ABSTRACT
The study started from the feminist perspective that meanings and practices surrounding women’s bodies play a central role in the social reproduction of gender and gendered relationships. Whilst these bodily meanings and practices can become inscribed onto women’s bodies, they can also be potentially resisted through actions and processes that begin to destabilize cultural norms of feminine appearance. Within this context, female bodybuilding has been heralded by some feminists as one such liberating practice; a form of activity that questions, interrogates and even begins to undermine conventional notions of female bodies as frail, limited and governed by their biology. This research has provided a new dimension to this vital debate through its detailed analysis of the lives of UK women involved in this activity. The purpose of the ethnography was to investigate whether female bodybuilding can be seen as an emancipatory and empowering transgression of hegemonic standards of feminine embodiment. In seeking to explore this question, I felt it was necessary to understand what it was like ‘to be’ a female bodybuilder. As such, my study endeavoured to facilitate a rich portrait of the values, practices, norms and, above all, the lived experiences of female bodybuilders. My research approach sought not only to analyse the wider milieu in which female bodybuilding occurred, but also to explore via ethnography, participant observation and interview the interactions and phenomenological experiences associated with this activity.
