Muscles and Mascara: The Role of Emphasised Femininity in Female Bodybuilding

Abstract

The building of extreme muscle has the potential to empower women and transgress binary gender norms. However, women who build face significant barriers in the sport due societal expectations associated with ‘femininity’. This thesis provides an in-depth analysis of the construction of ‘femininity’ in the West and its role in constraining, limiting, and marginalising women’s experiences in sport. The influence of ‘femininity’ as a restrictive factor within the context of female bodybuilding will be examined, specifically focusing on the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) as a case study. Theories of gender, sexuality, and race will be applied throughout this research to conceptually uncover how they are framed within the organisation of the sport. This research finds the federation to be heavily influenced by capitalist and patriarchal priorities, which seek to recast the hyper-muscular woman to fit into a marketable and socially appropriate image of woman, thus, limiting female muscularity. This ‘recasting’ is enforced through a combination of regulations that require the emphasis of feminine characteristics and a limitation of female muscle. An intersectional lens is applied to this research to illustrate how the IFBB promotes a White, heterosexual, and able-bodied ideal of woman. This thesis concludes with the argument that, despite its transgressive potential regarding the development of female strength and muscle, female bodybuilding is another sport that reproduces a very narrow definition of ‘femininity’.