Your moment of feminist / body positive despair for the week

[liv]

Went to hear a talk about how different mutations in the same gene (to do with the semi-rigid network that holds cell nuclei together) can cause a whole range of different diseases: neurological degeneration, heart failure, muscular dystrophies, premature ageing, and problems of fat metabolism. Apparently in one form of the last, patients with inherited mutations are normal until puberty, and then lose most of their subcutaneous fat, instead accumulating body fat in the liver and pancreas. They end up with problems similar to diabetes and chronic heart failure, due to too much fat in places it's not supposed to be as well as too little where it's meant to be.

We heard that the condition is far more readily diagnosed in girls than boys, and indeed that a girl will often be picked up and then her brothers turn out to have the same problem when investigated. Why? Because if a teenaged boy suddenly loses all the fat from his limbs, the uncovered muscles give the appearance of being "cut", and prominent muscles are desirable for teenaged boys. But if a similar process happens to a girl, she panics because her arms and legs are becoming all ugly and muscly, and rushes to the doctor.

The (American) lecturer regarded this as vaguely amusing. But I find it really rather sad, the idea that having visible muscles is such a terrible tragedy for girls. (OK, in this case it is the symptom of a serious disease, but in the early stages there's no reason to think that.) It makes me wonder just how many girls are avoiding doing exercise to make sure their limbs stay soft and unmuscular.

Comments

[redbird]

I not-infrequently overhear trainers at the gym I go to explaining to women that they don't need to worry about getting too much visible muscle if they lift weights. On the one hand, this is true: the sort of extremely visible musculature they're talking about is extremely rare in women who don't take steroids along with exercising. On the other, it's part of a pattern. When I was first looking at the gym, the woman who showed me around walked me past the rooms they use for classes, the cardio area, and the resistance-style weight training machines, and dismissively said "this is testosterone city" about the room with the large free weight stuff. That room also has a bunch of other machines, and it's where I now spend a chunk of my time. If I go in at off-peak times, there will usually be half a dozen men there, me, and maybe one other woman.

Nobody except that original gym employee has ever suggested I don't belong in there, but from just her, and lack of encouragement, it took me a while to go in there and start using that equipment, which I learned I like.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

One of the things that I like best about my current gym is that it's all very open and vertical. Top couple of floors have the cardio stuff and bottom floor and second-floor balcony have the weights, with the free weights mixed right in with the machines, so it's all very open and airy and convenient, with no need to walk to a whole 'nother room (with a whole 'nother door to open, and whole 'nother set of people inside) when you want the free weights. Very nice design.