Historically, physical exercise was reserved for gym class participants and male athletes. Now, there is a treadmill or elliptical machine at every garage sale from coast to coast. The rise of home fitness equipment in the United States is a fascinating study of a need that has been created based on the surrounding cultural references of the time. The surge of health consciousness and the ever-increasing social pressures for attaining physical perfection combined with the desire to achieve those goals in the privacy and convenience of your own home have lead to the multi-million dollar industry that is home fitness equipment.
             Home fitness equipment has permeated into the culture of our everyday life. While not everyone owns a piece of home fitness equipment like a car or television, the equipment itself is commonly recognized as a staple of the American home. How did home exercise equipment get to be a staple of the American household? Through advertising. While the advertising demographic target has included men, I would like to focus this paper on how advertising is used to promote home exercise equipment to women.
             Targeting the female demographic group for home fitness equipment seems like a step in the right direction for recognizing women's rights, in all actuality, something very different is taking shape. After having looked at several women's fitness magazines and visiting my local gym to talk to people who were using the same equipment in a different context, some very disturbing revelations came about. Beyond using models with virtually unattainable bodies to psychologically create a need for home fitness equipment (the "I want to look like that!" phenomenon), home fitness equipment advertisers are defining for women how to engage in traditionally masculine activities in a manner that is unthreatening to the cultural definitions of gender. To begin, I will analyze several advertisements for...