Strong and Hard Women

by Tanya Bunsell

  (www.animalpak.co.uk)

  For Grint and Case (1998) the bodybuilding discourse, depicting hypermasculine traits of toughness, strength and the ability to give and take violence, are representative of a desire to return to a time when ‘men were men’. Likewise, other sociologists have explained the growth in bodybuilding’s popularity in terms of a

  ‘postmodern crisis of masculinity’ (Klein 1993; Heywood 1998).

  These hypermasculine characteristics are encouraged through bodybuilding magazines, advertisements and websites. Furthermore, as Stulberg (1996/7: 93) points out, media space is used to actively construct sexual identity and regulate

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  sexual power, creating further disparity between the sexes. As bodybuilding is usually perceived as a ‘man’s sport’, magazines are marketed at the male consumer.

  Features are usually about men and for men. On the rare occasions that women’s photographs are included, the softer, curvier hyperfeminine look is preferred, appealing to the male gaze and amplifying by sheer contrast the muscularity, size and masculine appearance of the male bodybuilder (see Heywood 1998; Frueh 2001; Mansfield and McGinn 1993; St Martin and Gavey 1996). Furthermore, far from the ‘warrior’ and ‘animal’ depictions, women are photographed training with light weights, in sexualized and non-aggressive poses, smiling, with full make-up and styled hair. The models do not grimace or show signs of sweat, pain or hard work. Likewise, the commentary accompanying the images contains no swearing or harsh dialogue (compared to articles on their male counterparts) and women’s

  ‘feminine’ qualities and achievements are emphasized (for example, being attractive or juggling training with motherhood).

  Injuries: being hard enough

  In the same way that pain is glorified within the bodybuilding subculture, injuries are often perceived as something to be to be fought through, overcome and not

  ‘given in’ to. White et al. (1995: 176) explain that this attitude is part of the

  ‘machismo and fatalism of athletic culture’, although the ‘character-building’

  qualities of toughness, endurance of pain and discipline can equally be applied to the army or other types of male-dominated institutions. Bodybuilding magazines and documentaries frequently include narratives whereby male bodybuilders conquer their injuries and go on to compete, refusing to submit or admit defeat despite their suffering. As Locks (2003) notes, however, there are no equivalent magazine narratives of women training and overcoming injury.

  Klein’s (1995: 105) ethnographic study in California illustrates the seemingly masochistic relationship between injuries and bodybuilding: in one gym, Klein (1995: 105) observed ‘a bodybuilder suffer a nosebleed whilst lifting weights; it was triumphantly explained that the man in question was a true bodybuilder, paying dues, training in earnest and willing to both risk and endure injury for his calling’. In another instance he saw a bodybuilder ‘doubled over in pain from what would later be diagnosed as a symptom of hepatic tumours on the liver and whose obviously unwell condition was again interpreted by the behemoths in the gym as testimony to his commitment to the subculture’ (ibid.: 105).

  Alongside the pain caused by injuries and the pain created by working to one’s maximum ability during training, there are also the ‘everyday’ surface wounds and marks that accompany workouts. These include callouses and skin abrasions from the friction caused by gripping iron weights, bruises and shin grazes from exercises such as dead-lifts and so-called ‘blood marks’ on the back from exercises such as pec flies on the bench. Even the sheer weight digging into the flesh can cause muscle soreness and bruises (e.g. on the traps during squats). These are, however, daily warrior markings and are nothing compared to the injuries that some bodybuilders contend with due to repetitive heavy weight training, poor

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  technique or poor biomechanics. For instance, during my ethnographic study, I encountered bodybuilders who suffered from hernias, numerous shoulder injuries, torn muscles and torn ligaments.

