Gender and Power in Strength Sports

Noelle K. Brigden is Associate Professor of political science at Marquette University, USA, where she teaches courses on human security, international migration, the global politics of street gangs, international relations, body politics, and peace & trauma in Central America. She is the 2022 IPF World Masters Classic Powerlifting Champion for the 47kg weight class and has achieved US national powerlifting records.Katie Rose Hejtmanek is Associate Professor of anthropology, and children and youth studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY, USA. Her research investigates cultural processes of self-transformation in a mental institution for children, CrossFit gyms, and strength sports collectives. She competes in Olympic weightlifting, winning her age and weight class at the IWF Masters World Championships in 2022.Melissa M. Forbis is a cultural anthropologist with a research focus on social movements, Indigenous rights, and gender in Latin America. Her current research examines sports practices and social change. Her teaching includes courses on the anthropology of sport, and gender and sexuality at New York University and Brooklyn College, CUNY, USA. She is a three-time competitor at IPF World Masters Powerlifting Championships and is a Trauma-Informed Weightlifting-certified strength coach.

• List of ContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction - Strong A(s) F(eminist)Interlude 1: Bulky Is Not the Worst Thing a Woman Can BePart I: The Public Body 1. Strength Over Gender? Discussing and Presenting the Ambivalent Female Strength in the CrossFit Games 20192. Lingering Muscles, Latent “Threats”: Contesting the Exceptional and Threatening Status of Trans Women in Strength Sports 3. Fit to Mother: Risk and Self-Care in the Pregnant Strength AthleteInterlude 2: Deep Analogies and the Power of Heavy LiftingPart II: The Disciplined Body 4. Women’s Empowerment through Strength Sports—and Its Limits: The Case of the German American Turners, 1880s–1920s5. On Death and Fitness: Hero Workouts, US Militarism, and the Necrosociality of CrossFitInterlude 3: “Be Careful, If You Lift too Heavy Your Boobs Will Shrink”Part III: The Social Body6. Transformative Writing and Naming: Gimnasio Elba y Celina7. Between My Breaths: CrossFit As A Depathologizing Healing Strategy for Sexual Trauma Survivors8. ‘I Exercise with Others in About 6-7 Online Fitness Communities’: Women’s Exercise Routine and Resilience During COVID-19 Stay-at-Home OrdersEpilogue - Judging the Lift: Are Strength Sports Insurgent or Reactionary Practices? Index