Did Beyonce' Knowles Really Say That About Womens Fitness???

I just saw a comment by Beyonce’ Knowles that just made me a little flustered, so I had to start writing. She was quoted as saying, “It’s sexier when it doesn’t look like you go to the gym. …I think it is important to feel like a woman as well as look like a women” from Self Magazine on why she works out but prefers not to get too buff.

Now, I won’t go on a tirade because I’m sure that if she reconsidered her comments, she probably would take them back or rephrase them. Otherwise, I would have to say the statement is ludicrous. I mean c’mon. Are you really saying that women who have muscle don’t look or feel like women?

Seriously! If the comment was meant literally in the way it was stated, doesn’t that take us back to the day when a women’s place should be in the kitchen and only men should go to the gym. Or even worse, let propagate the idea that women need to be thin with no muscle in order to be beautiful and attractive. Let’s continue with the pressure placed on our kids so that they attempt to maintain a ridiculously thin body by way of bulimia and anorexia. Isn’t this the image that we are trying to teach our daughters today to avoid and not buy into?

Are you telling me that women such as Tina Turner, Angela Bates, Erika Geisen , and Jackie Joyner Kersey, just to name a few, aren’t attractive because they have muscle? They don’t look or feel like women because they have a fit, muscular, and well trained body? Because I work out and developed my muscle does that mean I don’t look and feel like a women?

See the problem is that Beyonce’s statement taken literally perpetuates the belief within most females that they can’t build muscle or they won’t look like ladies. They won’t be as attractive and therefore attaining any real physical strength is out of the question when the truth is that having muscle is beautiful. And that is regardless of whether it is on a man or women’s body. The other fundamental truth is that unless supplementation of the “illegal” variety is used, in 99% of the cases women just don’t get that large. It’s not within the female make-up to add any real muscle bulk.

So ladies, despite the myths about working out, the misguided caveman ideology of a handful of guys, and poorly stated comments such as Ms. Knowles…keep working out. Build the muscle, get strong, and look in the mirror with pride. You worked hard for that power and your muscular body. Plus, you’re a very attractive and lovely looking lady as well…and so am I and I feel like one too!

Here’s to you being your best,

Jolene