  Reading and interpreting the bodybuilder’s pain

  Critical feminists (including cultural, essentialist and radical feminists) make three related points regarding the ethos of bodybuilding and its relationship with violence and pain. First, they condemn the tantalizing promise to new recruits that they too can embody masculine traits of power, in terms of ‘growth, penetration and dominance’ (Saltman 2003: 59). Feminists such as Jaggar (1983) argue that women are naturally less violent than their male counterparts due to their superior innate caring, mothering and nurturing characteristics. Therefore for women to participate in more violent practices would be for them to take on inferior male characteristics. Whilst not all critical feminists take such a radical stance, many still believe that as physical force has been used to create and maintain patriarchy, to utilize this power would be to continue oppression based on violence and domination – thus women must not use violence for their own ends (see Lorde 1997).

  Second, these critics claim that the culture of bodybuilding re-enacts the historical dualism between mind and body. This binary is argued to create objectification and hatred of the body, alienation and estrangement. This is nicely illustrated in the following extract from Fussell’s autobiography, when he shaves his whole body in order to display his muscle more clearly:

  And when I rose from the bath tub and looked at my naked form, I was amazed. It wasn’t my body – it was the blood. I looked as if I’d run a marathon through briars. I waited for the shock of pain, but it didn’t come. I didn’t feel a thing. I was no longer connected to my own body. It had become simply an abstract concept, a shell to be polished and plucked with regularity.

  (Fussell 1991: 84)

  He no longer feels pain; instead, he feels nothing. He has become desensitized to both his bodily sensations and his emotions. Saltman (2003: 63) postulates that at its core, ‘bodybuilding is about destroying the body over and over to become Something Else’, a point which resonates with essentialist and cultural feminists’

  argument that the body ‘is never good enough as it is’ (Bordo 1988; Chapters 4

  and 5). Finally, feminists critical of female bodybuilding are quick to point out that the violent language of the bodybuilder – ‘ripped’, ‘shredded’, ‘tearing’,

  ‘breaking down’, ‘cutting’ and so on – parallels the destructive discourse surrounding other female body modification practices in contemporary society (see Jeffreys 2005). According to this approach, women who take up bodybuilding are simply practising another form of self-destruction and yet another way of enduring pain and injury, which is carved out upon the body (Fournier 2002).

  This concurs with Scarry’s (1985) view that pain, in all its guises, is a powerful and destructive force that is damaging to both the self and the world.

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  Whilst there are differences in the above feminist perspectives, they are all extremely critical of the liberatory potential of female bodybuilding. I will now turn my attention to, and briefly critique, the three main assumptions on which their analysis is based. First, as I have remarked in earlier chapters, I am deeply sceptical about essentialist notions of men and women; notions which claim that the ‘sexes’ are inherently biologically and psychologically different. Not all women are caring and nurturing; similarly, not all men are violent, oppressive and dominant. Furthermore, as McCaughey (1997) claims, regardless of whether women are innately non-violent/non-aggressive or have a choice in the matter, this is only a discussion that can be held by the privileged. Female non-violence and ‘purity’ has only been an option for white middle and upper-class women.

  For all other women, especially those who are poor, non-white and living in less developed countries, physical assertiveness has been a necessary form of survival (Roth and Basow 2004). I am more sympathetic with the second critical point, which comes from a cultural feminist perspective rather than
a radical one.

  Nevertheless, this approach ironically ends by reiterating the very binary of mind/

  body (and related ones of male/female, culture/nature) that it seeks to ‘transcend’.

  It still claims that there can be a harmonious relationship between the mind and body, but fails to depict what this state might be and furthermore fails to explain the mind/body connection – i.e. where the body ends and the mind begins, and vice versa.

  In connection to the third point on female bodybuilding, I am particularly interested in the relationship between gender and ‘destructive’ physical practices. If indeed bodybuilding is self-destructive and masochistic, why is no concern given to the men who take up this practice? Is it only women who become victims of it?

  Surely if bodybuilding is an inherently detrimental practice, then men too become victims of oppression as a result of the influence of a hypermasculine model of what it is to be a man. Whilst the ‘self-hatred’ that can follow such a norm could provide evidence to support the view that bodybuilding is pathological and that individual participants suffer from insecurity and body dysmorphia, it might also give weight to the argument that both genders suffer under dominant hegemonic constructions of femininity and masculinity.

