Jane Fonda helped popularize the lean, athletic body over the course of the eighties and nineties, and the rise of Pilates and yoga over the past twenty years has ushered in a new standard for the “ideal” feminine body: skinny but toned. A flat stomach, defined calves, nicely toned triceps. Muscular, but not too muscular; strong, but still undeniably feminine, lest it lose its attractiveness—the thing that women are taught to value most in the world, even above athletic dominance.
