Faculty Publications

"Big Freaky-Looking Women": Normalizing Gender Transgression Through Bodybuilding

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Sociology of Sport Journal

Volume

26

Issue

2

First Page

235

Last Page

254

Abstract

Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with 10 college-level female bodybuilders, this paper focuses on several aspects of female bodybuilding that are underexplored in existing literature, including purposeful gender transgressions, gender attribution, racialized bodies, and the conflation of sex, gender, and sexual preference. We draw on critical feminist theory and the social constructionist perspective to enhance collective understanding of the subversive possibilities emerging from female bodybuilders' lived experience. Collectively, female bodybuilders' experiences affect somatic and behavioral gender norms in a wider Western-type industrialized society such as the United States. © 2009 Human Kinetics, Inc.

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

Original Publication Date

1-1-2009

DOI of published version

10.1123/ssj.26.2.235

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