The Female Physique Webzine/Gallery
GNC has decided to remove the women’s bodybuilding event from their
Show of Strength this November, claiming that ticket sales won’t
be high enough to justify including them in the program. Adding insult
to injury,
they have replaced female bodybuilders with representatives from the Figure
division that will potentially see more contestants appearing on stage,
than fans in the audience. Given the majority of those in attendance would
have
already been there to support the Fitness competitors, this strategy is
not likely to translate into new audience members and fail to generate
additional
revenue based on resulting ticket sales. This argument that women’s
bodybuilding does not put ‘butts-in-seats’ is not supported
by the reality. If not for FBB’s, filling the audience for the women’s
portion of events would be next to impossible as they consistently record
the highest turnouts at all the major shows. Regardless of what is reported
by the media, the fact that GNC doesn’t want the women there based
on this claim seems to contradict their original position.
Generate New Capital
It’s simple to attribute the issue to lack of ticket sales when these
claims remain unsubstantiated. Many fans have been at events where the
audience for the women’s shows clearly outnumbered that for the men,
only to hear from officials and the media that the opposite was true and
later
reported
as such to the larger community. There is a difference between those that
actually attend bodybuilding shows and those who read about the results.
Drawing new fans in to close this gap would allow for some much needed
crossover, which would generate new capital, but operating the way it does
currently,
the industry is not attracting new fans to the sport and destroying the
existing fan base in the process.
Great National Copout
GNC also conceded that if they were to include female bodybuilders on stage,
they would require sponsors for the prize money to award the women. If
the event budget is really that tight and money is such a major concern,
why
cut back on one expense only to replace it with another? The total purse
for the Figure competition is $28,500, which doesn’t seem commensurate
with the level of experience, athleticism, ticket sales, profit margins
and/or prior involvement with the IFBB. Although ideally an equitable distribution
of resources should be the goal, why would a new division get awarded a
greater
payoff, or in this case payoff at all, than another with a 20-plus year
track record of contribution?
Are the sponsors different for Fitness than they are for Figure? Is Figure
getting the go-ahead because they are bringing in additional revenue from
outside companies that wouldn’t otherwise support the event if they
were not included? If these new categories for women are bringing in so much
additional revenue in competitors fees and sponsorships, then where is it
all going when the prize money remains consistently low on the women’s
side and the same pot keeps getting divided into smaller amounts to be split
among a larger group of female competitors? These women’s events are
still produced as a sideshow, an afterthought, brought in to complement the
men’s competition where the competitors act more like cheerleaders,
than they do as contenders in their own right.
Generating National Coverage
GNC could have the best of both worlds and still include all women in the
program. Based on the fact that they appear to have a total of $80,000
in prize money to award the winners from two Professional divisions, both
Bodybuilding
and Fitness could each receive $40,000 to be divided among the top 10 finishers.
The NPC could sanction the Figure competition as an Amateur event that
would enhance ticket sales, as per their original claim, while simultaneously
taking
advantage of the additional fans that would come to see the female bodybuilders.
They could use this initiative as a positive marketing tool and generate
national coverage with regards to equity issues (important outside the
bodybuilding world) without having to create extra publicity campaigns
as they’ve
already advertised female bodybuilders on their promotional material.
Getting Nicely Compensated
Prize money is not the only concern and GNC is also looking to cover the
competitor’s expenses for the show. One solution to this problem would
be to have the athletes pay their way initially and later get reimbursed
an amount dependant upon their placing. Most of the male bodybuilders are
sponsored by other companies who, in addition to ensuring their athletes
get nicely compensated for their services, cover their expenses when they
compete, of which the women do not have access to. GNC could sponsor those
women who place in the first few spots and come across looking very progressive
for going out on a limb to ensure that all female competitors at their show “were
treated on par with their male counterparts and provided with every opportunity
to compete.” Should the men have to find other ways of financing
their trips to the show? Not anymore than female bodybuilders should have
to find
ways to finance their own shows entirely and have the ones initially promised
to them completely eliminated to allow for a demonstration division to
take their place. Given the negative climate that the women routinely have
to
contend with, this trend is likely to get worse before it gets better.
Given the Negative Connotations
As a supplement company with a large mainstream audience, one might think
that GNC would be promoting a show with one of the Natural Federations
that are more in-line with their company’s corporate philosophy and objectives
given the negative connotations associated with professional bodybuilding.
