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

These chapters continue to unpack the process of female puberty in terms of its impact on female athletic performance and the lived experience of these changes, which can often be distressing. Fleshman recounts comments of track athlete peers commenting on their competitors slowing: “‘What happened to so-and-so?’ ‘She got hips and boobs and she was done’” (43). The weight gain accompanying puberty is characterized as a terrifying specter to female cross-country and track athletes that can overtake an athlete at any point, irreparably damaging their athletic careers. This is surmised in the comment Fleshman heard from a peer: “[P]uberty is the one injury a girl can’t come back from” (43). This left Fleshman feeling relieved that her period was delayed due to her intense training regime, illustrating that Fleshman had been trained to view her own development as a dangerous force that threatened her dreams. The comment of the male track athlete at Freshman’s school foreshadows the performance drop (which some athletes never come back from) experienced by so many of the women around Fleshman during school and college: “A lot of girls run their fastest as freshmen” (32). Fleshman’s own performance dip, which is detailed in Chapter 6, is alluded to.

Fleshman articulates that the widely held conception of female puberty as a force to be battled against by female athletes and their coaches, prevalent due to a lack of understanding of female physiology and a lack of education of athletes, is dangerous, as it focuses on short-term performance goals, rather than prioritizing the long-term health of female athletes; long-term health is ensured by protecting menstrual health. Fleshman argues that women continue to be understood through a lens of male physiology; they are expected to keep slight bodies and train relentlessly for performance gains. These gains are expected to increase with effort. However, Fleshman suggests that mantras such as “effort equals results” “weren’t created with the female body in mind” (28). Male Physiology and Sexism Shaping Norms in Women’s Sports continues to be explored here. Fleshman’s struggles with bone-density-related injuries and relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S) as an older athlete, which are directly related to years of irregular menstruation and efforts to control her body through diet (detailed in later chapters).

The lack of prioritization of these issues is demonstrated in the organization of the Stanford track coaches. The women’s training was led by Lananna, who never asked about menstrual health or athlete well-being. Dena Evans was hired to “be a big sister when ‘woman stuff’ came up” (56). This emphasizes the lack of prioritization of these issues and the lack of genuine integration of female biology into the training process. This would disastrous consequences for a number of the athletes, as is detailed in subsequent chapters. As well as the significant (and misunderstood) challenges posed by bodily changes, Fleshman also continues to unpack misogyny in these chapters. As in previous chapters, compliments are delivered through a male lens. Lananna praised Fleshman’s athleticism by comparing her to a male athlete: “Your consistency is fantastic. You train like a guy. You compete like a guy” (64). In this comment, Lananna characterizes men as fierce competitors who train with commitment and consistency and who achieve strong results based on that training. Inversely, the implication is that female athletes are weak competitors who are inconsistent in their commitment to training and therefore also inconsistent in their competition results. Tellingly, after this comment, Fleshman decided to “choose [her] role models among the men’s team,” further illustrating the systemic privileging of male athletes as exemplars of commitment and achievement (65).

Misogynistic comments made by Frank also continue to characterize the sporting world as essentially for men, with women only conditionally allowed to participate according to attributes dictated by men. Female athletes competing at the Athens Olympics, heroes to the young Fleshman, were demeaned by Frank; they were assessed on their appearance, rather than their skills and talents: “When my dad saw one woman walk out to the track, a middle-distance star, a blond, white woman with a big laugh and a Crest smile, he sat up straighter and said, ‘Most of them are dogs. She’s smokin’ hot’” (33). Frank further reminded the young Fleshman that female sporting prowess contradicts traditional femininity in his problematic and insulting comment about her picture in the newspaper: “‘If it weren’t for your long blond ponytail, you’d look like a dyke,’ my dad joked” (40). Women demonstrating competitive aggression and strength was subversive to the conservative Frank, who classified these attributes as essentially male. This comment emphasizes the challenges for women in sports, who experience the dysmorphia of being expected to act as athletes in some contexts but to fulfill traditional femininity in others.

The Power of Resilience and Hard Work is additionally solidified as an important theme in this section; these values have guided much of Fleshman’s life and led her toward success on the athletics track and beyond. Due to her commitments to her goals, Fleshman broke records and stunned coaches in her freshman year of college. However, Fleshman suggests that more nuance is needed in terms of encouraging young female athletes to push themselves; significantly, at the end of her season of training “like a guy,” Fleshman reports feeling overwhelming exhaustion. She listened to both of her coaches’ advice to “push through” but underperformed at the Olympic Trials (64). Fleshman’s disappointing times at this meet allude to her broader point about the shortcomings of training female athletes like male athletes and to her larger battles with injury and overtraining in later chapters.