  So far, bodybuilding has been portrayed as a pathological and hypermasculine power which embraces and encourages pain and violence to the body and can in no way provide any form of empowerment for women. However, the work of other sociologists can be used here to provide an alternative and more positive reading to this fatalistic interpretation. Monaghan (2001: 45) admits that ‘anaerobic exercise can be extremely painful’. Similarly, Crossley (2004: 39–40), in his study of circuit trainers, claims that ‘experiences of pain, exhaustion and breathlessness are often deemed unpleasant’. However, instead of translating this embrace of pain as a destructive compulsive obsession, Crossley explains how the exerciser’s pain is ‘reframed’ through symbolic and emotional interaction with others, and by experience becomes satisfying and pleasurable. For example, first-time drug users (e.g. marijuana users in Becker’s studies of 1963 and 1967) find the experience to be unpleasant, nauseating and frightening; through perseverance, however, agents

  ‘acquire the taste, learn the techniques, and learn to frame the experience in such

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  a way as to render it positive’ (Crossley 2004: 40). In this way, rather than simply translating the bodybuilder’s desire for pain as determining a masochistic attitude and self-hatred of the body, it can be seen that bodybuilders learn to re-interpret these ‘painful’ physical sensations as enjoyable (Monaghan 2001: 345). Crossley and Monaghan both point out, however – in complete opposition to the work of White et al. (1995) and Klein (1993/1995) – that there is a significant difference between ‘good pain’ and ‘bad pain’. The bodybuilder learns to distinguish between the right forms of pain, ‘bad pain’ being comprehended when exercises are performed with improper technique or exacerbate injuries.

  In summary, critical feminists and sports social psychologists view this ‘sociali-sation to voluntary pain’ as simply an emblem of masculine identity that suppresses emotions (Sabo 1989: 159). Furthermore, Scarry (1985: 54–5) argues that pain is not an abstract, passive phenomena, but is real – it hurts and is literally carved out and into a fleshy, sentient body. Pain is ‘unshareable [and] inexpressible’; regardless of which ‘perspective pain is approached [from], its totality is again and again faced’. In addition, critics argue that bodybuilding propagates gender roles, even more than other sports – reinforcing the hierarchical ideology of masculinity and the subordination of women. However, these views contrast sharply with the theory of ‘physical liberation’ (Roth and Basow 2004) proposed by sports feminists and discussed in the previous chapter. Furthermore, Crossley (2004) and Monaghan (2001) convincingly argue that there is a possible alternative reading to that of pathology, as ‘pain is re-interpreted’ and reworked to become pleasurable within the bodybuilder’s interactions and ‘culture of pain’ (Monaghan 2001: 345). This point is made more generally by Shilling and Mellor’s (2010) analysis of how various cultures have historically employed the infliction and endurance of pain as a positive resource in developing people’s self-identities.

  At this point it is vital to turn to the lived experiences of the female bodybuilders themselves – to see how these women interpret the ‘pain’ of the bodybuilding process. How does the reality of their training compare to the violent discourse of bodybuilding? Do they find empowerment in re-enacting male-defined behaviour? What does training actually feel like – what are their bodily sensations and emotional responses? Are they just another manifestation of self-hatred against the body, or are there alternative explanations? In order to try to answer these questions, I next turn to the voices of the women themselves, comparing the reality of female bodybuilders’ training to this portrayal of violence and pain.

  Female bodybuilders’ phenomenological experiences

  The bodybuilder’s ‘culture of pain’ encompasses different physical sensations depending on the individual’s interpretation and the sequence of events within the bodybuilding process. The sequence of ‘pain’ can be loosely divided into four periods: during the workout ‘rep’, directly after the rep/set, after the workout and the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) that usually occurs 1–2 days later. During the actual anaerobic exercise when the weight is lifted, exertion is felt through the muscles, joints and chest, causing a sensation of tightness and

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  shortness of breath. However, the bodybuilder anticipates that these unpleasant feelings will soon appear to subside in light of another more favourable sensation – ‘the pump’:

  The pump… It is the holy grail of bodybuilding. It is that most addictive of sensations… It is euphoric and invigorating, an intense swelling of the muscle caused by a training-induced cascade of blood… It is a rebirth experienced on each worthwhile trip to the gym. The pump is instant gratification…

  An automatic reward for all of the blood, sweat and tears you spill on the gym floor.

