>oh please roger. take a look at that picture. she's thin as a rail and
>has fairly devloped muscles --which means she pumping some iron at least.
>which means she's trying to adhere to the contemporary standard of physical
>beauty for women--lean mean muscle machine. you can have all the fitness
>and health you want and you *don't * have to carve your body into rippled,
>msucles like that to be physically fit.
I haven't seen the picture, Kelley. But your claim that muscular devopment is unrelated to do health and fitness, and therefore you can infer some other motive for Nussbaum's body, is mistaken. Cardiovascular and skeletal (muscular) training are complementary. As Rakesh indicates, strength workouts have certain direct benefits in enhanced energy and lowered stress. What is not as well understood is that the extra muscle helps burn calories, controlling fat, which is a major help to the heart and cardiovascular system. That's why it's recommended that you do both kinds of training on alternate days for maximum health, energy, and fitness. In short, pumping iron is part of fitness, including cardiovascular fitness.
And, wouldn't you know it, Nussbaums does combine both kinds of workouts. According to the info Yoshie posted, Nussbaum's routine includes both a 12 mile run and weight lifting. Point is, if you want to claim that it's clear that Nussbaum is not really interested in fitness and health, but is instead "trying to adhere to the contemporary standard of beauty for women", and falling victim to the "regulation and social constitution of the body", you have to come with more than a picture of what her body looks like.
> so give me a flaming break.
OK. But if I give you a break, I want one too. Here's mine: Please don't impute specific male baggage to me without first establishing some basis. Baggage like I must be one of those men who thinks any representation of women's bodies, including the social construction of that representation, "is all natural and individual".
> yoshie and i are *trying* to have
> a discussion of the ways in which the idealized images of bodies consitute
> us historically. and, in that sense, it is a *very* marxist approach.
I note that Yoshie also seems to disagree with your take that the regulation and social construction of the body is the obvious, and perhaps only, explanation for how Nussbaum looks. So instead of considering me an intruder, perhaps you could think of me as taking that side of the argument.
>to call for some sort of "naturalness" to it all is just as problematic as
> the claim that the capitalist organization of the economy is *natural*
> because people are naturally competitive, greedy, selfish. yeah, maybe we
> "need" physical fitness. but the range of possibilities for what is
> consdiered desirable and what constitutes health is wide open and extremely
> * political*
Sure it's political. In fact this curiously worded passage from Nussbaum posted by Yoshie doesn't go far enough in addressing that:
>Women who run or play basketball, for example, were right to welcome the
demolition of myths
>about women's athletic performance that were the product of male-dominated
>assumptions; but they were also right to demand the specialized research on
>women's bodies that has fostered a better understanding of women's training
>needs and women's injuries.
Until a few decades ago, women were not allowed to run races longer than 100 yards because of the claimed ill effects on their bodies, as asserted by the men who controlled sports establishments, backed by quack male doctors. But "women were right to welcome the demolition" of such myths"? They didn't welcome them, they beat down the doors and destroyed them. The first woman who entered the Boston Marathon (surruptiously) was draged of the course when she was discovered. But more followed until the race was opened.
Or take the Olympics. Women have seriously taken up all kinds of vigorous sports of late; e.g., wrestling. What are the latest sports added to the Olympics to allow more female particpation? First synchronized gymnastics (the guys who run the show really like to watch those pre-pubescent girls twirling ribbons), and now ballroom dancing.
RO