Getting Huge Getting Ripped: An Analysis

Throughout history, certain problems or societal aspects are often associated with one gender or the other. Manual labor was, and still is, often performed by men, while more skillful tasks, such as cooking and sewing, were done by women. By using the ideas put forth by Judith Lorber in Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology, we can analyze the findings of Matthew Petrocelli, Trish Oberwies, and Joseph Petrocelli’s “Getting Huge, Getting Ripped.” Lorber’s ideas of people having unique experiences, gender being one of society’s inventions, and a power differential between men and women can help us understand why men feel the need to use steroids to become the ideal male.

People are unique, and each experience they have will influence the

decisions they make. Lorber introduces this idea that “[we] experience our bodies differently, and these experiences change as we grow, age, sicken, and die” (Lorber 731). People are unique, and their lives reflect that. The experiences people have as children can influence why they do things as adults. This is supported when Petrocelli says, “A few [interviewees] reported having grown up small or being bullied, and they wanted to build the type of size and strength that would forever alter those early perceptions or experiences” (Petrocelli 758). These men each had unique experiences as a child, and those experiences transferred to their adult lives. Lorber helps illuminate the reasons adult men decide to use steroids. These men feel the need to make up for something that happened years ago, but has lingered into their adult lives.
Society is a pervasive force, and as members, we hold the power to bring issues to light. Lorber says "differences [between male and female bodies] are socially meaningless until social practices transform them into social facts." (731). While there are differences between male and female bodies, they aren't of importance until society points them out and makes them an issue. As a whole, society picks out what should be put in the spotlight and what should not; what isn’t chosen doesn’t ever garner a lot of support or publicity. Male body builders exhibited an abnormal incidence of eating disorders and obsessive dietary tendencies" (755). Lorber’s idea helps illuminate Petrocelli’s phrase “male bodybuilders exhibited an abnormal incidence of eating disorders and obsessive dietary tendencies” (755). When we think “eating disorders,” we often think of young teenage girls, not grown, adult men. They’ve become a stereotypically adolescent female problem. Petrocelli also reports that some of their test subjects “report having grown up small or being bullied” (757). Because they felt small in their childhood, achieving the ideal look should make up for their believed incompetence. For these men, overcoming the lingering effects of their childhood is on the forefront of their minds. It also seems that getting huge and ripped is the only way these men feel they can overcome their pasts.
Lorber uses an example of men and cars to illustrate a difference between genders.

She says, “Men drive cars whether they are good drivers or not because men and machines are a ‘natural’ combination.” (730). Driving doesn’t have anything to do with ability, but rather with the aura it gives. Cars equal mobility, and mobility equals power. The man who has the ability to travel has the power to do as he pleases when he pleases. But women were not freely given this privilege. They relied on their man to take them places. They did not receive a piece of the pie; no cars to give them their own power. By looking at this example of Lorber’s, we can better understand Petrocelli’s description of the gyms they did research at. The gyms is described as having “massive amounts of free weights, very few (if any) women, blaring music, and larger than normal men” (756). This description gives the reader the sense that this gym is not a place for women, and that men receive that same aura of power that they did from driving. It gives the impression that steroids are only something for men, that they are the only ones that require the boost it gives. This also falls in line with Lorber’s idea that social practices transform differences between genders into social facts. Over time, the “ideal” man has become one that is big and muscular, while the “ideal” woman is supposed to be small and petite. Men have found that following all the rules and doing everything right won’t get them that ideal

body, so they break the rules and turn to the one thing that will: steroids.
Lorber’s ideas of people having unique experiences, gender being one of society’s inventions, and a power differential between men and women can help us understand why men feel the need to use steroids to become the ideal male. Today’s society is changing the meaning of gender; there is no longer just male and female. Women build buildings and men cook and sew. The barriers between what it means to be a woman or a man are breaking down.