Forza e Bellezza: Festa della Liberazione

25th April: Liberation Day in Italy

Mainstream society may have become a little more tolerant of female muscle over the years, but this apparent acceptance is generally reserved for those women who require muscle to achieve high levels of athletic endeavour. The admiration reported in the media for Jessica Ennis’ Olympic body, for example, seems to suggest that ‘muscle for purpose’ is something mainstream society may tolerate. Nevertheless, that tolerance is not without conditions. If a woman ‘goes too far’, further than is deemed necessary for her purpose, noticeably further than her contemporaries in developing her physique, as Serena Williams has done, the amount of admiration or tolerance diminishes considerably, or simply becomes outright rejection.

But although Serena has ‘gone too far’, she still falls into the ‘muscle for purpose’ category. Female bodybuilders do not.

Consequently, all female bodybuilders challenge traditional notions of femininity, of what a woman should look like. In doing so, it has been argued that they ‘liberate’ themselves from the gender roles ascribed to them.

A small number of women in the history of the sport, however, have not just flown in the face of society at large, but have also challenged the definitions of acceptable muscular development laid down by the federations that run the sport.



Change judges, presidents, acronyms, but the concept is still the same. A female bodybuilder has enormous limitations if she wants to compete. Many more limits and boundaries in comparison to their male colleagues. In bodybuilding, subjectivity is part of the game. The federations and the economic interests behind them, that actually control them, draw the lines within which female bodybuilders can operate. What a bodybuilder ‘should be’ is always dictated by the federation and competitors must comply with codes and standards that come from above. But I have never bent to the will of others. Never have I tried to accommodate different federations’ guidelines that wanted me softer, smaller, less hard.
Viviana Violante



Viviana Violante was born in 1965 in Milan. After an injury picked up while skiing put an end to her ambitions as a shot putter, Viviana entered a gym as part of her recuperation in 1985.

I was shy, insecure and perhaps thought that with a strong and muscular body I could build a sort of ‘armour’ to protect the Viviana that was a little afraid of the world. Or maybe the desire to change and create a body, shaping it with its own hands drew me to the challenge. At the same time I wanted to be different. Maybe it was a way to get out of that ‘normality’ that scared me so much. Or maybe, more simply, we are born with this passion and it is innate. More likely is that it is a mix of all these reasons. And once I had taken the road it was with the same intention I have had ever since, to grow and improve. My first contest was a bit of a game... but once I took the stage the emotion was so strong, so all-encompassing that I wasn’t able to do without it.



Her first contest, ‘a bit of a game’, was in 1991, and by 1994 she was competing at European level. Three years later she had been a WPF World champion and turned pro on the IFBB circuit. Her fan base grew as a result of the greater exposure she was now getting, but she always placed very low. In 2000, she hung up her posing suit.



Viviana Violante retired because Viviana Violante wanted to. This is not the story of a woman ground down and forced towards retirement because she was bitter about how she had been treated as a competitor. In fact, she has never suggested, to my knowledge anyway, that retirement was anything less than what she decided she wanted to do at that stage, a decision that was entirely hers alone.



And although she found that she was able to enjoy some of the sports she had always loved - mountaineering, snowboarding, paragliding, boxing, and canoeing among others – she did not give up the weights, and continues to train to this day.

I will always be a bodybuilder. I love being ‘big’. I train every day and I find peace through being a bodybuilder. I don’t need to compete to feel this. I'm training to be as I like to be: large, tight, hard! Without being subject to obligations, limitations or rules dictated by federations or judges. In freedom!



Female bodybuilders might free themselves from the constraints of their prescribed gender roles by developing a muscular physique, but if they then deny themselves the physique they really want because of the constraints imposed by bodybuilding federations, why bother?

We can see that Viviana feels her ‘liberation’ came only after she had retired, so is this the only way for female bodybuilders to truly ‘liberate’ themselves? To turn their backs on competition? To opt out of the sport entirely so that they are no longer at the mercy of the whims of (male-dominated) federations and their ever-changing guidelines? Does real freedom for female bodybuilders mean the end of female bodybuilding competitions?

Thankfully not. The key to ‘liberation’ according to Viviana, lies in the attitude.

I'll just tell you what I always say to the girls who want to compete and ask my advice: ‘GIRLS, train TO BECOME WHAT YOU WANT TO BE, NOT WHAT OTHERS EXPECT YOU TO BE.’ Women should be free to choose the type of physique they desire. So there will be those who like to be softer and those like me who love to be less so. The true essence of our discipline requires that every athlete, every bodybuilder wins her own competition with herself. And the real competition never ends, because with every workout we ‘fight’ against ourselves, against our limits, against what we want to correct and modify.



I love our sport. The most important thing that I gained was NOT the muscles, but the knowledge that if I want to achieve a goal I can do.



For more, visit Viviana's website


Viviana Violante today

Happy Liberation Day!