"Many people in the general public believe that female bodybuilding is gross and freaky ... Whether it is not what a female is supposed to look like. "Thus, said Michelle, a national judge fitness. In fact, female sports, especially in sports where strength, muscle, sweat and contained prominently, are generally regarded by the public as being outside the bounds of appropriate femininity. And perhaps not a group of women athletes embodies such outlaw status of female over coach, who their simple mass and strength of our challenge very notions of what it means to be a woman. Why do women choose to look like that? And what does it take to become and remain so muscular?
Maria R. Lowe is an assistant professor of sociology at the university in the south-west of Texas. She has interviewed more than a hundred people in connection with female bodybuilding, from the bodybuilder himself, the coaches, relatives, spouses, judges, and the sponsors. In women of Steel, Lowe introduces us to a world in which the size and strength must be balanced with a nod to grace and femininity. Lowe, who actually worked with some of the bodybuilder she interviewed, get in the heart of what it is to a female bodybuilder. We learn about "paying the price" - do the necessary exercise, and sometimes drugs - with which women to rise to the top of their profession. We follow their successes and failures, and discover the benefits - including increased self-confidence and physical strength - and sometimes unhealthy effects of their training regimen, from dehydration to baldness to uncontrolled acne to high blood pressure. We travel with the women of the competition in the competition and found that the judges' standards appear to vary depending on the alarming temporary notions what the "total package" - that elusive perfect body that catches the judges' eyes and win matches.
Above is the wife of Steel is a sharply observant diary of the lives of female bodybuilding, a must-read for people interested in sport, competition, physical culture, and gender.
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