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Put them in popular movies, and show that female bodybuilders can be attractive and feminine. That's what's working on social media, anyway. This might be a double-edged sword, though. When something gets popular, it tends to lose most of its charm that appealed to the niche audience that liked it in the first place. I don't know if websites like this could thrive if female bodybuilding became mainstream.
I will be very honest and opinionated about making female bodybuilding mainstream.
It will not happen anytime soon. Female bodybuilding is still a niche thing because bodybuilding is mostly a male oriented sport and people recognize bodybuilders as being male not female. They can get noticed or try to be noticed on Instagram or any other social media sites but the thing is that they are still way below men. Internet was not a thing in the 70's and 80's and yet a lot of male bodybuilders got noticed due to documentaries back in the day, magazines, and other material. Women were hardly a part of that because they were not accepted or hardly accepted. FBB's back looked hot back in the day but they were just eye candy for males to hold onto during a photoshoot for magazines and other materials. For women now it's just a few promotional spots for supplements, clothing, and a few other things here and there. Nothing huge or big that will make a lot money.
Hollywood will not pay a female bodybuilder who is roided up a huge sum of money to act in their films. Once female bodybuilders open their mouths and that deep roid voice comes out it's all over. The only female bodybuilders that I know of that have made a good jump to mainstream are Raye Hollit, Sue Price, and Joanie Laurer (Chyna from WWF). Chyna died years ago (breaking my heart). Sue Price and Raye Hollit are still alive and probably still making money off of royalties from Nemesis, Skin Deep,and others that they starred in due to probably signing a Screen Actors Guild contract (SAG). Same with Chyna. But I don't see Sarah Hayes, Amazonka, Lindsay Mulinazzi, Stephanie Flesher, Andrea Shaw, and others appear in shows, movies, and more. Unless they are told to slim down a lot and fix their voice through a voice doctor or voice coach. The only mainstream material that they can be a part of is documentaries about bodybuilding, talks shows (if there's any nowadays), competitions, adult films, and more importantly social media. That's all.
I love female bodybuilders so much. And I'm not trying to disrespect them in anyway. I'm just being very honest.
Celebrities need to compete
Unless they retire and make good decisions with their money than they can if they want to. But it will never happen.
Female bodybuilders becoming mainstream will never happen.
Bodybuilding is a niche sport, as is every other strength sport. Male bodybuilders don't have mainstream appeal, and yet they get far more exposure and have far more fans than female bodybuilders do. You have the exception like Arnold Schwarzenegger who is both successful in bodybuilding and Hollywood, but that is not the norm.
HelloHotBeef suggests that Hollywood cast more of them in movies, but you have to realize that while we are very attracted to buff women, the majority of the populace aren't. It's the same reason why you see very few fat men and women succeed in the industry (and yes, I know there are exceptions.) Also, acting is a skill, and is probably one of the skills that looks the easiest to the viewer, but is the hardest to execute well. Part of the reason Arnold was so successful when he got his start was because as the Terminator, he had very little dialogue. Nothing against the female bodybuilders I have seen in movies, but almost all of them had very mediocre acting abilities, and if someone like me who was barely able to watch those movies because I am physically attracted to them, the majority who aren't into them won't be clamoring to see them.
There's also the issue of supply. Part of the reason that there are so few female bodybuilders is, in addition to how much work it takes along with the drug use, the majority of women simply have no desire to be that muscular. Think about all the women who are afraid to lift anything heavier than a 5 lb dumbbell because they "don't want to get bulky." You can't make something mainstream if there are few participants for it.
And going back to what the masses (in this case, hetero men) find attractive, think about all the popular fitness models (like 1 mil+ followers on Instagram.) While they have muscle, they are still very petite, have blond hair, conventional facial features and still look like your average runway model, except with a little more muscle and muscular definition. I do think more people are finding strong women attractive, and I have been seeing more women in the weight room and taking up strength sports. But they are still in the minority, and in terms of getting as big and ripped as a bodybuilder (category-wise), it's even less so. Hell, you can even make the argument that women's bodybuilding has gone down in popularity with many organizations and competitions downright eliminating the bodybuilding category. And when you look at competition rosters and see, like, 4 or 5 competitors in Women's Physique, and over two dozen for bikini, it tells you all you need to know.
