She’s a 24-year old barre instructor and fitness influencer living in Washington D.C. and her recent post about Pilates’ popularity being tied to conservatism is stirring up debate online.
MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrik posted a comment that generated two million views in two days, both negative and positive.
In interviews, Monaco-Vavrik said backlash from her post has been swift and stinging.
“There is a direct correlation”: MaryBeth Monaco-Vavrik on why Pilates is connected to conservatism
According to her Instagram account, in early April Monaco-Vavrik fired off a post about how Pilates is connected to “a rise in conservatism”
“There is a DIRECT correlation between a rise in conservatism (think 1950s housewife) and smaller bodies, and liberal swings during the feminist waves in the 70s with more muscular frames (The Politics of the Body, Phipps 2014),” she wrote in her post.
She continued: “We’ve swung from the BBL/Kardashian-curves era straight back to heroin-chic thinness. And in that swing, there’s been a rise in rhetoric that praises women for shrinking.”
Monaco-Vavrik said that women are being taught to be “toned” but not “muscular,” and to avoid “anything that might make them look bulky.”
She cites unnamed “overwhelming scientific evidence” that “strength training is one of the most effective ways to fight age-related disease, preserve independence, improve body composition, support fat loss, and promote overall health.”
In an interview with the New York Times, she said she made the initial post while waiting for a flight.
She had no idea that her post would also take flight in such dramatic fashion.
Some Pilates instructors agreed with Monaco-Vavrik’s post, calling the sport “overwhelmingly white”
Some people saw Monaco-Vavrik’s post and agreed. One, as interviewed in the NY Times, is Anita Chauhan, a Pilates instructor in Toronto who appears to be of Indian heritage.
Chauhan told the outlet that while Monaco-Vavrik’s post was “a bit tenuous” she agreed that “there is something to unpack about the aesthetics and accessibility of Pilates.”
She continued: “Pilates does still feel like a predominantly white and wealthier space,” with clientele and instructors who are “overwhelmingly white, often thin and usually conforming to a very specific wellness aesthetic.”
The opinion that Pilates is a ‘white space’ could be fueled by the popularity of so-called “Pilates princesses” or “Pilates girls” on social media, a lot of whom seem to be extra skinny and caucasian.
The aesthetic of a Pilates girl seems to include things that are the color in white, off white and/or dusty pink. TikTok videos include serene music, clean lines, and fit looking practitioners.
New York Post slams Monaco-Vavrik’s post calling it symptomatic of Gen Z
But there are certainly those who disagree with Monaco-Vavrik’s post.
An op-ed in the New York Post by Kristin Fleming said politicizing Pilates was ridiculous. Fleming said Monaco-Vavrik’s shortsightedness was likely a result of her being only 24 years old.
“This generation was raised as digital natives in a very indulgent world that not only normalized unsolicited online opinions but monetizes them,” Fleming wrote. “It’s produced a ridiculous obsession with overanalyzing everything from exercise, dating, sex and, yes, smoothies.”
Fleming said as a middle aged woman, her fitness feeds on social media do not include waifish looking young ladies, but instead Pilates dominated “by chicks weight training, the activity Monaco-Vavrick ostensibly says the authoritarians don’t want women to see.”
Fleming concluded that it was actually a good thing that Monaco-Vavrik’s post was also generating negative comments, saying the days of news organizations writing about how our “hobbies and individual physical pursuits (are) rife with bigotry” are over.
“It’s extremely whitewashed”: Monaco-Vavrik on the state of Pilates
In the New York Times article, Monaco-Vavrik explained that she actually likes Pilates and thinks it’s “great for your core strength, and for people who are suffering from connective-tissue weakness, etc.”
“But,” she continued, “how do we separate that from the fact that its marketing is extremely exclusionary? It’s extremely whitewashed. It’s based on wealth. It’s based on thinness.”
It’s interesting to note that Monaco-Vavrik’s profession, barre instructor, is based on ballet, which itself has been considered extremely racist over the years.
“It deeply offended white women”: Monaco-Vavrik says even after trying to clarify her point, it seemed to fall on deaf ears
Elsewhere in the article Monaco-Vavrik talked about the backlash her post created, including being called a misogynist in comments.
Other people who commented on Monaco-Vavrik’s post seemed to be upset that they were being lumped together with people who might be Republican or conservative in general.
“I think it just deeply offended these wealthier white women who claim progressive alignment but just really couldn’t see what I was saying.”
Her IG post even affected her professional life. She told the NY Times that a future employer mentioned her controversial post as the reason she was not hired for a marketing role at the fitness company.
Since first posting, Monaco-Vavrik has tried to clarify in a follow-up video, but unfortunately, “ “a lot of people just kind of misconstrue what I said.”
She told the NY Times that she hasn’t looked at the comments in a while because it’s really upsetting.
“Is that what you want us to argue about?”, netizens wonder in disbelief as they debate over Monaco-Vavrik arguments
