Bad news 1.: Planet Fitness’ ‘judgment-free zone’ doesn’t extend to muscular women
(Worse ad ever. Thanks Fit and Feminist for sharing. Boycott this gym, please.)
Bad news 2: Bulging muscles look mannish
(So say tabloid newspapers.)
Good news 3: The new face of MAC has muscles
(See above.)
My two cents: On whether muscular women are found beautiful by mainstream standards of beauty I’m not much concerned. Who really cares what mainstream standards of beauty have to say? Are you white, blond, able bodied, thin, twenty or younger? It’s a pretty small niche. Yes, we can expand the range of beautiful but we’re still giving too much weight to beauty, it seems to me. Why should beauty, however broadly defined, count for as much as it does in women’s lives? But what bothers me most about the Planet Fitness ad and the accusation of “mannish” looks is the gender policing: who is a real woman and who counts? I don’t care who you find beautiful but gender policing has got to stop.