Farah Malhass' photo shoot in the Vancouver Sun. Image via Ali Jarekji, Reuters.

Becca Swanson, bodybuilder, power-lifter, and pro-wrestler (who has been called “The Strongest Woman on the Planet”) writes on her site that she has “a burning desire to show the world my powerful physique laced with beauty and femininity.” This self-consciously anti-oxymoronic statement reflects the fact that female bodybuilders have often been subject to the most extreme form of antipathy against athletic women, as a result of the stereotype which labels physically powerful women as masculinized, or even aberrant.

For Jordanian Farah Malhass, with her love of tattoos and dreams of participating in professional bodybuilding competitions, these attitudes seem familiar as she reports encountering prejudice from those who can’t understand why she would choose to “deform her body” in this fashion.

Like Dina Al Sabah, another Muslim name in the female body building world, Malhass is clearly committed to a fitness career. Predictably however, when it comes to media coverage, Dina and Farah’s athletic aspirations and achievements are almost always deemed a footnote to the “real story,” which, apparently, is how scandalous they are by “Middle Eastern standards.” In blatantly paternalistic style, an article in a fitness magazine on Al Sabah opines that “Kuwait’s tourist bureau should be advertising [Dina's] image on its travel posters,” but that instead she is “more likely to be seen on a wanted poster in that desert kingdom.” Similarly, Malhass is said to “take on a world of prejudice” by stepping into the gym – note the Vancouver Sun’s article, which positions Malhass looking determined, and two men looking distinctly prejudiced in the background.

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