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. Professional tennis playing sisters Serena and Venus Williams, who are currently in Australia for the summer tennis season, are good examples of female athletes who have received a lot of negative attention for their “thicker” arms and heavier-set, muscular bodies. Other examples include retired world champion bodybuilder Bev Francis and South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya. They have all been criticised for having bodies that can’t possibly belong to real women. 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.
Unlike male bodybuilding, women who compete in body sculpting are required to minimise their muscularity. Body sculpting or body figure competition is a sport that only women can compete in. It’s also a sport where the contradiction of muscle and femininity is most obvious. Many women train long and gruelling hours to become strong and muscular – only to be told on competition day that they’re not feminine enough. In contrast to men’s bodybuilding, femininity is part of the women’s judging criteria. Competitors are told to emphasise femininity, symmetry, proportion, tone, definition and to minimise physique and muscle mass. They’re also expected to display graceful gestures, soft movements and have an hourglass figure. They have to wear make-up, heels, revealing and sparkling bikinis. Judges have even been found selecting women who are big-busted, pretty and slim and whose muscles aren’t visible unless flexed. Femininity is linked to a female body that is slender, neat and sexually attractive. Because the muscular female form is so challenging, sports such as body sculpting use femininity as a buffer to counter the fact that women also have muscle. (We don’t judge male bodybuilders on their masculinity, their “maleness”.)
