Comments on: On “Warrior Girls”, knee injuries, and the tangible costs of adolescent perfectionism: some thoughts on Michael Sokolove’s article

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:01:30 +0000

Wow - I actually mostly agree with Mythago. There are lots of images in the popular media of strong, athletic women, but outside the weightlifting world, those women aren’t being promoted as athletic, they’re being promoted as visual treats. Most of the models on swimwear magazines and other magazines aimed at men are probably putting in as much physical training time as a teenager shooting for an athletic scholarship, but that story almost never gets told.

By: mythago

mythago — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:51:42 +0000

By being afraid of “bulking up” women are thinking of images of female professional weightlifters - women whose entire job is to have bulky muscles, and to have something like 5% body fat. I agree with sophonisba that we should be running around telling FEMALE ATHLETES to be afraid of muscles, for crying out loud - but it’s also true that part of the issue is that the only image of ’strong woman’ that women are presented with is the weightlifting world’s ideal. (Not too many men want to look like the cover of Muscle and Fitness either, really.)

Concur with Marianne and sophonisba about bulk. When I danced for a living I had practically square calves and thighs like tree trunks. Funnily, though, none of my customers ever sniffed at my having ‘bulk’ or thought I looked unfeminine.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:13:31 +0000

Sophonisba,

It *is* exactly like telling young men that being sensitive won’t make them gay! When a man wants to be sensitive without being ‘a fag’, you absolutely tell him it’s possible! “Oh, it’s okay to be gay” just reinforces all his fears that he can’t be who he wants to be, namely a straight man with emotions. Similarly, “female weightlifters are attractive too!” is just going to tell a woman that she can’t participate in sports or take care of her body without giving up the body she (and her friends, boyfriends, etc) consider attractive.

Now, you don’t want to go out there lecturing about how, using the right techniques, women can be strong without having to look that way, because that’s just agreeing that there’s something wrong with looking strong. But if you meet a woman who’s afraid to become strong for fear of looking “mannish”, yelling at her and ranting about how her views of attractiveness are biased and patriarchal (even if they are) and that she needs to change her life and stop relying on the fawning attention she gets from men (even if she does) is certainly going to do nothing to encourage her to get stronger. If all you do is challenge people’s fundamental beliefs and assumptions, it doesn’t matter if you’re right because they’re not going to listen.

Being sensitive and being active/fit/strong are valuable things even taken separately from the issues of homophobia and cultural standards of attractiveness. You can encourage the former even in people who aren’t yet ready to deal with the latter.

By: sophonisba

sophonisba — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:36:36 +0000

If women were taught this from the get-go, they’d be a lot more willing to do muscle-strengthening exercises.

Oh my god you cannot be serious. This is the patronizing party-line certain pro-weight training voices have been pushing for years. I know they think they’re feminist, but you must know better.

If women are afraid to be strong because they might look strong, THAT IS THE PROBLEM. Telling them not to worry because they’ll still look bird-like and delicate, and their strength will be their little secret, does not help. Why not go all the way and tell them not to worry, because even if they get big muscles, they’ll still be allowed to submit to even stronger husbands in the marriage bed? This is just like assuring boys that being sensitive won’t make them fags.

Seriously. What the hell? If you have to sell weight training to women on skinny thighs, not on strength, you’ve given up before you even begin. You are insulting us. Skinny thigh obsessions are sad and miserable, but physical power is intoxicating. Why do a bait and switch this way, when the bait is so unappealing and the real reward so straightforwardly pleasurable? What is the damn point of it?

And of course, like Marianne said, if you’re a big strong woman who lifts weights, you’ll get bigger and stronger. Women don’t have buckets of testosterone, but we don’t have magic invisible muscles either. Nor should we.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:11:44 +0000

I think the news lies in the sheer numbers of young women playing sports. And it’s important for those of us who support women’s sports to get in front of this story and make sure that the answer is better conditioning, and not a lessening of support for women’s sports. I posted this because it’s vital that the right-wing not hijack this story to promote a “girls are fragile and we should rethink Title IX” agenda.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:48:11 +0000

Hugo,

How is this news? It’s been known for decades that women experience knee problems at a far greater rate than men. At first glance, it sounds like they might have a better handle on why, although looking at the article a second time makes me wonder if it’s just “conventional wisdom.” C.f. vacuuming and dust mites.

In college, our XC coach pushed the women to put in more pool time and weight lifting to strengthen their knees — and doing the exercises in a knee-safe way. He also used pool time for those of us with shin splints and other injuries — or once he knew we were prone to them. The women also tended to gravitate toward lower-impact sports.

I’ve taught a number of my female friends to race walk — it’s a LOT easier on the knees than running.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:36:07 +0000

Thanks for the reference, Amanda; you’re absolutely right about “bulk” and it’s a real reminder that this irrational fear of size may have very real and disastrous consequences. But the real issue, as Marianne’s comment makes clear, is that the problem isn’t bulk — it’s the fear of it. We need an aesthetic shift as much as we need good training in bio-mechanics and plyometrics.

By: Marianne Aldrich

Marianne Aldrich — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:35:43 +0000

Amanda,
I respect that for you, and for Ms. Angier, no-bulking-up is the case, but it’s also NOT the case for all women. My younger sister was a versatile high school athlete who played hockey, rugby, and soccer at the varsity level as well as training horses and being a nationally-competitive speedskater. (Now in her late 20s, she still does a lot of those things on a more laid-back level.) Her lower body was *very* bulky and she weighed enough that the BMI declared her obese at a time when her body-fat percentage was hovering around 8 percent. “Women are not built to bulk up … Women’s bulk, unless they’re on steroids or something like that, is mainly from fat.” may be generally true - I haven’t seen the studies - but it sure wasn’t true for her.

From a less athletic perspective, my own experience has been that when I was most in shape, I also had larger glutes, fuller thigh muscles, and more prominent calves than when I wasn’t getting much exercise. I’ve never ever seen my upper body get much bulk, and I’ve not seen many other women do that either, but there are lots of women of my acquaintance whose “thunder thighs” are pretty darn muscular.

I get your larger point, but I’m not sure couching it in such general terms will help.

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:09:57 +0000

I coached AYSO for five years. The only knee injuries my kids had were the year I had a girls’ team, 12-13 y.o.
I had asked a physical therapist for advice and she told me about stretching and strength exercises, but we had only about three hours a week of practice, which wouldn’t have been enough if it were all devoted to defensive conditioning.
Fortunately, these days, the knee can be repaired without leaving the big scars we used to call “railroad tracks”.
My DIL and her two sisters were 12-month jocks, including, in DIL’s case, barrel racing. The worst injury was the younger sister getting a broken collar bone in a riding accident.
The increasing popularity of lacrosse is increasing the number of sports in which open-field, max-speed changing direction is required (soccer and football have the same requirements) and thus threatening knees.
IMO, women need additional defensive conditioning to protect the knees.
So they should do it.
I don’t see the issue here.

By: Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:04:58 +0000

The myth of bulkiness makes me crazy. Women are not built to bulk up. The more muscular my legs get from biking, the thinner they get, every single time. Women’s bulk, unless they’re on steroids or something like that, is mainly from fat. We build muscle differently from men. If women were taught this from the get-go, they’d be a lot more willing to do muscle-strengthening exercises.

Natalie Angier has a great section in her book Woman about the biology of women’s bodies, and why women do not and can not “bulk up” like men do. Her discussion of it carries a lot of weight for purely physical reasons—she brags about how much she can lift, and then you turn to look at her picture, and she’s scrawny. She looks birdlike. Clearly, if she lifts weights and looks like that, it’s a myth that women bulk up from weight training.