Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World

Americans are deeply drawn in by makeover stories; what is the American dream if not a makeover story writ large? It can be hard to resist the lure of before and after photos.

Like so many ambitious girls, I wanted to be big and small at the same time—to live a big life in a small body.

As Cold War fears grew, the government drilled home the message that democracy was defined by abundance—and communism by scarcity—which turned purchasing into a patriotic act.

Men enjoyed a lifetime of practicing how to use and trust their bodies; women did not.

The millennial-driven fitness industry often positions exercise as a kind of second job, in which we should “optimize” our workouts and forever strive to go faster and harder while meticulously tracking the results.

The birth of women’s bodybuilding revealed just how strong women could be when given the chance to train alongside men. But because bodybuilding was, at its core, a beauty contest—a sport whose end goal was aesthetic—it provided a social X-ray like none other for how the country really felt about women’s physical strength. And how it felt was extre

The average woman exercised so little for so long, the sports bra wasn’t invented until 1977.

Jane was forever adapting, said Jeanne Ernst. She would say: “You do the best with what you’ve got at the moment, and when you find out how to do it differently, you do.”

In 1980, Sports Illustrated’s Dan Levin wrote: “It’s a ghastly portent to some: bodybuilding for women, one more step on the road to androgyny. It raises complex questions, and it strikes at deeply held values. Should women be bodybuilders at all, and if so, should they strive to look like firm Miss Americas or female versions of Arnold Schwarzeneg