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We want
to be feminine, like any other girls, but we have this whole other side
to our life, where we work our butts off every day doing something we
love. To face something very challenging on a daily basis is something
not many people do. You feel like you’ve accomplished something huge.
There’s nothing better than having a great workout, and doing that over
and over again really gives you an edge on other people—especially growing
up. You feel you can conquer things.
Men are
built more for swimming than women. Women naturally tend to have fat in
places that are not as opportune for swimming. When you’re thirteen, you
can keep going forever; you’re dropping tons of time every time you swim.
Then your progress starts to slow down. You get hips and boobs, and you
gain weight. It’s definitely a hard transition. You feel like it is the
end of your career. Lots of girls hit a plateau at sixteen or seventeen,
and lots of girls stop. What you eventually learn is that if you keep
training through that hard time and start to work on other things—like
strength and better nutrition—you can be even faster than you were when
you were fifteen. You can make up for changes in your body.
When
you’re working out with the team, you take pride in your body and the
things you’ve accomplished with it. But like any other girl, when you’re
not training, you want to have a good time and be a girl and put on makeup
and get dressed up.
There’s
a stereotype that if you’re athletic, you might be a lesbian. Maybe people
think we’re more manly because we have big muscles or we’re lifting more
than men, but it’s not true. I like when guys open doors. It’s not that
I can’t open the door; it’s just that I want you to open the door for
me.
I’m a
drop-dead romantic. I like sappy movies, and I love flowers, and I love
pretty clothes, and I love to get dressed up. I love being a daddy’s girl.
I’m just a complete softy when it comes to everything, but for some reason,
I can get in a swimming pool and want to win. It’s completely separate
for me because I don’t think of myself as aggressive.
Actually,
people have told me they were intimidated by me at first because I am
tall and strong. Then they realize I’m just this softy, nice person. Sometimes,
if I’m standing next to some little petite girl and I’m meeting a guy
for the first time, I’m like, “Oh, gosh, she has a big advantage over
me right now.” But I hope the guy would like me for who I am.
I think
any guy who’s going to date me likes that I’m strong and in shape. For
a while, being a waif was in, but now being athletic is. Normal people
want to be in shape and work out and have some muscle tone and not just
a two-inch arm or something like that. They like to have some muscles.
The typical
swimmer’s shape is a V—broad shoulders, thin waist. You can’t cover it
up, so you’re better off just being proud of it and showing it off. Especially
with people who know what we’re about and respect us for what we’re doing.
It’s intriguing that you can have a large back and large muscles and still
look pretty in a dress. So if you’re getting dressed up, you might as
well show off your back. There are times when I feel self-conscious, but
most of the time, you have to flaunt it. I think a strong woman is beautiful
to a lot of guys.
In high
school, there was definitely a lot of pressure to look a certain way.
But people didn’t really judge me, because I had this respect thing going
on. They were like, “Wow, she does all this stuff.” So I think I was lucky.
I got
to kind of pick and choose how much I wanted to be involved in the high
school social scene. If I wanted to go to someone’s school party, I could
go, but if I didn’t want to go, I totally had an excuse: “I have practice
tomorrow morning.” It worked out great because I could hang out with my
school friends during the day, but I didn’t have to subject myself to
any of the peer pressure at parties or anything like that.
A lot
of it was a show [in my high school], and I could see that. I never put
makeup on in high school. I just didn’t have time. I couldn’t do my hair
every day because it was wet. And my clothes had to be something I could
get into and out of pretty quickly in the locker room. I was traveling
and competing in meets and stuff, and I could see I was doing something
that was going somewhere. I was doing something for myself. You could
see that other people were just stuck in the high-school world, wrapped
up in all these little things. I felt lucky. I had more opportunities
to experience things.
I can’t
even imagine all the things I’ve learned from swimming.
It teaches you so many life lessons, like discipline, sportsmanship, being
able to work hard; it’s just kind of like pushing yourself and being able
to find your potential, going for your limits. You learn things about
yourself every day in practice, like what your weaknesses are, and how
to face those and turn them into strengths. It’s recognizing that there’s
beauty in strength and beauty in taking your abilities to the highest
level you can.
I think
any female athlete has a sense of being kind of like Wonder Woman. You
are able to do things that are a little closer to superhuman than normal
girls. There’s a little bit of Wonder Woman in everyone.
from
Lauren Greenfield's Girl Culture: Faculty Guide
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
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