a female bodybuilder.

  Why ethnography?

  Ethnography ‘seeks to capture, interpret and explain how a group, organization or community live, experience and make sense of their lives and their world’

  Researching female bodybuilders 13

  (Robson 2000: 89). The captivating nature of ethnographic work ‘rests in its ability to offer rich and detailed knowledge of a group’s distinctive way of life’

  (Lowe 1998: 670). As Ferrell and Hamm (1998: 225) note, the participant observation and immersion in the life of a group central to ethnography provides a way of ‘getting inside the skin of one’s subjects’ by gaining empathy with, and to an extent sharing the lived experiences of, those ‘emotions, sentiments, and physical/

  mental states that shape their responses to this world’. Habitual presence in the researched environment, combined with observation and supplemented by interviews that can range from casual conversations to more structured dialogue, can build trust and enable the researcher to develop a layered and nuanced picture of the cultural milieu and its occupants (Krane and Baird 2005: 94; see also Creswell 1998). Ethnographic research methods, in short, provide a means by which it is possible to understand the ‘culture of a group from the perspective of group members’ (Krane and Baird 2005: 87). Furthermore, the sympathetic and experiential methods utilized and endorsed by ethnography, which complement phenomenological insights, appear ideally compliant with feminist research (Klein 1983; Reinharz 1983; Mies 1983; Stanley and Wise 1983). Both approach ‘knowledge’