Big. Strong. Woman. is an ode to female strength and defying gender norms. The project aims to generate discourse around the systemic barriers and create conversation around gender expectations. You can watch the film here.
I’ve been involved with sports my entire life. Now, at 29-years old and chasing my second Olympics with the Canadian rowing team, I’ve had some time to reflect on what it’s like to be a woman in sport and the expectations placed on female identities and our bodies.
I’ve been surrounded by female strength for the last 10 years. I’ve seen what incredible things our bodies can do and the power of a strong collective group of women. We celebrate our bodies for what they can accomplish, and this in turn gives us the confidence to chase our dreams.
At the same time, I see the ways in which doubt can slowly linger and impact our body image. We are big and strong… something that the media doesn’t necessarily promote as #fitnessgoals.
I see in them some of the doubts I have. Do my quads look weird in these tights? Why aren’t shirts made for women with broad shoulders?
Talking about body image isn’t an easy conversation either — but some incredible Paralympic and Olympic women were game to chat about body image, subverting the gender norms placed on women, and how they learned to love themselves.
Embracing the Stare
When I see my muscular quads in the mirror, I can’t help but feel proud of myself. My quads power my bike up steep hills and push my boat along on the water. But I’m not the only person who notices my muscles, and the women I chatted with know what it’s like to be stared at.
Arinn Young is a Paralympian in wheelchair basketball and knows what it feels like to have all eyes on her when working out.
“At the gym, men will always ask if I need help. They’re always asking if I need anything. And once I pick up a really heavy weight, the men will stop what they're doing and stare at me. Then there's other guys who ask, ‘you sure you didn't pull anything?’ And it's like dude, I could literally pick you up and throw you across the room.”
Arinn doesn’t let it bother her, and neither does Olympic rower Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski.
“I love going to the gym and turning heads, especially guys and you can tell they're looking at me like, okay, she's strong,” says Kasia. “I get a kick out of that because, for me, it's like, yeah this is my body, I respect it. You should respect it too because you should see the stuff it does.”
The stares come our way because our bodies are big, strong, and capable. But women have always been big and strong — so why are people still staring?
Tammy Cunningham, sums up what many women have been noticing for years. “I think it comes from media and magazines. Instead of embracing health and fitness and being big and strong, the world embraces being skinny for women and only for women.”
Although many women have learned to accept their bodies and what they look like — it seems like the rest world isn’t there yet.
Accepting What Your Body Can Do
Tammy shared that she had to let go of her own expectations so she can accept her body.
“How I see myself swimming, is not how my body works. But I was able let go of what I look like in the water... this is how my body is, it doesn't matter. When I'm going through the water, I just won't look like Michael Phelps.”
Even within sport, Arinn says that “coaches can be stuck in their old ways of ‘you need to look like this, to play like this.’ I'm very against that kind of stuff. I don't care what I look like, if I can score 20 points and stop the fastest player in court, you shouldn't have to worry about what I look like in the process of doing it.”
Olympic rower, Carling Zeeman agrees, “if it's working for you, then it's good. If I'm not fit, but I'm still looking great, I actually don’t feel good. It’s all about how I'm performing, rather than what I look like.”
Tammy did raise an issue I hadn’t considered as an able-bodied athlete — having a disability can impact the way people view your athleticism.
“I think that Paralympians are judged even more harshly on our bodies than able-bodied athletes because people don't understand that even at my very smallest, I still might look like I have rolls because my spine is curved.”
“We just don't look the same. And we're still fighting to be accepted and then that tends to be an issue you’ll hear, ‘Paralympians aren't really equal to Olympians because look at them, look at their bodies.’”
As this hasn’t been my experience, it’s something I hadn’t thought about before. It became quite clear to me that celebrating and promoting women’s bodies means promoting all types of women’s bodies.
This requires going beyond only showing able-bodied women who are muscular and strong, and including women from all walks of life and their incredible bodies.
Flipping the Narrative
The other day our trainer asked me, “did your fiancée notice how big you look?” I playfully joked back that it was an insensitive question. But I knew what he meant, I was working hard to put on muscle, and it was paying off, and yes, they had noticed — go me!
Most women don’t want to be asked if their partner notices how big they are. But why is that so taboo? By incorporating this kind of language and accepting that there is a range of bodies — and that’s okay — we can begin to change the way we see each other and ourselves.
Carling summed it up perfectly, “our bodies work so hard for us, we should show them some love. It’s all about what they can do for us, it doesn't matter what we look like.”
It’s time to celebrate our bodies, whatever they may look like.
Jill Moffatt is an Olympian and freelance journalist. Learn more about Big. Strong. Woman. at Knix.com.