Strongest College Female Cheerleader
I got shown this article by numerous people today and yesterday so I felt the need to write about it.
While the article bothered me, I do love Anna's biceps!
But what I feel the need to write about isn’t the fact that she turned down money because she was asked to do steroids. I feel the need to write about how her strength was talked about in every single article.
If you read any article about how strong some guy is, the article will tell you his weight and height along with his lifting maxes. They do this to prove just how relatively strong he is for his height and weight.
But in most of the articles there is absolutely no mention of her weight and only a handful mention her height.
Why is this? How can we tell if those numbers are actually good if we don’t know her height and weight?
In all honesty, we don’t really know how strong she is…but I don’t think that matters to mainstream media or a majority of the population. And I’m not saying that she isn’t super strong. I think her numbers are great!
BUT still…why wouldn’t you prove that she is super strong by giving her height and weight like you would a man’s?
I think they didn’t even think to list her height and weight because to most of the population, any woman who lifts over 100lbs is ridiculously strong. I mean women aren’t supposed to lift super heavy weights so anything over 100 is huge right?
I don’t…for some reason this really bothered me. Am I reading into this lack of weight and height too much?
Or am I right? Does society still believe that women don’t lift heavy? I mean a 5 foot 10 woman with the numbers that Anna Watson has aren’t bad BUT they aren’t THAT awesome.
I mean I’ve seen enough women lift heavy to know that her numbers don’t stand out…which I guess is why they wanted her to do steroids…
Don’t get me wrong. She is strong and looks great. BUT RELATIVELY SPEAKING…she isn’t crazy strong like the article tries to hint at by only listing her numbers without her height and weight.
It just makes me think that society hasn’t fully realized just how many out there look super sexy and lift heavy weights!!
What do you think?
Posted on January 31, 2012, in Body Image, Man Biceps and tagged anna watson, strong women. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Man Bicep 
Hi Cori! Drifted over to your site from Mark’s Daily Apple…congrats on the powerlifting success, by the way!
I felt the same when I originally read this article, for a few reasons. One mirrored something that you pointed out, that she’s strong, but not *that* strong. I mean, she can “only” deadlift 230lbs? If she’s really been lifting as long as she says, that seems suspect to me, no matter how tall she is (and she towers over some other cheerleaders in group photos).
Secondly, I always have hated how the media jumps on these ladies who aesthetically look really muscled and toned, and then proceed to go crazy about how “strong” they are (and again, she IS strong, just, you know, not ridiculously so). But I think it’s images like hers, that show huge female biceps, that make the average woman afraid to lift heavy for fear of looking like that, as that is not necessarily the culturally accepted ideal. All I know is I can deadlift more than her, and I am not nearly as cut. Where’s the article about me? 😛 Oh wait, I am not a cheerleader…
haha! So true!