It seems that they are benefiting from the association that consumers will
make with the level of development the professional athletes exhibit and
their company’s products even though one may have very little to do
with the other. If this is the case, the decision to remove the female bodybuilding
portion of the event makes much more sense from the perspective of promoting
the proper image for their company. The industry has contributed to the perception
that while the men use supplements to build their physiques, the women, who
aren’t sponsored by these same companies, rely on other substances
to enhance and develop theirs. If the image of hypermuscular women is one
they wish to avoid being associated with, then the answer is simple…drug
test the athletes.
Generally Naïve Consumers
GNC could not enforce mandatory testing, properly anyways, because should
a number of competitors fail, the supplement companies that sponsor them
could no longer claim they built their physiques on their products alone,
nor continue to use them as walking advertisements. It would negatively
affect and further limit their potential for future marketability. The
perception
of the generally naïve consumer would change drastically and their
promotional campaigns could no longer foster the belief that, by using
their products
alone, a physique similar to professional bodybuilders is a realistic and
achievable goal.
Growing National Conspiracy
The hypocrisy of this entire issue is turning into a growing national conspiracy
that needs to be examined in relation to all those that continue to stigmatize
female bodybuilders by excluding them from participation and contributing
to the notion that the women get what they deserve and are to blame for
the sports lack of mainstream appeal. Should the above measures be put
into place,
the results may force the industry to deal publicly with the fact that
not all female bodybuilders are as enhanced as they might think and that
some
of the more toned down competitors may be on par with hypermuscular women
who continue to serve as targets of their intense criticism. It may also
alert others to the fact that, given the same opportunities in sport, the
gap between male and female athletes is much narrower than they would like
to believe, dependant upon social forces rather than biological determinants.
Gathering the Necessary Consensus
GNC is dropping women's bodybuilding because they are targeting a specific
demographic by having extreme versions of masculinity and femininity represented
to an audience they believe wants to see sex (of a particular kind) at
shows. Female bodybuilders don't ‘fit’ with their personal
and corporate agendas, so they attempt to gather the necessary consensus
in order to convince
the public that this is the pervasive reality that exists for muscular
women, justifiably replacing them with more acceptable versions of the
status quo.
Show of Solidarity
The arguments against the inclusion of female bodybuilders at the GNC show
reveal signs of weakness, more so than they do of strength. Ticket sales,
prize money and competitor expenses can be rectified without much additional
effort. The supposed image problem won’t be resolved without significant
changes in the personal and corporate philosophies of GNC and companies like
them. There are a number of legitimate options, but convincing the right
individuals to act upon them remains the greatest challenge. Given that nothing
has changed for the female competitors themselves, it’s difficult to
imagine the situation will get any better on its own or that one day these
ongoing struggles will eventually work themselves out. It’s not going
to happen without a focused and conscious effort on the part of those most
affected and female bodybuilders should start to recognize that the only
way to move forward is to promote their own Show of Solidarity.
At the very least, it would have been nice if GNC had kept the results
of last year’s female bodybuilding show posted on their website along
with both the IFBB Professional Men’s Bodybuilding and Fitness competitors
out respect for their efforts, rather than wiping them out completely. Are
we to believe that sadly, “due to lack of funds required for the additional
bandwidth” they were “unable to include the information at this
time”?
To honour the memories of those women who competed and won at last year’s
event; their names, placing and country of origin have been listed below.
In memoriam…
GNC Show of Strength 2002
IFBB Professional Women’s Bodybuilding
Heavyweights
1 Yaxeni Oriquen (Overall) Venezuela
2 Iris Kyle USA
3 Tazzie Colomb USA
4 Beth Roberts USA
- Vickie Gates USA
Lightweights
1 Valentina Chepiga Ukraine
2 Cathy LeFrancois-Priest Canada
3 Fannie Barrios Venezuela
4 Kim Harris USA
5 Yaz Boyum USA
6 Rosemary Jennings USA
7 Gayle Moher USA
8 Skye Ryland USA
It seems that GNC can stand for a lot of things, but
where female bodybuilders are concerned they’ve Got No Class because
their Show of Strength generally amounts to the Same old Shit.
Go Figure…
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