Posted on March 03, 2017 by Jenny Cromack
Over the next three weeks I am going to introduce some of my findings coming out of my PhD. These relate to how the muscularity plays a pivotal role in our identities, and may benefit (or hinder us) in managing the impressions we both have of ourselves and project to others. These blogs will include, narratives of masculinity, femininity, and general identity control.
Muscularity is a common goal within the gym environment, and we are often exposed to idealised physiques within the media. If you read a lot of the body image literature the media is demonised as a key influencer in the development of increased drives to develop our physiques, and in particular our muscularity. Research is starting to reveal another influence that may in some cases even appear to exceed the pressure from the media. This influence is that of the social fields we engage with and the interactions that occur within them, such as the gym.
Some of my recent findings have found muscularity to be heavily embedded into the masculine identities of men. The men in this study constructed a masculine identity that matched the observations they had made during early influences with key male figures, such as fathers or brothers, and within their social environments such as sport or the gym. The social influences emphasised functional and image-focused traits into these identities, such as hard working and/or physically large. Throughout their lives men, such as these, may develop a “story” to their lives that revolves around performing these traits and their desired masculine identity. When engaging in certain social fields men appear to embed muscularity into their identities, and it becomes a way of reflecting their masculinity. Given this finding, the men develop a drive for muscularity (DFM), and it becomes a resource with which they can successfully act out their functional, or image-focused, masculine identity.
My study then explored how individuals respond when this identity becomes threatened by a critical moment, such as injury. Some men, especially those with a functional outlook and a supportive social field, accepted the injury, engaged in rehabilitation, and maintained a strong work ethic and commitment that fitted their identity. They were able to restore the function of their muscles whilst still maintaining their desired masculine image. Other social fields however, projected more traditinal masculine values which didn’t allow the men to accept the injury, therefore they expressed their identities through suppressing injury, not giving up, and contining to lift weights. In doing so, they could maintain their large strong physiques, whilst maintainining the masculine values set by their socil fields.
This is only a snap shot of my findings, but in conclusion it is suggested that men construct masculine performance stoires throughout their lives. The influence of the social field embeds certain values and outlooks into these stories, such as functional or visual muscularity as a representative feature of masculinity. Their DFM thus reflects their masculine identities, but if their social field projects more traditional values, such as pain suppression or not showing weakness, their DFM may lead to dysfunctional behaviours, such as training with injury. We therefore need to understand that a drive for muscularity may be more than just a narcissistic desire for big muscles an may be a huge part of who we are as people. This will eventually help us identify and support those potentially prone to developing dysfunctional behaviours and high levels of DFM.