Forget Abs. Fit Women Now Want to Show Off Their Biceps.

At the Report we do not believe in objectifying women, however we're reconsidering objectifying their arms. Is that appropriate?

Forget Abs. Fit Women Now Want to Show Off Their Biceps.

Many are flexing gleefully, including Matt Damon’s double in ‘The Odyssey’ Devyn Dalton

Louisa Carannante, 28, a court reporting student says she goes sleeveless ‘pretty much daily.’

By Caitlin Carlson, WSJ

Oct. 1, 2026 8:00 pm ET

Eighty years ago Rosie the Riveter flexed her biceps in advertisements to encourage women to take manufacturing jobs during World War II.

Today women are displaying their arm muscles once again, but this time it’s purely to show off how strong they are.

Carrie Cross, a 57-year-old online fitness coach in Fort Myers, Fla., does roughly 50 biceps curls once a week, and posts herself “throwing up one or both biceps” on Instagram at least three times a week. “It’s kind of fun to give people that little shock and wow effect when you flex,” she said.

Monique Collier, 37, a firefighter in the Washington, D.C., area, used to do 100 curls a week, but has since dropped down to 48 hammer curls once a week. Collier posts boomerangs of herself flexing twice a week. “Even the guys at [the fire station] tell me I’m swole,” she said.

As women continue to bulk up and display their arms, their biceps have gotten so eye-popping that at least in one star-studded situation, they’re doubling for men’s. Matt Damon’s arms in one scene in “The Odyssey” are actually 35-year-old Devyn Dalton’s. Damon said on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast that Dalton has “the greatest arms I’ve ever seen.”

Damon wasn’t the first man Dalton has doubled for. On the TV series “Twisted Metal,” she doubled for a male mad scientist and was thrown through a glass window, she said. “That was good fun.” Still, doubling Damon as Odysseus brought her a new level of attention—from women in particular. “Women told me that seeing my arms made them want to start lifting weights or build more muscle themselves,” she said. “I also heard from women who were already athletic and muscular who said it made them feel seen and accepted.”

For better or for worse, specific women’s body parts tend to work their way into the spotlight during different time periods, said Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a history professor at the New School and author of “Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession.” Breast implants were invented in the early ‘60s and gained popularity through the ‘80s. Big butts became en vogue in the ‘90s (Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” came out in 1992) and in the late ‘90s and early aughts, Britney Spears’s low-slung jeans that showed off defined abs made other women want them too.

A few women are already famous for their arms: Michelle Obama, Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso,” and Natalie Portman in “Thor,” but now many more are grabbing dumbbells. From Popeye to the flexing emoji, biceps are an obvious symbol of strength—and according to some women, arms can show the fruits of your gym sessions much faster than other body parts like abs and glutes. “If there is a body part where you can very quickly get a pump that looks visible, it is your biceps,” Petrzela said. “If you knock out a few sets of pull-ups or biceps curls, you see your muscles popping in a way that is much harder to achieve if you squat.”

Madison Hildreth, 28, a fitness trainer in Austin, Texas, keeps 8-pound dumbbells in her room for this express purpose. “I’ll often do a few quick curls before going out if I didn’t hit arms earlier that day,” she said. “There’s always been such a focus on the glutes, or on the abs, but what really stands out in any outfit you wear is your arms.”

Emma Sclafani, 55, a former real-estate agent and model in New York City, says she started to target her biceps “because I’m not in a bathing suit, so it doesn’t matter what my abs look like, but everybody can tell when you work out your arms.” She adds that she constantly gets compliments when she wears a strapless dress. Sclafani uses Australian Gold instant bronzer to enhance her biceps. “A quick spray glistens the whole body but I do extra for my arms,” she said.

Muscular biceps are also harder to fake. “There’s no pill, there’s no surgery that gets you sculpted biceps,” Petrzela said. By contrast, the rise of GLP-1s, CoolSculpting and plastic surgery has made toned-looking stomachs and plumped-up glutes more attainable without going to the gym. But to have visible definition in your biceps, you have to put in the work.

Collier trains her upper body twice a week, focusing on chest and shoulders one day and back and biceps the other day. Dalton worked out her upper body, including her biceps, three days a week while training for “The Odyssey,” adding that her favorite move for targeting the biceps is not a curl at all, but chin-ups, of which she can now do 12 in a row, but started with a resistance band to build up the strength. “Chin-ups and pull-ups are so hard at first,” she said. “It’s the best feeling ever when you can learn to do them.”

For women displaying their arms, biceps can be a big conversation-starter. “I’ve had strangers compliment them in sleeveless dresses, and once someone told me my arms made them want to start doing more Pilates,” said Pearl Ugwu-Dike, 30, a board certified dermatologist practicing in New York and New Jersey. The funniest comments, she said, are the very specific observations such as, “You look like you could carry the groceries in one trip.” Like Sclafani, Ugwu-Dike also highlights the muscle with body oil or moisturizer. “Just enough to give the skin some luminosity and let the natural architecture of the arm show through,” she said.

Sometimes, people want physical proof that the muscle is real, said Cross, occasionally grabbing her biceps if they’re comfortable enough around her, “usually saying something like ‘damn, you have some guns’ or ‘look at those biceps.’”

Some women say the compliment is inherent in the physical tasks they’re asked to help with. Jazmin Acquisto, 29, an esthetician in Houston, Texas, believes her biceps contribute to the perception in her family that she’s strong and capable. “My mom will call me to lift something heavy before she calls my brother,” she said.