via Canada’s National Post:
Earlier this month, Lianne McTavish trotted before a row of male judges sporting a spray-on tan and bedazzled bikini, blonde hair extensions and fake nails. Then, under sweltering lights and standing on teetering heels, she twisted and posed to showcase her bulging muscles, her 25 inch waist, and her meticulously crafted derriere.
This is the same Professor McTavish who teaches art history at the University of Alberta, a woman who was once a “dowdy ass-kicking feminist,” her life’s work committed to lobbying for reproductive rights and teaching students about body image in the Renaissance period.
But the 43-year-old’s transformation into a ripped body building competitor is not a ‘‘good riddance’’ to her feminist past —if anything, it’s been a segue to a future of turning the public’s view of a feminist on its head. She’s also turned her quest for the perfect “figure girl” body into a research project and a politicized discussion about feminism with her blog FeministFigureGirl.com, a chronicle of her journey from flabby to fit under the banner ‘Look Hot While You Fight the Patriarchy.’
I was cheering for the article until the very last paragraph, when an “expert” is quoted:
She calls the experiment “third wave feminist,” which describes women who want to participate in gender politics but reject the view of a stereotypical feminist who is “dowdy, ugly, boring, doesn’t wear makeup, is out of shape, overweight [and] can’t get a man,” Prof. Meagher [the “expert”] said. “She’s attacking those stereotypes of what it is to be a feminist and what you have to look like.”
Dear self appointed connoisseur of all things third wave feminism (and yes, this person is an academic, specialized on gender studies who should really know better): third wave feminism is not a monolith that rejects those stereotypes. Instead, it seeks to validate different forms of gender expression equally. Some third wave feminists will embrace the ugly, not wear make up and *gasp* be overweight. Others won’t. Get over yourself and your simplistic sound bite-y explanations, please. Or didn’t you learn a thing about the alienating, exclusionary nature of our Second Wave foremothers?
Regardless of that bad quote, check the article, as it also contains photos of the amazing body work that McTavish achieved.
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