Pushing gender to its limits: Iranian women bodybuilders on instagram

Bodybuilding is a hyper-masculinized sport and widely perceived unfit for women. In Iran where women face struggles and spatial limitations to participate in sports, women bodybuilders are breaking the boundaries and becoming increasingly visible using digital media. This research studies two Instagram pages dedicated to Iranian women’s bodybuilding. Content analysis is carried out on the posts and the users’ comments to investigate the visual and textual content of the posts, as well as Iranian Instagram users’ perceptions of the imagery, and the discourses of bodybuilding and gender relations. The findings are analyzed using feminist literature on body, physicality and bodybuilding, and perceptions of femininity and masculinity are explored. In conclusion, the findings are contextualized within the broader socio-cultural, political and religious discourses of women’s body, sports and physicality, as well as moral and political forms of feminine embodiment in Iran.