Roxanne Edwards Interview

Roxanne Edwards is an amazing woman. Her interview was truly inspirational as is all that she has accomplished.  Within the first few minutes I was very intrigued and did not want to stop listening to her. During her interview, numerous important topics were brought up including femininity and the subject of race. She has been influenced by many different groups of people including drag queens. Also, a very interesting fact about Roxanne was that she did not start bodybuilding until the age of 30, which are almost 10 years older than all of the body builders that I know, even the ones who compete in competitions. She said that it was ideal for her to start bodybuilding at that age because your hormones are changing at that time. Estrogen is decreasing and testosterone is increasing.

When discussing the topic of race, Roxanne said that race wasn’t a huge problem, but if there is another competitor who is the same weight and is just as great of a person but is white then she will win since Roxanne isn’t “marketable”. This doesn’t get Roxanne down; she wants to stick around long enough to prove all of her doubters that they were wrong about her. Everyone thinks she is great except the people who have to judge her.  

This is very relatable to what we were discussing in class on Thursday about the perfect body image and what that means to us. One of the words used to describe the perfect female was boobs. Roxanne and DIS magazine talked about how bodybuilding affects breasts. Some body builders have been called unfeminine because of their lack of breasts but that should have no impact on a woman’s femininity.  Breasts are body fat and if you decide to cut (lose fat) then chances are you are going to lose your breasts, some body builders decided to have breast implants but that is a decision that is solely their own. “Femininity is not necessarily your breasts, but how you be as a human being or a woman”, this is something that is SO important! Women have the option to decide how they express their femininity (if they so choose to do so). Roxanne explained that she “wears her strength out.”

This interview also was easily relatable to “Against Ordinary Language: The Language of the Body.” Both pieces were talking about different terms and the language that are usually used in the gym setting. Kathy Acker talked about the lack of language the simple words that are used while being at the gym. For example; set, lift, and squat. Roxanne discussed the different terms used to describe the type of people who attend the gym. Words like “shredded”, “ripped”, “cut- up” and lastly, “peeled.”  

The interview finished up talking about her sex life and that isn’t something that I found to be super intriguing and went off the topic that I wanted to discuss. Overall, Roxanne Edwards is a great example of a strong woman and is an amazing role model.