have you ever noticed that it's always the Fitness Chix starting shit?

he female bodybuilder as a gender outlaw
This is an interesting article that some of you may be interested in reading. It's not brief, but worthwhile. Please read the full article linked below and discuss.

The female bodybuilder as a gender outlaw

Authors: Chris Shilling; Tanya Bunsell

Affiliation: School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

DOI: 10.1080/19398440902909009

Publication Frequency: 3 issues per year

Published in: journal Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise, Volume 1, Issue 2 July 2009 , pages 141 - 159

Abstract

This paper is a sociological exploration of the female bodybuilder as a 'gender outlaw', a figure who is stigmatised not because she has broken a formal law, but because she has disregarded so flagrantly dominant understandings of what is aesthetically, kinaesthetically and phenomenologically acceptable within the gendered order of social interaction. Illustrating our argument with reference to a two-year ethnographic study of British female bodybuilders, we begin by explicating the contours of this deviance - associating it with multiple transgressions manifest in terms of choice, aesthetics, action/experience and consumption - and explore the costs accruing to these stigmatised women. In the second half of the paper, we attend to the motivations and experiences of female bodybuilders themselves in explaining why they remain engaged in an activity rendered perverse by dominant gendered norms. Exploring their commitment to an interaction order based upon muscle rather than gender, our conclusion suggests these women offend the most fundamental 'collective sentiments', possessing no authorised place in the cultural consciousness of society.

Keywords: female bodybuilding; the body; gender outlaws; the 'interaction order'; ethnography

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/sec...text=713240928