- J

My name is Iris Jamahl Dunkle, and I'm a biographer. My next project is called Strong, and in it, I will be investigating why American culture makes women feel that having a powerful, muscular body is something abnormal or undesirable.
Right now, I'm writing my two sample chapters on:
- The Queen of Muscle Beach – How a muscular woman became a celebrity and changed the expectations of women's appearances, and how a collaborative community created the environment where this could occur.
- "Barbelles" - the national column by Pudgy Stockton that worked toward making strong-bodied women feel more normal, and the trolls who didn't like what she was doing.
To write these chapters, I need to travel to Austin, TX for five days so that I can visit the Stark Center at the University of Texas at Austin and interview Jan Todd. I do not have institutional support. Thank you for any donations you can make. Every penny helps me dig up the truth about the history of strength training for women in America.