Female bodybuilders becoming mainstream will never happen.
Bodybuilding is a niche sport, as is every other strength sport. Male bodybuilders don't have mainstream appeal, and yet they get far more exposure and have far more fans than female bodybuilders do. You have the exception like Arnold Schwarzenegger who is both successful in bodybuilding and Hollywood, but that is not the norm.
HelloHotBeef suggests that Hollywood cast more of them in movies, but you have to realize that while we are very attracted to buff women, the majority of the populace aren't. It's the same reason why you see very few fat men and women succeed in the industry (and yes, I know there are exceptions.) Also, acting is a skill, and is probably one of the skills that looks the easiest to the viewer, but is the hardest to execute well. Part of the reason Arnold was so successful when he got his start was because as the Terminator, he had very little dialogue. Nothing against the female bodybuilders I have seen in movies, but almost all of them had very mediocre acting abilities, and if someone like me who was barely able to watch those movies because I am physically attracted to them, the majority who aren't into them won't be clamoring to see them.
There's also the issue of supply. Part of the reason that there are so few female bodybuilders is, in addition to how much work it takes along with the drug use, the majority of women simply have no desire to be that muscular. Think about all the women who are afraid to lift anything heavier than a 5 lb dumbbell because they "don't want to get bulky." You can't make something mainstream if there are few participants for it.
And going back to what the masses (in this case, hetero men) find attractive, think about all the popular fitness models (like 1 mil+ followers on Instagram.) While they have muscle, they are still very petite, have blond hair, conventional facial features and still look like your average runway model, except with a little more muscle and muscular definition. I do think more people are finding strong women attractive, and I have been seeing more women in the weight room and taking up strength sports. But they are still in the minority, and in terms of getting as big and ripped as a bodybuilder (category-wise), it's even less so. Hell, you can even make the argument that women's bodybuilding has gone down in popularity with many organizations and competitions downright eliminating the bodybuilding category. And when you look at competition rosters and see, like, 4 or 5 competitors in Women's Physique, and over two dozen for bikini, it tells you all you need to know.
Totally agree with everything that you said here.
The closest female bodybuilding came to being mainstream was back in the late 80s to late 90s when they showed competitions on NBC, ESPN and Fox Sports.
Local Fox Sports channels showed competitions up til the mid 2000s
Will never be mainstream, just like mens. What really needs to happen is to have someone like a Natalie Portman take the role of Thor but put on actual muscle, not just definition. She had 2 years. Had she put on 15-20gb said of muscle, she would’ve looked amazing and given people something to imagine!
Muscular women are becoming more mainstream. For example, CrossFit seems to be very popular with women. See discussion forum on cultural shift. However female bodybuilding and IFBB will never be mainstream. The IFBB women are a subset of buff women who need to take PEDs, breast enhancements and don’t mind competing and being judged based on physical appearance. Most intelligent women who are lifting weights in the gym would never agree with this lifestyle.
trying to popularize female bodybuilding to the people is like trying to make astrophysics mainstream
I'd say it's more like putting pineapple on someone's pizza even though they don't like it and never asked for it. We are the niche crowd of people who enjoy it, but for most people they just don't like it or don't care for it.
something like this might have some chances of becoming more mainstream (vid)
but something like this will most likely never become mainstream (vid)
As others have mentioned, we are a niche crowd of people, and most straight men will be turned off by idea of a woman having bigger muscles than them and being able to outlift them.
Muscular women are becoming more mainstream. For example, CrossFit seems to be very popular with women. See discussion forum on cultural shift. However female bodybuilding and IFBB will never be mainstream. The IFBB women are a subset of buff women who need to take PEDs, breast enhancements and don’t mind competing and being judged based on physical appearance. Most intelligent women who are lifting weights in the gym would never agree with this lifestyle.
