Article Link Women's difficulty with pull-ups is about more than biology

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The latest blog post from the awesome Caitlin of Fit and Feminist:

http://fitandfeminist.wordpress.com/...-than-biology/

ETA: She wrote this in response to these articles:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifest...a3b_story.html

and

http://www.npr.org/2013/12/27/257363...ullup-standard


These quote especially resonate with me...

we live in a culture that has glamorized and sexualized female weakness, and so any analysis about the physical limitations of female bodies has got to take that into consideration or else it is worthless. (This is the thesis of The Frailty Myth by Colette Dowling, by the way.)

Women are told it is unfeminine and gross to have muscles and to cultivate strength, which in turn leads them to actively avoid doing things that will build muscles and strength, which then makes them even less capable of doing things that require strength, which the critics then use as proof of women’s inherent physical frailty.

And so the cycle continues…

Right now we live in a world where women hear that muscular arms are gross, that we shouldn’t lift weights in case we get too big, that we should only do exercises to elongate our muscles, that we should never eat anything that isn’t a salad, or if we do eat cheeseburgers and steaks, we should make sure we never weigh more than 120 pounds. And then that same culture turns around and says, “Ha! We told you you were weak! This is why you shouldn’t be allowed to do anything but have babies and make sandwiches.” There is simply no way to win this game,

So I begin my next round of STS this week and plan to do disc 2: Back and Biceps tomorrow. I will be thinking of this post and channeling my anger at that infuriating double standard to work on those dang pull ups.