Why are we still so hung up on feminine muscles?

But Sweeney wasn’t stirred. She clapped back with a video compilation of the cruel comments followed by a series of her intense training sessions. The message was clear: Sweeney wasn’t there to appease the eyes of her followers. She was there to get stronger, healthier, and do her job.

What seems to irk these men so much is that a woman they once regarded as attractive has chosen to shirk the version of herself that existed to be looked at. To them, it seems unfathomable that a woman would choose to exist outside the realm of the male gaze, and this act of agency angers the misogynist like nothing else – because, crucially, it removes his power.

This cognitive dissonance has deep roots. In 1985, the documentary Pumping Iron II: The Women followed female bodybuilders like Bev Francis, whose muscular physique was seen as transgressive. Francis was punished by judges for looking ‘too masculine’ – a category that, for women, often functions as a euphemism for ‘too powerful.’

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sydney Sweeney (@sydney_sweeney)

Female muscles are also wrapped up in deeply political discourse. As Bonnie Tsui points out, the phrase ‘too muscular’ is also used to ‘disparage transgender women and intersex athletes with naturally high levels of testosterone. The growing controversy over the participation of transgender women in athletic competition is rooted in muscle, and the perceived unfairness of muscles that come with puberty.’

Women are turning to strength training not for external validation, but to feel capable in their own bodies. They’re lifting heavy, not to meet some newly commodified beauty standard, but to protect their bones, to fight aging, to quiet anxiety, to find a version of themselves that doesn’t depend on being approved of.

The irony is that for all the talk of female empowerment in advertising, fashion, and social media, physical strength remains one of the last frontiers where real discomfort lingers. When a woman gains muscle, she doesn’t just gain strength. She becomes harder to overlook. She takes up more space, both literally and symbolically.

There is no need to romanticise the gym or frame weightlifting as a universal solution to female oppression. But it does matter that women are increasingly choosing strength for themselves – and that they are doing so without asking for permission.

Strength is no longer a performance for the male gaze, but a form of personal infrastructure.

And like any kind of infrastructure, it cannot be easily undone. Muscle takes time. It requires fuel and repetition. It flies in the face of restriction and fragility. It insists on visibility. That is its threat, and its power.