Today, a look at Australia (and New Zealand), where, once again, Serena Williams' 'muscular' body was the subject of a little media attention, and this in turn led to much comment and debate about women and muscularity in general during the first week of the recent Australian Open.
We've certainly been here before. As long ago as August 2011, FMS reported that Serena's body had been the subject of some negative media attention in the UK, and the 'debate', as the press would have it, about her being 'too muscular' seems to raise it's head every time one of tennis' Grand Slams are held.
However, this time there was a slightly different slant in the Aussie and Kiwi media.
Why Do We Find Muscular Women So Perplexing? was a typical headline - a story from the Brisbane Times website that appeared almost verbatim two days later on the Otago Times website under the headline Muscularity Challenges Feminine Ideal.
We don’t see many muscular women in popular culture – and the display of much heavier and obviously stronger female bodies can be overwhelming or shocking, began the article. Why are we so afraid of strong, muscular women?
After all, there’s nothing unnatural about a strong and muscular woman. What’s unnatural is preventing and discouraging women from reaching their full physical potential in the name of femininity.
Wait a minute! Swell thought to himself. 'Nothing unnatural about a strong and muscular woman'. Pleasingly, this didn't sound like it was going to be one of those typical mainstream media articles about female muscle.
Dr Jamilla Rosdahl
The author, I noted, was no hack journalist but one Jamilla Rosdahl, a lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and a few clicks later Swell was all over Dr Rosdahl's PhD thesis, entitled Sculpting my Feminist Identity and Body: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Bodysculpting and Poststructuralist Feminist Fieldwork.
It's quite a read.
I beg Dr Rosdahl's forgiveness if I am misrepresenting her work in any way, but in a nutshell, it deals with issues that arose when she took up bodybuilding, or 'bodysculpting' as she calls the figure/fitness side of things. What struck her first of all was how, as a result of her body becoming more muscular, her own 'femininity' started to be questioned by others but also by herself, and at the same time how unfair it seemed to her that while male bodybuilders are in no way judged on their masculinity, female competitors are marked down for not showing enough femininity.
It goes without saying that she explains it better than me, but if you are not as inclined as me to get your teeth into such academia and read her thesis, you can listen to an interview with her on a Brisbane radio station from 2011, when she was still doing her research, here.
And Dr Rosdahl was on Aussie radio again during the Australian Open when she was interviewed for another Brisbane station, 4BC, on 14th January, along with Carole Graham, an IFBB executive and former multiple national champion from way back.
Carole Graham in her pomp, and today
The section of the show that includes their interviews is definitely worth a listen in full (and you can do so here) for a couple of reasons apart from Dr Rosdahl's prescence.
Firstly, there is (to me anyway) the revelation from Carole Graham that the Australian IFBB hold female-only shows. And secondly, there is the attitude of the hosts, partly revealed when Graham mentions one of these shows. To these two radio presenters in Brisbane at least, it's undeniable that women with muscle ARE desired and that, as Carole Graham says earlier in the show, the confidence that stems from being in control of how your body looks attracts many more men.
Carole Graham: ... we've got one coming up on the Gold Coast in March, and you know what? Most of the audience is guys that come along and really respect how the girls train...
Female Host: Oh they don't Carole! Oh grow up! They're not coming for that!
Male Host: That's what we tell you Carole, that's what we tell...
Female Host: They come to drool, that's why they come. They come with their tongues hanging out like Pavlovian dogs!
An academic and two popular radio talk show hosts providing positive media for female muscle, albeit it in very very different ways. It certainly makes a refreshing change from the norm.
And here's the show Carole Graham mentioned. If you're in that part of the world and 'respect how the girls train', why not check it out? You probably won't be alone by all accounts, and FMS would love to hear from any readers who do attend!
Info is available on the IFBB Australia website.
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