  (www.animalpak.co.uk)

  This feeling has been cited by other sociologists and bodybuilders as a strong incentive and a driving force for training (Gaines and Butler 1983; Mansfield and McGinn 1993; Wacquant 1995). Likewise, in my study, Debbie (a bodybuilder of seven and a half years) describes ‘the pump’ in terms of the ‘amazing feeling’

  that accompanies the sense that ‘your muscles are bursting out of your skin’. In a more descriptive manner, Samantha (a bodybuilder of three years) reflects on her experiences after training her biceps:

  The finishing exercises, consisting of relatively higher reps… allow that blissful engorgement of blood to swell the muscles. Veins become sketched out on the body like a road map, and the intensity feels like a burning sensation throughout the designated muscle group.

  Whilst ‘the pump’ may be the most coveted sensation, it is not a guaranteed physical state and rarely accompanies the heavier and lower reps and sets.

  However, even without this feeling, female bodybuilders expressed pleasure and satisfaction in the process. This is articulated again by Samantha in the following quote, given after she had completed a two-rep max of squats (in order to improve her strength):

  The heavy, low reps – feel like a battle of wills between body and metal, as the mind and body are forced to work in harmony in full concentration.

  There can be no doubt, no hesitation nor any negative distraction… You are grounded in the moment. For that second, time feels like it has stopped. The world takes on a surreal quality… Only you really exist, you and the force to be conquered.

  Similar to the ‘runner’s high’, the bodybuilder’s ‘pump’ is believed to trigger a whole range of hormonal responses causing the release of enkephalins and endorphins into the bloodstream, which act as natural painkillers. Like Monaghan’s (2001: 347) male bodybui
lders, my participants also identified the feeling of euphoria and the adrenaline rush as comparable to taking pharmaceutical stimulants: ‘the endorphin high – it’s like a drug’ (Michelle, bodybuilder of five years).

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  Experiences deemed unpleasant, such as the tightness and shortness of breath and weights digging into flesh, fade into the background during the execution of the weight. Enraptured in the ‘positive moment of bodybuilding’ (Monaghan 2001: 331), pain and discomfort become reconfigured into a sensual experience.

  Female bodybuilders thereby associate these changes with a heightened sense of being alive; a sense that manifests itself in an emboldening and a merging of the senses. This is clearly illustrated in the comments made by Samantha, who explains how the bodybuilding high involves pain but also something ‘beyond pain’, including an ‘adrenaline buzz, the satisfaction of working to the max. I feel like I’m flying, buzzing. I feel so alive and enthusiastic about life’. Sharon (a bodybuilder of 12 years) aptly quotes from the film ‘GI Jane’ (1997): ‘Pain is your friend – it lets you know you’re not dead’. This intense desire to feel ‘alive’ can be read against the backdrop of an increasingly computerized, rationalized and sanitized society – a place Weber describes as the ‘iron-cage’ of modernity (Weber 1991 [1904–5]).

  Furthermore, the bodies of female bodybuilders undergo changes in the gym that initiate a metamorphosis in their sensory experience of themselves and their environment. This is captured in the following excerpt:

  [The gym is] a place of incarnations where our bodies inflate and we shuffle off our out-of-gym bodies like discarded skins and walk about transformed.

  We begin to grow, to change… we pick up our shoulders, elevating our chins, shaking ugliness from our torsos with a series of strokes, the glistening dumbbells, listening to the blood’s rush… Our breathing is quick, our skin is flushed, our hearts are pounding thickly.

  (Heywood 1997: 3)