CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Milanovich, Dominika |
|---|---|
| Title | THE GROTESQUE FEMALE BODY(BUILDER): MUSCLE MESSES UP BOUNDARIES |
| Summary | This thesis investigates female bodybuilding as a practice, and the body being produced by this activity. First I introduce the figure of the female bodybuilder by using the concept of “the glass ceiling of muscularity” (Dworkin, 2001), then I provide a short history of women’s participation in this arena based on the work of Lowe (1998) and Heywood (1998), and I summarize the institutional attempts to normalize the hypermuscular female body. After that, I focus on the theorization of that body by exploring its possible connections to the notion of the queer (Richardson, 2008), and the “female grotesque” (Russo, 1995). The empirical part of my thesis based on a feminist research method consists of the analysis of seven interviews conducted with bodybuilders, and is aimed at the investigation of three topics: 1) the way the hypermuscular female body is perceived by people both inside and outside of the bodybuilder community 2) the way bodybuilders justify steroid use, and their understandings of the diagnostic category of muscle dysmorphia (Pope, 1993) and exercise addiction 3) the motivations and meanings that can be attached to this activity. In this last part, I also include the notion of the cyborg (Haraway, 1991) to illuminate the intimate relationships between female bodybuilders and machines. Finally, I apply the existential psychological framework of Yalom (1980) to present a possible interpretation of the accounts of my interviewees related to the four final concerns of being human: death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness. |
| Supervisor | Loutfi, Anna |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/milanovich_dominika.pdf |
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