"I DIDN'T WANT TO BE AN AVERAGE WOMAN": WOMEN'S BODYBUILDING AS EDGEWORK

Abstract

Bodybuilding as a sport emphasizes and reinforces hegemonic masculinity because the purpose of lifting weights is to achieve a persona of strength and discipline. As a result, women bodybuilders have been faced with the dilemma of how to be taken seriously as athletes without sacrificing their femininity (Bolin 2003). I examined this relatively uninvestigated sport in order to give a voice to women who participate. I distributed an online survey to women who identify as bodybuilders through bodybuilding forums and Facebook in order to gain further insight into the sport itself and the specific burdens that women encounter such as body image, social pressures, and stigma. I contend that women's bodybuilding can be construed as a type of edgework (Lyng 2005; 1990). I analyzed open-ended and closed-ended portions of the online survey looking for patterns associated with the edgework model to determine if women's bodybuilding functions as edgework .