In class today, Dr. Spencer mentioned Bev Francis, a female bodybuilder. I had never heard of her, and I wanted to know more. She wasn’t hard to find online, since she was one of the first prominent female bodybuilders. Francis made her debut in 1983 at the Caesar’s World Cup, an event created specially for the film “Pumping Iron II: The Women.” The film focuses primarily on bodybuilders Bev Francis and Rachel McLish as they prepare for the competition. What I found very interesting was the fact that, while Francis was very skilled, she didn’t place very well, finishing 8th in that particular competition. Of her many competitions, Francis never finished in 1st place. However, she finished in 2nd place and 3rd place several times in the Ms. Olympia competition.Bev FrancisMany people have theories about why Francis was never awarded first place in these bodybuilding competitions, and I think that Guy Trebay explained it best in his article “The Body Politic: Weighing In on the Modern Amazon,” featured in the March 28, 2000 issue of the New York Times. Trebay writes:
“She was generally considered one of the most muscularly developed women anyone had ever seen, and—using the objective measures of body mass and definition—one of the best. But Bev Francis, whose career would extend over most of the next decade, never won a major bodybuilding contest, not that Ohio one, not ever. Even in the eyes of those accustomed to the weirder forms of hypertrophy, she was considered "unfeminine," daunting, freakish, ‘too much like a man.’ Her very presence threatened people with gender illegibility.”
Basically, Tebay is saying that people, both men and women, were intimidated by Bev Francis and uncomfortable with her non-conformance to typical gender roles. People felt that she was too “masculine,” even for a bodybuilder. Even though she was considered the best by many, she never won a competition due to the judges’ discomfort with her appearance. I feel that the typical standard of “femininity” was applied, even to female bodybuilders, and Francis did not meet this standard. In her time, female bodybuilders looked like Rachel McLish, lean and muscular, but still “feminine.” I feel that by breaking the rules and challenging how society defined femininity, Bev Francis provided future female bodybuilders with opportunities they may not have otherwise had.
I am from Columbus, Ohio and every year they hold a convention called the Arnold Classic. It is sponsored by Arnold S. which almost everyone knows and my senior year of high school my cheerleading squad competed in the section of the convention where all cheerleaders who entered competed, and I remember thinking to myself it would be all these huge guys walking around the convention center...needless to say I was wrong there was also women competors walking around in the spandex and I was in shock so this article brought back some memories!
ReplyDeleteThese are both great entries on the topic of women in bodybuiding. I was so glad to see that you linked a photo of Bev Francis, because this shows an "after" shot, compared to what we saw in the video "Pumping Iron II." I think the article by Trebay does an excellent job of articulating why Bev Francis did not place better in the competitions. In Pumping Iron II, there was a lot of coverage of Rachel McLish, who many predicted would win the competition.
ReplyDelete