The Feminine Urge to Lift
For a girl growing up in the noughties, it was intrinsically drilled into our malleable minds that muscle = unattractive and God forbid any woman had double figure fat percentage. Commercials were filled with skeletal figured actresses, magazine covers were plastered with images highlighting what was deemed at the time as “flawed”and not eating was glorified. It’s already difficult growing up, going to school and being criticized for our looks by other people without the pressures of unrealistic beauty standards. To any teens reading this, the adults are right when they say that the individual, unique features that we are scrutinized for, are usually what make us beautiful. Ask any model.
With the propelled influx in media coverage during the 80s, 90s and 00s, there was suddenly some kind of public rule book of beauty standards. These standards were made by a collection of men or elite groups of people, for no feasible reason. This constant bombarding of imagery fooled us in to believing we have every right to determine and verbalise what human feature is and isn’t acceptable. Stretch marks? Not allowed, spots? Definite no and muscle? Muscles on a woman? Absolutely not.
As an 8-year-old girl, I cycled to the newsagents every Saturday to buy some bubble-gum millions and strawberry laces. Browsing the sweet section, I would be surrounded by pictures of celebrities in bikinis with a tiny bit of bloating, or “love-handles”, being shamed and called every insult imaginable. These women were publicly compared to one another as well as humiliated. We didn’t think anything bad of it, in fact, we took pleasure in it without realising how it was impacting all of us. Our generation had to and is still doing self-healing to over-come this superficial plague and internalised misogyny. I even feel like some of the older generations are still brain washed and unable to see the damage. This older generation are also the ones still in charge of the fashion industry and mainstream media.
Teenage me would be mortified to know I now lift weights 5-6 times a week. I was growing, probably malnourishedand and stick-thin. Muscles were my worst nightmare, I thought it was hideous to have biceps and back definition. I truly believe it’s because we don’t see enough of all the incredible women and their fit physiques in media. These people are hidden from us, until a big sporting event commences. It makes no sense to me and I strongly believe it needs to change.
I have been weightlifting since 2019 and from then, I have started following strong, beautiful female fitness influencers. I now see less size 0 on my feed and more of these powerful women, flexing their impressive glutes and abs. It has altered my ideals of beauty. I strive for this physique and even though I am in my thirties; this is the most attractive I have ever felt. I book more modelling jobs than ever, I receive more compliments from strangers, it’s like a new world. I feel so much sadness for anyone still stuck in the past, thinking physical fitness is unattractive.
Around ten years ago, there were more and more curvy models being used for fashion campaigns, it was a great step for the body positivity movement, but the last two years, it seems like the industry has taken ten steps back. Not only this but have you ever seen a woman with muscles walk down the runway? I know I haven’t, we’ve seen plus sized or curved runway models but no athletes. Why is this? Why are designers not creating beautiful clothes for women who spend years training to become healthier, creating the best version of themselves? Someone needs to fill this gap, designers are meant to create clothes to look good not hire models that look good so their clothes look better than they are.
I am in no way putting people down for being a size 0, I just know the industry needs to change and what better way to do it than showing more fit, healthy bodies in all aspects of media.
There is a direct correlation between lifespan and lean muscle mass, especially the large muscle groups like your glutes and core. It’s not harmful to promote this, I believe that all we need to do is start showing off our physiques, take those muscle shots, post those pictures of your strong beautiful bodies and inspire health and it’s beauty wherever possible!
If you are interested in filling your feed with fitness inspiration, I've linked some of my favourite Instagram pages to follow.
These are all incredibly intelligent women that have immaculate gym routines/diet plans, not to mention insanely beautiful too. Speaking from my own experience, I'm much happier online, now I'm seeing more posts from health influencers and less images of unattainable or fabricated beauty.