Crossfitter here. Keep in mind that while Crossfit is pretty popular with women, the vast majority of them don't have the "musculature" of what we see on a site like this. Yes, they are and look fit, but if hypothetically I were to submit pictures of every woman who trains at my gym, I would say less than 10% would be muscular enough to even make the site, and only a couple would have a decent enough number of votes to be somewhat visible.
And also, keep in mind that while IFBB women take steroids, they are not the only ones who do. There is a lot of steroid use in the amateur levels of pretty much every strength sport.
I don't think it's becoming more mainstream. I do think more Men and Women are being exposed to muscle girls then before (thanks to tiktok, Instagram, etc) and thanks to that we see more people in the business. Not a change of crowd opinion but more crowd exposure.
It is going to be impossible most people are not attracted to strong women because it's so rare and it's easier for men to be strong fighters humans have evolved to not care about the strength of a woman we are unique
the only thing that can be done is show people the advantages of strong women and make sure to promote the more feminine ones and not the ones with short hair and other manly features even if those are stronger but even that will only make a tiny difference
I notice that YouTube videos with fbbs will have mostly positive reactions until they get 100k views but then the comments get more negative and when it goes viral and it gets over 1 million views you have most comments saying bad things about her this is sadly what most people think about strong women
Acting skills need to be part of an FBB career in Hollywood if they are able to succeed. But at the same time the audience will either accept this new actor or downright disregard her. Again going back to Joanie Laurer "Chyna" she was in fact an fbb herself before transitioning into the pro wrestling industry. She got acting skills in the WWF by people like Vince McMahon and others backstage and was told to get more woman like. Enhancements like breasts implants, facial surgery and more. She had to slim down a bit. Chyna made more money compared to Raye Hollit and Sue Price.
But I don't think Hollywood studios are willing to pay so much money to women muscle that will take steroids and HGH. Hollywood studios don't want to get caught and get a bad reputation. Investigations would ensue and more into Hollywood practices for female muscle.
And just being honest if I was a studio exec I would never ever shell out millions of dollars to female muscle trying to get into the mainstream. That's a no go for me.
Female bodybuilding mainstream? I remember the days (80s/90s) when FBBs would grace the covers of Flex/ Muscular Development etc all by themselves (not just in the arms of a guy) - they aren't even mainstream in the mainstream Bodybuilding mags anymore! Male bodybuilders dont seem to want to read about female bodybuilders. Maybe they never did. There aren't even any crossover articles about FBBs anymore in those long established mags. Even the spin off female only mags like Muscle & Fitness Hers have soft skinny types at most and Weider mag "Shape" at start had Fbbs like Rachel MacLish as inspiration for women , but no more.
As I've said before in a similar thread, the internet has made the niche seem "popular". It really isn't. It's confirmation bias.
Female bodybuilding won't be "mainstream" for a long time. For one thing, definitions of what constitutes "mainstream" may vary greatly.
Second, there isn't a consensus as to popularity of female bodybuilding even on this website, which is a hotbed of female muscle admirers (note that I see a big difference between admirers and "drooling schmoes"). Look at the list of Girls of the Week for your proof, as there are few FBBs on that list.
Third, the trends regarding fit and strong women have drifted away from FBBs for years. While many X-Fitters may not be heavily muscled, as Gatsby points out, X-Fit women are far better as role models for younger women because they actually do something with the muscle they have. And they look more natural, even if some violate the X-Fit rules against 'roids.
Fourth, due to all the drugs, PEDs, HGH, whatever, too many FBBs develop the manly characteristics, as couple others have pointed out. A woman who looks like a guy in the face is a turn-off, regardless of muscle. Then there's the issue of massive implants of several kinds that for many FBBs, make them look comical, not feminine.
McLish was the best attempt so far. Her husband made her the star in his movies and she was on record saying she was had no problem with people expecting to see her body. Problem is like most people dedicated to a craft, they're average at other things. Her acting leaves much to be desired. So getting a bodybuilder to become a good actor is improbable. Getting an actor to become a bodybuilder? they have the time and the money to do so but I don't see it happening. Shame about McLish though. Cory Everson was pretty decent actress too , come to think of it.
What could be done or undertaken in order to make female bodybuilding mainstream or more so, appealing to the mass?