Everyone here knows that I love to lift weights. I love how it makes me feel; I love feeling powerful and strong. If it is unfeminine to feel that way, then screw it, I don't want to be feminine.
What bothers me is how women are turned off from lifting weights because we're told we'll bulk up. Ok, on this forum we know it's next to impossible to bulk up, but why is that even a valid excuse to not lift weights? So what if we get bulky? Isn't it better to be healthy than pretty anyway?
I'm going to keep lifting weights, it makes me feel awesome
Weight loss is a health issue and health consists of various social dimensions: class, gender, sexuality, race, etc. The gendered nature of weight loss is a huge aspect of why people want to lose weight and why their attempts will often result in failure.
To keep it short, I find that health is ultimately about the ability to have control over one's body, to make informed choices, and to have access to those means that will enable you to carry forward those choices.
Feminism is still extremely relevant in pushing those issues out to the forefront.
I find the discussion re: women and weight lifting very interesting. As a man, I find that it is more common to find women in the weight room than men in, say, the zumba class. While women are encouraged (at some level) to take part in generally perceived masculine activities, men are not at all encouraged to partake in perceived feminine activities. That's because "masculine" activities are deemed "athletic" and "feminine" activities are not deemed athletic.
So much for relying on getting emails to notify me of threads I am subscribed to - I had no idea people had responded to this since I last posted! Glad to see you again, guys.
The weight training/femininity thing - does anyone want to write a post for the Feminist Weight Loss blog about it? It's something I have zero experience of myself, as I'm completely unable to exercise for medical reasons. I think it's quite easy to write for the blog, you just need to sign up to Wordpress for a user name (but not for a blog) and then you can be added as a contributor to the blog.
Val - it's funny you mention the word "skinny", I've just blogged about my doctor calling me that (and not in a good way). I mentioned it to a friend of mine who used to have trouble with eating disorders, though she's stable now (healthily slim), and she said, "Yes, I hate it when people call me skinny. I'm not skinny, I'm athletic."
And yay for all the people who are enjoying weight-lifting - I think you are all incredible, and look great in your photos!
memememe76 - very nice post you've written there. I'd be interested to hear more of your thoughts on the matter, and appreciate your sensitivity in keeping your initial post short in a woman-centred thread.
Going back to the idea of masculine/strong vs. feminine/weak, there's a well-known passage in Le Guin's classic utopian/dystopian novel The Dispossessed which comes to mind. For context, the main character, Shevek, is from a planet which has managed to get rid of sexism (amongst other things; they're primarily defined by being an anarchy), is travelling for the first time to a planet where sexism is alive and well, and is puzzled at hearing how their society functions. Both speakers in this conversation are male. The one from the other world is a doctor, and Shevek is a physicist, but like everyone in his world has had to do quite a lot of physical labour.
"Is there really no distinction between men's work and women's work?"
"Well, no, it seems a very mechanical basis for the division of labour, doesn't it? A person chooses work according to interest, talent, strength - what has the sex to do with that?"
"Men are physically stronger," the doctor asserted with professional finality.
"Yes, often, and larger, but what does that matter when we have machines? And even when we don't have machines, when we must dig with the shovel or carry on the back, the men maybe work faster - the big ones - but the women work longer ... Often I have wished I were as tough as a woman."
And then there's Terry Pratchett's remark (which turns up, er, somewhere) that entire economies have been based on the lifting power of little old women dressed in black.
Very late response here - as folks may have noticed, I quietly disappeared from this forum a few months ago. It held a valuable place in my weight loss journey, but eventually I got to the point where I was happier getting on with it on my own. I finished losing weight in March and have been maintaining at 100lb and a BMI of 20. Anyway, now that I've gone away and done other things, I've returned to this theme. The blog is finally up at Feminist Weight Loss. It's not terribly exciting yet, but I'm sure it'll develop nicely. I've set it up so that other authors can be added, so if you're interested in writing for it, comment on a blog post or something and I'll sort something out. I should probably have a contact form on the blog for potential authors/contributors, shouldn't I. You don't have to sign up to write regularly, you can just write a one-off blog post if you fancy.
Unfortunately, the blog is giving me some bugs. It won't let me comment and when I try it makes the post come up twice? I didn't see an email address anywhere on the blog otherwise I would've emailed you directly.
And there I was feeling all unloved because no one had commented! It was very odd about making a post earlier today, it's showing my latest post twice for me as well, and the pages are still being slow to load, so perhaps Wordpress is on the fritz. Thanks for letting me know, I'll look into it. So far, the only possible thing I've found is that I'd ticked a box for "comment author must have a previously approved comment". I'd assumed that meant that I would simply have to moderate comments from new comment authors, but since nothing has turned up in my inbox, it seems not. I've unticked that box: would you mind trying to comment again, to see if it will let you? Meanwhile, I will look into setting up a "contact me" form.
And there I was feeling all unloved because no one had commented! It was very odd about making a post earlier today, it's showing my latest post twice for me as well, and the pages are still being slow to load, so perhaps Wordpress is on the fritz. Thanks for letting me know, I'll look into it. So far, the only possible thing I've found is that I'd ticked a box for "comment author must have a previously approved comment". I'd assumed that meant that I would simply have to moderate comments from new comment authors, but since nothing has turned up in my inbox, it seems not. I've unticked that box: would you mind trying to comment again, to see if it will let you? Meanwhile, I will look into setting up a "contact me" form.
I should've read this before posting, but here is my comment on the most recent entry:
Quote:
I very much look forward to your future post on competition between women.
I love watching heterosexual men compliment each other on weight loss - it makes me envious, actually. They'll say "you're looking good man, have you lost weight?" to which the reply is generally "thanks dude" and that's that. In passing you might hear "Shlomo's lost a few belt notches, he looks great" and there is no element of attaching Shlomo's entire self-worth as a person to his body. Compliments from men are typically "have you been working out?" or "you look good lately" - never "OH GOD YOU MUST BE PUKING UP EVERYTHING YOU EAT" or similar hyperbole which you may hear from fellow females.
Oof. Comments enabled on the Feminist Weight Loss blog, and I think the contact us form, although it's being a mite tricky. I may end up changing to a different theme, I'm not happy with the way this one ranges from massive to tiny font sizes. Thank you to my first commenter, anyway!
Krampus - yes, good point. Have you actually left that comment? It doesn't seem to be showing up, though I have two others from you that have made it through. Possibly there is just something wrong with that particular post, since it keeps showing up twice whenever I click on it. Further investigations are necessary. At least I now have a basic "about" page sorted, eh.
Edit: That post was continuing to be nothing but trouble, so I deleted it and put it up again. It appears to be behaving itself now. At the moment, all I can really tell is that Wordpress appears to loathe Firefox but submits meekly to Internet Explorer. Please do feel free to comment!
Yes, I saw! I've linked you to my blogroll, along with the Fit and Feminist blog, and I'm about to go through that list from the Body Image Warrior Week. Does anyone else have useful blogs to suggest?
Yes, I saw! I've linked you to my blogroll, along with the Fit and Feminist blog, and I'm about to go through that list from the Body Image Warrior Week. Does anyone else have useful blogs to suggest?
