Let's Get Physical
How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2022
'Well-researched and readable' - Financial Times
'An absorbing, pacy read' - New Statesman
'Canny and informative' - The New Yorker
The untold history of women's exercise culture, from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda.
Author of The Cut's viral article shared thousands of times unearthing the little-known origins of barre workouts, Danielle Friedman explores the history of women's exercise, and how physical strength has been converted into other forms of power.
Only in the 60s, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, did women begin to move en masse. In doing so, they were pursuing not only physical strength, but personal autonomy.
Exploring barre, jogging, aerobics, weight training and yoga, Danielle Friedman tells the story of how, with the rise of late-20th century feminism, women discovered the joy of physical competence - and how, going forward, we can work to transform fitness from a privilege into a right.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Friedman takes a jaunt through the history of women's fitness in her astute and entertaining debut. Beginning in the late 1950s, Friedman introduces Bonnie Prudden, an exercise enthusiast and author of How to Keep Slender and Fit After Thirty, an "instant bestseller" that hit the market in 1961 as America was beginning to "come around to exercise." Then come the fascinating stories of Lotte Berk, a German Jewish dancer who, after WWII, conceived of a workout called barre for women who "wanted to look like dancers," and Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to compete in the Boston Marathon in 1967. Meanwhile, at-home fitness evolved: in the 1980s aerobics workouts dominated, largely due to Jane Fonda; the early 2000s saw a boom in yoga thanks to Russian actress Indra Devi; and now, women turn to Instagram for guidance, exemplified by Jessamyn Stanley, who embodies the "twenty-first-century fitness revolution" by focusing on diversity and inclusion. With an emphasis on barrier breakers, business dynamos, and exceptional athletes, Friedman explores how physical training can be a means of personal liberation—Berk, for instance, saw barre as an expression of women's sexual freedom. This zippy history is bursting with energy.
