this woman’s work

Working out, punk rock, and proud chubby girls

Nov 4, 2002 Feminism/Politics

I have to thank the Mazda people (or is it Mitsubishi?) for alerting me to my new favorite work-out CD: Dirty Vegas. It’s the commercial that we call, “The one with that creepy, freaky girl.” They have a new commercial out now featuring a very handsome man and now I’ll have to track the song from that down, too, so I can get the CD from the library and burn it.

I don’t have much music to work out to. I have Madonna (natch), Moby, Everything but the Girl, and Bjork. All my other stuff from the bad old days (the 80s) I don’t really like Noah to listen to because that’s back when I worshipped at the altar of negativity.

I downloaded a song from Scraping Foetus off the Wheel (DI 1-9026) back in the heady days of Napster and I had to delete it because I didn’t want it to be in the same house with my son. It has a good beat and you can dance to it. And I did love dancing to it but maybe I should have been listening a bit more closely to the lyrics.

Or the Swans, I used to dance to the song “Time is Money (Bastard),” which has the lyrics, “Your body’s private/ Your body’s sacred/ You should be violated/ You should be raped/ Someone weaker than you should rape you.” Ironically (or perhaps not), at the height of my angry punk rock phase (and when I owned the record this song was on), I was also working for Women Against Rape (the now defunct rape crisis center in Columbus).

Jeez, I was so mad back then and it felt so good to dance *hard.* I loved industrial music and I still have a great fondness for Cabaret Voltaire. The video for “Sensoria” used to spook the hell out of me.

Ok, that’s enough reminiscing. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, working out.

I haven’t run in a long time because it’s getting dark too early, so I’m back to doing aerobics.

I had a friend say to me once, “You are so brave! You’re having all these skinny girls over [it was a potluck per our usual get togethers] and you didn’t even put your step bench away!”

Now tell me, why is this brave? I didn’t know what to say. I like to exercise. I feel healthy and strong when I’m doing it regularly. Why would I be embarrassed to publicly admit that I’m a chubby girl who works out? I don’t work out to get skinny; I work out to be healthy.

Anyway, I was thinking about that while I was working out today.

Chubby girls fight back! Dance dance dance! Play that funky music! Get jiggy with it! Vogue!

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