Caitlin Burke

It’s been celebrated in a Google doodle, and has triggered articles on everything from how fantastic women are to “why is this still a problem when we supposedly know how fantastic women are?” It’s been observed for over 100 years, with roots in the workers movements of the early 20th century.

This year, International Women’s Day arrives as I’ve been reading about the development of physical culture in the US, particularly how women were addressed and presented. A friend recommended the wonderful Venus with Biceps, a book discussed at length by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.

The Braselly Sisters, above, were a pair of strongwomen who specialized in graceful and artistic strength stunts. They were sisters of the even more famous Katie Sandwina. But physical culture and athletics for women were shaped by far more than circus acts.

Helen Wills (1905-1998) achieved international fame as an athlete with a phenomenal string of tennis victories, including 2 Olympic golds, 7 US Open grand slams, and a career streak of 158 wins.

An excellent student, dedicated athlete, and active writer and painter, Wills was described by others as reticent, shy, and awkward. She had a style of play described by competitor Helen Jacobs as “a machine… with implacable concentration and undeniable skill” but (and?) by Charlie Chaplin as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her introverted and detached style cost her popularity during her career, and can hardly help but fascinate in a society that is grappling with what it means to be neurotypical. In her own words, “I had one thought and that was to put the ball across the net. I was simply myself, too deeply concentrated on the game for any extraneous thought.”

Kathrine Switzer made athletic history the year I was born, when she ran in the Boston Marathon. Other women had joined the race, but Switzer registered (as KV Switzer) and ran with a bib. What happened next is a startling demonstration of terrible sportsmanship.

Race official Jock Semple attacked Switzer on the course:

A big man, a huge man, with bared teeth was set to pounce, and before I could react he grabbed my shoulder and flung me back, screaming, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” Then he swiped down my front, trying to rip off my bib number, just as I leapt backward from him.

Her boyfriend intervened (knocking Semple to the ground), and she completed the race, in an era when women were still being told they could damage their reproductive organs by running. I think the thing that disappoints me most about this incident is how appallingly recent it is.

Women running are commonplace now, all over parks and treadmills, occasionally mocked by some in the fitness industry for dogged devotion to high mileage and charity events. Almost every Olympic event now includes women, not just in track and field but into wrestling and boxing and beyond. Women still get told some pretty crazy things about one of the simplest and most basic athletic endeavors, though: weightlifting.

In Venus with Biceps, writer David Chapman notes that even when women were recommended to take up resistance training with free weights, they were started with light, wooden dumbbells – in spite of the fact that at home they were lifting laundry baskets and children that weighed much more. More than a century later, women are still getting the same messages, and hearing scare stories on par with the claim that running makes your uterus fall out. Weightlifting seems to elicit the purest fear about women: that they will “become” men.

Who could ask for a more concise counteragument than the fantastic Abbye “Pudgy” Stockton?

Stockton, who had been heavy as a teenager, took up weight training because her boyfriend brought her some equipment, and she joined him in the heyday of Muscle Beach, where they performed elegant and remarkable acrobatic and gymnastic feats together. A columnist for Strength & Health magazine, Stockton was also a popular media subject, appearing in pictorials and on covers of dozens of magazines, featured alone and with other bodybuilders. She helped to organize the first sanctioned weightlifting competitions for women, and was inducted into the International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness Hall of Fame.

If I have just one wish for us as women, it’s to be treated with respect as we pursue what appeals to us most. Humans are social animals, and everyone gets prescriptive messages about some things, but women bear a greater – and more patronizing – burden in this regard. Maybe on a future International Women’s Day, we could enjoy 24 hours during which the presentation of a photograph of a woman actually doing something – like powerlifting or answering questions put to her as Secretary of State – was not immediately greeted by a man judging her sex appeal (probably negatively). A girl can dream.

I think this would be more entertaining if it were played less broadly, but I appreciate the constraints on this kind of thing. I do like the final image.

Nature has published an article about the neurons that appear to be associated with enjoying being petted or stroked. The authors did their research with mice, but they enlisted cats — which are, after all, noted experts in the areas of mice and, of course, of being petted — to explain their work to the general public.

Genetic identification of C fibres that detect massage-like stroking of hairy skin in vivo

I have always been a fairly capable athlete, but my weight has bounced around a little over the years, particularly as my allergies and asthma have worsened. A few years ago, I had my treatment regimen reorganized, and while it took some time for everything to work smoothly, it was particularly nice to be able to step up my physical activity again.

In 2011, as winter approached, I decided I’d like to have a home option for a good workout on days I didn’t feel like riding my bike, and I got a rowing machine. That’s when I realized how much difference the better medical management made. Within 6 months, my body fat percentage, already well within the healthy range, dropped by 25%. I looked different. Lean.

Anyone who has lost a lot of weight has encountered this: people remark on it, and it’s usually positive, if clumsy, but all kinds of loaded terms come out. Skinny. Thin. Sometimes people we are close to have a negative response when we make a big change in exercise pattern or appearance, and the comments are frankly unkind. They may make fun of choosing fruit instead of a cookie, or warn against losing any more weight.

When my body fat percentage dropped, I only lost a few pounds. I replaced about 70% of the fat weight with lean body mass, tested before and after by BOD POD. (I had suspected my body would change, and I was interested to see how.) But I still got remarks like “too thin,” and expressions of concern. People with a chronic illness can become very lean, after all, even if there are no body-image issues at play, and I had been having health problems. Assuming that those remarks came from a place of caring, I tried to explain that my athletic performance was increasing in pretty much every way, but the only people who really engage with that line of reasoning are already doing the same things and, if anything, bring it up more likely to see if they can adopt your approach.

Over the winter holiday week, my mother and I were talking about some frustrations I’d experienced, and how I was feeling better overall. She made a lot of “thin” remarks last year, and it was a little frustrating, especially because I felt it was clear that my performance was improving. And she said, “I just remember you saying years ago that you felt that being thin equaled being depressed.”

She’s absolutely right, and I’m surprised I didn’t think of it. I am deeply sorry she had even a moment’s concern over why my body was changing so much, especially now that I have also realized that being heavier was part of the same problem. What matters to me now is keeping it all in balance: activity, food, sleep, well-being. Plus giving a little more thought to what people are trying to say when they comment on the surface.