thedeadparrot

There was a good thread about gender performance in sport, how the way sport are constructed itself can limit certain types of women's (generally queer) bodies from competing and thereby limiting the ceiling of what female athletes can do. It wasn't a bad thread, really, but what irked me was the way it kind of glossed over just how difficult it is to be female-bodied and athletic, just on a biological level.

I understand why not, because men like to pretend it makes them superior. Blah blah blah, the best women's teams can be beaten by high school boys. There's a lot to be said about how sport itself is constructed to be advantageous to male bodies on top of how much more support and encouragement boys get from the early stages of life.

But I think of every time a dude has said to me, "oh, before I started working out, I could only do one pull up," and I want to punch him in the face.

I can kind of do one pull up. It took me over two years to get to this point. I can't do it that consistently. If I skip a week of training it, it can take me weeks to get it back. Maybe at some point, I'll get two in a row. I'm not super super dedicated to the training or diet parts of getting and maintaining it. But that's the point. I have to put in way more work for my body to build and maintain the muscle mass, for my body to get to the right body fat percentages, in order to make this as possible for me as it does for many of the men I know who have it without even trying.

One thing that gets obscured in this conversation is what sorts of training and work and sacrifices women have to go through in order to even perform at these levels even before we talk about the sociological issues. One thing that female athletes is that dropping your body fat will fuck up your hormonal cycles until you lose your period and then mess your bone density. Not to mention that your hormonal cycles themselves can have a big impact on your athletic performance, to the point where many scientists don't even study female athletes because of the extra work needed to control for where they are in their cycles.

Anyway, the point is: fuck the patriarchy, but fuck biology, too.

I kind of ridiculously love the Olympics.*

So, how about that relay?

Also, that opening ceremony was shiny.

* Despite the freaky levels of nationalism, obsession with physical capability, China's sketchy human rights issues, the fact that Bush is like everywhere, pressure on these people that almost trips my embarrassment squick, the weird racism in the coverage, and the really obnoxious commentators.