The Frailty Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality - Hardcover

Dowling, Colette

4.12

254 ratings by Goodreads

9780375502354: The Frailty Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375502351 ISBN 13: 9780375502354

Publisher: Random House, 2000

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Can women be equal to men as long as men are physically stronger? And are men, in fact, stronger?

These are key questions that Colette Dowling, author of the bestselling The Cinderella Complex, raises in her provocative new book. The myth of    female frailty, with its roots in nineteenth-century medicine and misogyny, has had a damaging effect on women's health, social status, and physical safety. It is Dowling's controversial thesis that women succumb to societal pressures to appear weak in order to seem more "feminine."

The Frailty Myth presents new evidence that girls are weaned from the use of their bodies even before they begin school. By adolescence, their strength and aerobic powers have started to decline unless the girls are exercising vigorously--and most aren't. By sixteen, they have already lost bone density and turned themselves into prime candidates for osteoporosis. They have also been deprived of motor stimulation that is essential for brain growth.

Yet as breakthroughs among elite women athletes grow more and more astounding, it begins to appear that strength and physical skill--for all women--is only a matter of learning and training. Men don't have a monopoly on physical prowess; when women and men are matched in size and level of training, the strength gap closes. In some areas, women are actually equipped to outperform men, due partly to differences in body structure, and partly to the newly discovered strengthening benefits of estrogen.

Drawing on extensive research in motor development, performance assessment, sports physi-ology, and endocrinology, Dowling presents an astonishing picture of the new physical woman. And she creates a powerful argument that true equality isn't possible until women learn how to stand up for themselves--physically.

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Review:

The 2000 Games in Sydney mark a centenary of women competing in the Olympics. There are more female competitors than in any previous Games, competing in 25 of the 28 events. Twenty-four-year-old Ila Borders, the first woman to play men's pro baseball, already has her jersey hanging in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York, and dreams of making the majors. Title IX has revolutionized access for women to sports, and we have plenty of sports heroines to look up to. Despite all this, gender biases and stereotypes still persist. Though the (very visible) athletic physiques of Brandi Chastain and Gabrielle Reece may have diversified the repertoire of desirable bodies, one study claims that 80 percent of 11-year-old girls have tried dieting.

In her latest book, The Frailty Myth, Colette Dowling, author of the bestseller The Cinderella Complex, discusses these issues and takes on the idea that women are physically weaker than men. Physical activity is good for women's self-esteem, she argues. In purely biological terms, activity in girls has been shown to protect against the onset of osteoporosis later in life. Physical exertion increases levels of endorphins, which enhance mood. A strong and fit woman is, at a most fundamental sense, able to outrun or fend off an attacker; Dowling cites hair-raising statistics on the number of assaults--large and small--on the female body. And perhaps most important is the psychological edge--exercise gives women and girls a broader sense of competence and confidence that affects the way they relate to the world.

This is a popular history, peppered with anecdotes and rhetorical questions to the reader. It is at times an inspiring read, at other times shocking and depressing. Women have come a long way since the dark days of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the rest cure, and warnings to parents that educating their daughters could be a threat to reproductive well-being. For Dowling, physical equality is nothing less than "the final stage of women's liberation." --J. Riches

From the Back Cover:

Advance praise for The Frailty Myth

"Run, leap, jump, and cheer! Colette Dowling confronts the myths of female frailty, and wrestles them to the ground in a passionate meditation that is clean and true."
--Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will and In Our Time

"The myth of female anatomical and physiological inferiority has kept too many women from realizing the joys of sport, fitness, and physical activity, and developing the good health, strength, confidence, and self-esteem that has benefited their male counterparts. The Frailty Myth shatters these misconceptions and instills in all women the importance of experiencing their bodies. Five stars--a must-read."
--Donna Lopiano, Ph.D., executive director, Women's Sports Foundation

" In the twenty-first century, Americans are going to have to rethink the idea of the physical inferiority of women because of books like The Frailty Myth. Dowling overturns the old Victorian idea that women are the weaker sex by providing important evidence of women's strength drawn from studies in sports physiology and the record book of female physical achievement. This is a call to arms for female athleticism among girls and women of all ages."
--Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, author of The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls and Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa

" Dowling's book is an excellent resource for scholars interested in women's sport and physical activity; you will find the book in my room. Even more, I hope The Frailty Myth is read by parents, teachers, community leaders, and all who would help shape a world that promotes women's physical potential and strength."

--Diane L. Gill, Ph.D., Department of Exercise and Sport Science,
University of North Carolina, Greensboro

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