My husband emerged from the basement the other day, glowing and incredulous, and exclaimed: “Did you realize you can actually do a whole, legitimately good yoga class right at home?” A one-time
were aggressively marketed at-home fitness in the 1920s, when the whole idea of “purposive exercise” began to take hold. As the white-collar sector expanded, men engaged in “civilized” cerebral work learned they needed to deliberately exercise their bodies.
Mail-order fitness was one solution. “Just a few minutes a day” and “no apparatus needed!” promised Charles Atlas, of the “Dynamic Tension” home exercise regime he began marketing in 1929. Atlas laid on the heteronormative masculinity thick, advertising in comic books with promises to beef up effeminate “97-pound weaklings” into real men who could attract beautiful women and beat up any male interlopers who tried to steal them.
Drake was just as direct as Lalanne in asserting exercise as imperative to women’s happiness—but not because it offered self-actualization or strength. By the 1960sthe idea that marriage and motherhood rendered a woman instantly unsexy was losing sway. Yet Drake helped establish an equally confining archetype: the “hot wife.” Rather than a reprieve from a long list of domestic duties, exercise, Drake explained, was required to guard against repulsing, embarrassing—or worst of all, losing—a man.
Business Business Latest News, Business Business Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »
Source: CNBC - 🏆 12. / 72 Read more »