This is my first entry on the blog that is not an article, or piece of news that I am citing, but instead just an observation that I have made in my daily life with regards to women.
I was working at the shop today, and overheard two of my (female) colleagues saying to each other "Oh wow, she looks amazing! What a great photo! She's stunning!" whilst looking at photographs on the computer. Naturally I was intrigued as to which celebrity they were checking out online - perhaps a photo on the red carpet of a beautiful, but skinny Hollywood gal, or maybe a outdoorsy-hiker-skydiver-cycling superwoman scaling a vertical cliff.
To my surprise, they were looking at this:
I know that bodybuilding is a BIG thing in the USA, and I know it is quite popular here too, but I can never quite get my head around why this is considered 'beautiful'. Can someone help me out? Opinions?
It's not specifically body building for women that I'm uncomfortable about, but the whole idea. Am I missing something about this art form? Does this depict female empowerment?
When I talked to my colleagues about it, they were extremely enthusiastic about the beauty of it, and indeed one of them used to be a bodybuilder. What struck me as an even nastier fact about the 'sport' is how thin the women are expected to get. I heard the weights "50" and "52" kilograms, mentioned. That is much lighter than me!
On the other hand, I very much doubt that any women are FORCED to do bodybuilding, so they are doing it out of their own choice completely. But am I alone in feeling that this type of body distortion (male AND female!) does not encourage us normal people to have a sensible body image?
And what is with the TERRIBLE fake tan?
For some more wonderful images of women bodybuilders, there is a Google Image search click here
Hey Rach, let me be the first to post a comment on your blog! Clearly it takes a long time for these people to sculpt their bodies like this and for that reason and that reason alone I appreciate it. I spent most of the time whilst watching the recent Olympics trying to see past the athletes muscles to see if I would find them attractive without the muscles! Even googled a few of the athletes to see pictures before they bulked up, and yes... most of them were much more attractive before. One of my school friends just came 4th in the UK body building championships, having found himself addicted to the gym a few years ago, and this was his next logical progression. Apparently the terrible fake tan is just oil that's put on for the shows, as it makes muscle definition clearer. I have to agree that it looks terrible though! Its also concerning that as they are messing with their body, some switch to drugs, and other's hearts can't keep up. Either way the death list of bodybuilders is quite high. So why would they bother?!
ReplyDeleteAh! Great to get a comment, thank you 'Anonymous'. Very interesting opinions too, and thanks for the explanation about the tanning oil.....I WAS wondering!
DeleteI have thought that the only explanation for body building must be that it is addictive, and that the participants become so obsessed with perfection that they cannot stop themselves. Kind of like anorexia in lots of ways!
Thanks for the post, and please keep reading!