Many people believe that a healthy
body image for a woman is to have a thin figure, with muscular calves, skinny
thighs and a flat stomach. I think that people have a hard time referring to
Roxanne Edward’s body image as what is considered to be the “usual healthy
body” because she does have a lot of muscles, and is not the typical woman who
we see walking around everyday. In my opinion, Roxanne Edward’s body image is
not the icon healthy image for a woman but there is nothing wrong with it. After
being asked if she felt herself to be considered superhuman or transhuman by
the way that she takes care of her body and lives her life, or if she sees
herself to be more superior than the women around her, she elaborates on how
she sees herself just to be a different version of a woman, and she just wish
she were accepted.
Roxanne Edward’s started lifting at
thirty years old, which may be viewed as kind of old to start the habit
considering woman begin to have a harder time maintaining a work out schedule
after they reach a certain age. She takes multivitamins every single day, and
she has taken steroids that were “harder on stage” as she became “see-through”
with her lungs being visible on stage and only appearing to be “muscle, eyes
and teeth”. I would not consider the way she treats her body to be the same way
I treat mine, as I do not work out. I’ve stayed fit through my dancing hobby
since I was a little girl. I do take vitamins but if I were to miss a few days,
it wouldn’t be a big deal to me. Her lifestyle may be much healthier than mine
but it is similar in the aspect where we both have fast metabolisms and can eat
whatever we like without worrying about it hurting our figure.
In her interview, Roxanne discusses
her views on femininity, and race as a body builder. She says, “I wear my
strength outward. Many women are strong but they choose to keep that shit to
themselves.” Roxanne believes that she should be able to express her femininity
in her body, and by bodybuilding. She further elaborates talking about how she
feels that femininity is how you carry yourself. She uses drag queens as her
example when she says, “I learned from drag queens how to walk in heels. They
taught me a lot about what it’s like to be feminine.”
“If it comes to me and some chick
who’s lighter, not saying she’s white, but just lighter than me, and we’re the
same size, we’re the same look, and I have better muscles, she’s probably going
to get picked better than me. She’s marketable, she’s more acceptable to be
mass marketed”, she says and further elaborates on how she’s not going to quit
because she doesn’t do it to define herself but to show other women that they
can be defined in any way that they want to. “I would never knock another
woman’s hustle. You gotta’ do what you gotta’ do to pay your bills.” She
further uses repetition to get her point across that she feels strongly about
this as she says, “and I show up”. That’s powerful to the people listening to
her interview because they can tell how seriously she feels, and it can be seen
as much more inspirational.
The photo gallery repulsed me a
little because I couldn’t really tell that she was a woman as none of her body
parts seemed feminine or girly to me. My reactions are coming from what I’m
used to seeing as a very girly girl, and what I could consider being a girly
and feminine body. I can understand why people wouldn’t feel comfortable with a
body like hers and why it may be hard for people to look at or understand as
her body looks a lot like a male’s ideal body.
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