Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women's Body Building [Paperback]

Leslie Heywood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1998

"A highly unique and refreshing contribution. Heywood not only theorizes the relationships among feminism, activism, and bodybuilding but also provides what so many works on built female bodies lack-a feminine historical context. . . . Heywood concludes with a call for women to 'feel our muscles, our power, our terrible, wonderful, monstrous strengths' by leaving behind aerobics, replacing light weights with heavy ones, and claiming our right to take up space. . . . Like all influential and groundbreaking works, this book raises new and important questions that should provide grist for much feminist debate and scholarship in coming years."-Signs "Bodymakers is most ambitious in terms of its engagement with feminist cultural criticism and its unconventional scope. Heywood comments on film, novels, magazine pictures, popular criticisms of feminism, the J. Crew catalog, [and] the concept of power feminism."-Gender and Society "In this brilliantly insightful and immensely readable book, Leslie Heywood makes us think about women's body building in an entirely new way. She argues persuasively that, far from being an individualistic, apolitical act, it is a powerful form of resistance, empowering women to overcome their victim status and heal past abuse." -Myra Dinnerstein, University of Arizona "Bodymakers has a power and an honesty that is unusual in a book with its theoretical sophistication." -Susan Bordo, author of Unbearable Weight and Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images from Plato to O.J. "With clarity, force, and passionate investment grounded in both theory and her own experience, Heywood understands that women can strengthen body, mind, and spirit through everyday practice. Her argument that body building is this kind of activist practice is as inspirational as it is poignant." -Joanna Frueh, author of Erotic Faculties "Flexing her muscles through autobiographical, theoretical, and spectacular acts, Heywood insists that we read the muscular female body not as an 'extreme oddity' but as a 'form of activism' through which we can understand anew larger cultural issues and trends, including the American romance with individualism and the relationship of second and third wave feminisms. Muscular female bodies will never be read in the same way again." -Sidonie Smith, University of Michigan Women with muscles are a recent phenomenon, so recent that, while generating a good deal of interest, their importance to the cultural landscape has yet to be acknowledged. Leslie Heywood looks at the sport and image of female body building as a metaphor for how women fare in our current political and cultural climate. She argues that the movement in women's body building from small, delicate bodies to large powerful ones and back again is directly connected to progress and backlash within the abortion debate, the ongoing struggle for race and gender equality, and the struggle to define "feminism" in the context of the nineties. She discusses female body building as activism, as an often effective response to abuse, race and masculinity in body building, and the contradictory ways that photographers treat female body builders. Engaging and accessible, Bodymakers reveals how female body builders find themselves both trapped and empowered by their sport.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813524806
• ISBN-13: 978-0813524801
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Miscellaneous > Women in Sports

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bodymakers: a must-read on body culture!, May 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of WomenÆs Body Building (Hardcover)

Leslie Heywood examines the forces which shape the aesthetics of womens' bodybuilding. Her vision goes deep; she lives what she writes about, and her criticism of the movers and shakers of the bodybuilding scene is right on. Especially interesting is her comparison of photographers Bill Dobbins and Bill Lowenburg. Dobbins' work stereotypes and fetishizes; Lowenburg's questions. The truth, according to Heywood, lies somewhere in between.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for all iron grrls, August 18, 2003

By 

Patty G "irongrrl" (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women's Body Building (Paperback)

A superb analysis of the cultural impact of the muscular female body. Heywood helps us understand that when a woman lifts weights, she does far more than strengthen herself physically and psychologically. She strengthens women's place in society and weakens the old patriarchal notions of female frailty and passivity. Heywood also helps us realize that the common practice of oversexualizing female athletes -- which is practically the norm in the bodybuilding industry -- diminishes the woman's power and serves to bring the potentially revolutionary female athlete back into hegemonic standards of feminity. Being a female powerlifter myself, I appreciate the fact that, unlike so many feminist theorists, Leslie Heywood derives many of her arguments from personal experience. Bodymakers is a must-read for any female athlete, or for anyone interested in women's studies or the sociology of sports.

14 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of one chapter "American Girls, Raised on Promises", October 8, 1999

By 

Karin Wikoff ([e-mail]) (Aurora, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women's Body Building (Paperback)

The chapter "American Girls, Raised on Promises" is fantastic. It's a critical look at the differences between the way culture and gender have been viewed through the lens of rock music lyrics in the 80s compared to the 90s, then extended to views of women and bodybuilding. In particular Ms. Haywood focuses on the poignant and ironic song "American Girls" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and how Petty manages to describe to perfection the way young women in America, esp. the 30-somethings, feel about the gap between what we were raised to believe we could do and the hard realities of the world. I keep coming back to this essay again and again because it says so much about me, like a little wound that needs licking.