Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Institute for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Theses Studies Spring 5-1-2013 Not Simply Women's Bodybuilding: Gender and the Female Competition Categories Sheena A. Hunter Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/wsi_theses Recommended Citation Hunter, Sheena A., "Not Simply Women's Bodybuilding: Gender and the Female Competition Categories." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2013. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/wsi_theses/27 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. NOT SIMPLY WOMEN’S BODYBUILDING: GENDER AND THE FEMALE COMPETITION CATEGORIES by SHEENA A. HUNTER Under the Direction of Dr. Megan Sinnott ABSTRACT Once known only as Bodybuilding and Women’s Bodybuilding, the sport has grown to include multiple competition categories that both limit and expand opportunities for female bodybuilders. While the creation of additional categories, such as Fitness, Figure, Bikini, and Physique, appears to make the sport more inclusive to more variations and interpretation of the feminine, muscular physique, it also creates more in-between spaces. This auto ethnographic research explores the ways that multiple female competition categories within the sport of Bodybuilding define, reinforce, and complicate the gendered experiences of female physique athletes, by bringing freak theory into conversation with body categories. INDEX WORDS: Women’s bodybuilding, Gender performativity, Femininity, Gender, Freaks, Competition categories, In-betweenness, Stuckness NOT SIMPLY WOMEN’S BODYBUILDING: GENDER AND THE FEMALE COMPETITION CATEGORIES by SHEENA A.