Something New under the Sun
Excerpt from the book 'Modern Amazons' by Bill Dobbins
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Competitive bodybuilding has been around "officially" since the 1940 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Mr America contest, although various kinds of physique contests were held long before that. But starting in 1977, a new type of sports competition emerged - bodybuilding for women. Of course, the early women bodybuilders weren't that big, certainly compared with what was to follow. Their little muscles were often considered "cute" - especially if they were otherwise conventionally attractive. But people have very deeply held ideas of gender identity (hence the anger often directed at "gender outlaws" like homosexuals and transsexuals) and what the body is supposed to look like. So while the women bodybuilders were initially well received, as they gradually got bigger and more muscular they began encountering increasing hostility and resistance - both from inside the sport and from without.
While everybody loves kittens, not everyone likes cats. The hyper-muscular female bodybuilder was really something new. There was no historical tradition of women developing their muscles for aesthetic purposes as there was for men. There was no cultural precedent. These women represented, according to Charles Gaines, author of Pumping Iron, a "new archetype." Thus bodybuilding for women encountered and created cultural opposition and controversy that is still with us today, some 25 years on.
My own involvement with the sport of bodybuilding for women was strictly a matter of "right place, right time." I did not grow up, as did many of my colleagues, as somebody fixated on the athletic female body. I was working for Joe Weider's Muscle & Fitness Magazine in the late 1970s when women began competing. Bodybuilding was a sport, I reasoned, in which men and women both participate - just as they do in tennis, golf, track, basketball and most other forms of athletics. I began shooting the women and covering their contests without giving the matter much thought. The idea that there was something wrong with women being bodybuilders, that what they were doing was "unfeminine" or unnatural, never occurred to me.
Besides, being a bodybuilding fan and liking the aesthetically developed muscular physique in general, I thought they looked pretty damn good. Over time, I began to appreciate the greater significance of what these women were doing and to consider the social and physiological questions that their success raised.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Competitive bodybuilding has been around "officially" since the 1940 Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Mr America contest, although various kinds of physique contests were held long before that. But starting in 1977, a new type of sports competition emerged - bodybuilding for women. Of course, the early women bodybuilders weren't that big, certainly compared with what was to follow. Their little muscles were often considered "cute" - especially if they were otherwise conventionally attractive. But people have very deeply held ideas of gender identity (hence the anger often directed at "gender outlaws" like homosexuals and transsexuals) and what the body is supposed to look like. So while the women bodybuilders were initially well received, as they gradually got bigger and more muscular they began encountering increasing hostility and resistance - both from inside the sport and from without.
While everybody loves kittens, not everyone likes cats. The hyper-muscular female bodybuilder was really something new. There was no historical tradition of women developing their muscles for aesthetic purposes as there was for men. There was no cultural precedent. These women represented, according to Charles Gaines, author of Pumping Iron, a "new archetype." Thus bodybuilding for women encountered and created cultural opposition and controversy that is still with us today, some 25 years on.
My own involvement with the sport of bodybuilding for women was strictly a matter of "right place, right time." I did not grow up, as did many of my colleagues, as somebody fixated on the athletic female body. I was working for Joe Weider's Muscle & Fitness Magazine in the late 1970s when women began competing. Bodybuilding was a sport, I reasoned, in which men and women both participate - just as they do in tennis, golf, track, basketball and most other forms of athletics. I began shooting the women and covering their contests without giving the matter much thought. The idea that there was something wrong with women being bodybuilders, that what they were doing was "unfeminine" or unnatural, never occurred to me.
Besides, being a bodybuilding fan and liking the aesthetically developed muscular physique in general, I thought they looked pretty damn good. Over time, I began to appreciate the greater significance of what these women were doing and to consider the social and physiological questions that their success raised.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Yolanda Hughes, USA. Photo: Bill Dobbins