Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man's World

Fleshman’s exploration of her recovery from her injuries deals with the themes of The Power of Resilience and Hard Work and Male Physiology and Sexism Shaping Norms in Women’s Sports. A determined and hard-working athlete, Fleshman threw herself into her pool training with the same devotion and dedication that had contributed to her successes throughout her years of competitive running. However, Fleshman now concludes that she was suffering from RED-S, a common occurrence among female athletes forced into the established male model of hard work equating success. Fleshman reflects that female athletes need tailored advice in terms of injury and recovery. The failure of the cross-training plan designed by Lananna is illustrated in the fact that “[her] foot took twelve weeks to heal in the end, twice as long as it should have” (106).

Tellingly, Fleshman felt better with rest and weight gain, which allowed her menstruation to restart: “I noticed how much better I felt when I gained weight and stopped cross-training. I felt strong in my body, my immune system was more robust, and my inner voice was gentler” (106). Her reflections illustrate the power of rest in terms of allowing recovery, especially for women, both physically and psychologically. Fleshman was burned out and exhausted at this stage in her career; her body was clearly yearning for rest. Problematically, though, “rigorous cross-training was the norm for competitive runners” (106). Fleshman feels that due to this culture, she ignored her instinctive sense that she should rest, which worsened her injury and laid the groundwork for her future second fracture. In a world that focused on hard work being the key to success, “new ways of not resting were being invented all the time” (106).

Schooled in The Power of Resilience and Hard Work, Fleshman suggests that young female runners, even those who are injured, throw themselves into “restrictive eating habits and cross-training for weight management” (just as she did) because these things are “conflated with discipline,” a trait that typifies distance runners (106). However, these practices have “shown themselves to be killers of careers” (106), as is illustrated by the countless women in the world of running who peaked early through harmful, restrictive eating and permanently left the sport soon after, injured or sick: “[T]hin, sick girls continued to lower records, win Foot Locker, succeed at NCAAs for a season or two, and then disappear” (108).

Despite the obvious benefits of the period of enforced rest Fleshman had while nursing her broken foot, she negatively evaluated herself compared to her peers when she returned to running: “[A]s the top women began to pull away, their shoulder blades sharply visible on their toned backs, my attention was drawn to my thighs rubbing, my ill-defined abs, my squishy sides pinched by the elastic of my shorts” (107). Her inadequacy as a runner is framed through her shame about her body, which was less toned due to her period of rest. Fleshman continues to emphasize, through her own case study, the deeply ingrained nature of bodily insecurity and hyper-fixation on weight in the world of competitive distance running.

Fleshman illustrates how this fixation pushes women further from their goals; when she was focused on negatively evaluating herself in terms of her weight—such as at the World Championships—she disconnected from Empowerment and Joy From Running. Fleshman found that she was two pounds above her “race weight” and felt ashamed of her lack of discipline: “[B]y the time I got to the start line, I saw myself as someone who had fucked it all up” (110). This internal chatter sapped Fleshman’s confidence, leading her to question whether she belonged in such an elite lineup: “At that critical moment with a mile to go, my confidence was preoccupied with a heated debate as to whether I belonged there at all. It sucked all the power out of my legs, leaving me shuffling along toward a distant last” (111). Through this example, Fleshman demonstrates the harm that a fixation on weight can have for athletes. Women fixate on weight because they believe that it will help them speed up, but in fact, they end up sapping their own confidence and self-belief.

Fleshman’s desire to create inclusion in the world of athletics is symbolized in her tacking up her “Objectify Me” poster in Track Town Pizza in Eugene, refusing to accept the status quo of “famous white men” decorating the establishment (128). It is significant that Fleshman brought tacks and put the poster up herself; this highlights Fleshman’s belief that systems must be challenged and changed and that women need to actively take part in creating the equality and visibility they deserve. Furthermore, through the “Objectify Me” campaign, Fleshman pushed back against sexist norms that link female athletes’ marketability to their sexual appeal, rather than to their athleticism, talent, or skill. Fleshman is characterized as a brave advocate for change in her decision to email the CEO of Nike and then insist on having a hand in the design of the advertising campaign that centered her. Her suggestion, embraced by Nike, of having herself dressed in her usual running apparel and looking determined, rather than seductive, characterizes her as an athlete, rather than a sex symbol, and illustrates Fleshman’s active role in reshaping women’s athleticism, as well as advertising, to be more inclusive and less sexist.