Self & Society: Fitness Work That Body!

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I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman.

-- I Am Woman

When Helen Reddy belted out her 1972 hit, she had no idea it would pump up women. Not only did the song become the unofficial anthem of the feminist movement, but women and girls seemed to take the words literally and headed off to the gym. In the two decades since, female attitudes toward fitness and athletics have undergone a vigorous shake-up. Across the country, women are working out, running hard, even pumping iron. And they are doing it not just to look attractive but also to gain strength and a sense of self-sufficiency. They have discovered the secret pleasures long enjoyed by athletic men: the heady, sweaty, solitary joy of hard physical exercise and the rosy, relaxed afterglow that follows it. "Sports and exercise make you feel better," says Gail Weldon, who runs the Women's Traac Health Club in Los Angeles. "Women want to be more in control of their bodies."

All the sweating and grunting has redefined the cultural parameters of female attractiveness -- away from soft curves toward a more athletic body. For proof, just compare pop icon Madonna to her prototype, Marilyn Monroe. On her Blond Ambition tour, Madonna flashed chiseled biceps and deltoids, so impressing one Los Angeles critic that he wrote that instead of the customary audience call for "Author! Author!" the cry from Madonna's fans should be "Fitness trainer! Fitness trainer!" Tennis ace Martina Navratilova also notes the changing standards. When the Czechoslovak-born athlete defected to the U.S. in 1975, she was so embarrassed by her powerful build that she favored baggy, concealing clothes. "I was always covering up my arms because I have these big veins," she recalls, "and I didn't want anyone to see my ; shoulders." Now that muscles are in, Navratilova doesn't hesitate to appear in a tank top. "I don't seem as big anymore because other women are bigger!"

The sweat-soaked revolution is borne out by statistics: more than 62% of women over age 18 exercise regularly. According to a 1990 survey by the Melpomone Institute in St. Paul, which studies females and exercise, women also make up more than half the participants in the eight most popular sports in the U.S., including 95% of the 15 million people who do aerobics.

Baby boomers led the change. Growing up with the feminist movement, they wanted not only to work alongside men on the trading-room floor but also to play alongside them on the gym floor. "I started working out to get stronger," explains Sidney Perry, 39, a Portland, Ore., wardrobe stylist. "I wanted to be my own person." Other previously nonathletic women were swept up by the more general fitness movement. "I used to think there were two classes of people: athletes and the rest of us," says Nancy Crichlow, 29, a sales assistant in Houston who now works out regularly. Improved health is another motivator; regular exercise helps prevent osteoporosis and other age-related ailments.