Women’s Bodybuilding: Towards a Radical Politics of Muscle

Abstract

This paper aims to make a signifi cant intervention into the ongoing debates about women’s bodybuilding as an anti-essentialist practice of resistance. The existing literature on women’s bodybuilding usually uses theory in a very general way to interpret the signifi cance of this activity. Here I work within a more selective theoretical framework (concentrating on the work of Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe) to try and explain how the body of the woman bodybuilder becomes a successful counter-discourse. I explore the way power can become visible through the body, specifi cally through the body in pain. I then seek to explain how pain can be mobilised as part of a strategy of resistance against hegemony.

Keywords

• bodybuilding, resistance, gender, counter-discourse, power