Swole Girl Summer

Summary

Today, Explained: Swole Girl Summer Release Date: June 27, 2025 | Hosts: Sean Rameswaram & Noel King

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Swole Girl Summer," Vox's Today, Explained delves into the evolving landscape of women's fitness over the past fifty years. Hosts Noel King and guest Constance Grady explore the shift from traditional cardio-centric workouts to the rising popularity of strength training among women. They discuss historical milestones, cultural shifts, influential figures, and the ongoing challenges within this transformation.

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Historical Milestones: Jan Todd and the Pioneers

The discussion opens with a reflection on Jan Todd, a trailblazer who, fifty years ago, challenged societal norms by lifting weights in an era when it was deemed inappropriate for women.

• Noel King [00:03]: “2025 marks 50 years since a trailblazer named Jan Todd decided to go to the gym with her little boyfriend.”

Jan's bold move against the backdrop of a male-dominated gym culture set the stage for future generations of women to embrace strength training.

• Casey Johnston [00:10]: “I had started going with Terry to the gym just because, you know, he's your cute boyfriend and you love him and like you want to spend all your time together not thinking about being an athlete at all.”

Jan faced significant resistance, including gyms where women were either scarce or outright banned from lifting weights.

• Noel King [00:19]: “There were no other women at that gym. It wasn't considered appropriate for ladies to lift weights. Some gyms even banned it.”

Despite societal pushback, Jan's perseverance led her to set records, model in magazines, and inspire millions of women to take up weightlifting.

• Noel King [00:36]: “Feeling spicy that day, Jan squatted down and deadlifted 225 pounds, which is a lot of pounds. She went on to lift more weights, set a bunch of records, model in magazines, and inspire other women to lift weights.”

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The Evolution of Women's Fitness Ideals

The conversation transitions to the broader shift in fitness trends, highlighting how women's focus has moved from primarily cardio to incorporating strength training.

• Constance Grady [02:16]: “You recently wrote about a trend that has emerged that involves women and weightlifting. What's happening in women's fitness?”

Constance elaborates on how weightlifting became the fastest-growing sport among women in 2024, challenging the long-held belief that cardio was the sole path to fitness.

• Constance Grady [03:02]: “If you read women's magazines, they're all telling you you need to start strength training. There's a bunch of recent research that says strength training is really important for everyone's health as they grow old. But actually, especially for women.”

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Shifting Cultural Narratives: From Heroin Chic to Body Positivity

The hosts delve into the cultural narratives that have influenced women's body image over the decades, contrasting the "heroin chic" era with the modern body positivity movement.

• Noel King [04:14]: “Do you remember heroin chic?”

• Constance Grady [04:21]: “Nothing tastes as good as skinny. It didn't feel like a particularly bold statement at the time.”

The late 90s and early 2000s emphasized ultra-thin ideals, often leading to body shaming and unhealthy dieting practices.

• Noel King [04:39]: “There also were moments where a celebrity was suddenly put on the COVID of magazines and it was to show us how much weight she'd gained and how big she'd gotten. Jessica Simpson had that happen to her very famously.”

Constance reflects on the pervasive negativity towards women's bodies during that period.

• Constance Grady [05:28]: “That was just the way that we talked about women and their bodies at the time. There was always this sense that your natural default state is to be fat and disgusting, and you constantly had to be disciplining yourself into being as thin and flat and untextured as possible.”

However, a significant cultural shift began with the rise of the Kardashians and body positivity activists, gradually moving the focus towards strength and health rather than mere thinness.

• Constance Grady [06:06]: “First of all, there's the advent of the Kardashians... they really popularize a body ideal that has a lot more emphasis on curves than the heroin chic look of the 1990s.”

• Noel King [07:39]: “Starting this month, Women's Health magazine has decided to ban all body shaming language. It's part of the Body positive movement, which promotes being happy with your body and at any size.”

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The Rise of Strength Training Among Women

Strength training has surged in popularity due to a combination of cultural shifts, increased representation, and the advocacy of influential figures.

• Constance Grady [09:41]: “How are you? I'm good.”

• Casey Johnston [09:51]: “I know that Casey Johnston is personally responsible for this shift among, like, half of the women that I know.”

Casey Johnston, a science journalist and powerlifter, has been instrumental in promoting strength training through her media presence, including her Substack "She's a Beast" and her memoir A Physical Education.

• Constance Grady [10:09]: “She had a lifting advice column on the hairpin. Now she has a substack that's called She's a Beast.”

Additionally, mainstream influencers and fitness personalities have embraced and popularized strength training, making it more accessible and appealing to a broader audience.

• Constance Grady [10:55]: “There's a ton of more mainstream influencers who have really made strength training their niche.”

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Challenges and Criticisms of the New Fitness Paradigm

While strength training marks progress, it is not without its challenges. The hosts discuss the potential for obsessive behaviors and the commercialization of fitness.

• Noel King [11:36]: “This feels a lot healthier than the position we were in, than the ultra-thin ideal of 20 years ago. But building muscle, it also is difficult...”

Constance expresses concerns about the cultural obsession with self-improvement, where even strength training can become another avenue for body policing.

• Constance Grady [12:35]: “It's a system where whatever exercise you're doing, whatever diet you're following, it is never enough. It can always be better.”

Moreover, the rise of opposing trends like "Skinny Talk" on platforms like TikTok presents a conflicting landscape, promoting unhealthy paths to skinniness despite the positive strides in strength training.

• Constance Grady [12:40]: “The other big news of the past year or so is the rise of Skinny Talk. That's a community on TikTok that is devoted to getting skinny at all costs...”

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Personal Journey: Casey Johnston’s Transformation

A significant portion of the episode highlights Casey Johnston's personal journey from a cardio-focused regimen to embracing strength training. Her memoir, A Physical Education, chronicles this transformation and its impact on her mental and physical well-being.

• Casey Johnston [16:47]: “My name is Casey Johnston and I am a writer and author. My book is called A Physical Education.”

Casey recounts her struggles with running and dieting, which led to injuries and a sense of disconnect from her body. Discovering weightlifting on Reddit was a turning point that offered her the physical and emotional benefits she had been missing.

• Casey Johnston [17:10]: “I was into running, got into running when I was in college... So I from that point had to know more about what she was doing.”

She emphasizes the importance of self-inquiry during workouts, which helped her rebuild a connection with her feelings and body.

• Casey Johnston [19:55]: “I loved the sort of alternating between doing a set of reps and then you rest for a minute, and you're basically asking yourself, how did that feel?...”

Casey's deliberate decision to gain weight through bulking challenged the prevailing narrative focused on weight loss, leading to newfound strength and confidence.

• Casey Johnston [21:37]: “It was the most incredible feeling when you're used to sort of finding your struggle point pretty easily, and suddenly your struggle point is so much farther down the line than you think.”

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Balancing Fitness and Wellness

The episode concludes by addressing the importance of balancing fitness goals with overall well-being, ensuring that strength training remains a positive force rather than a source of obsession.

• Noel King [23:02]: “We talked in the first half of the show about, you know, 20 years ago, the obsession was with women being very, very, very tiny...”

Casey advocates for viewing fitness activities as tools for personal growth and health, rather than as ends in themselves.

• Casey Johnston [23:20]: “Lifting weights is a tool. Even running, which I had a problematic relationship with, is a tool.”

She shares how strength training has been instrumental in her personal healing and self-discovery, fostering a healthier relationship with her body and emotions.

• Casey Johnston [24:00]: “The practice of asking how things felt in this really focused and contained way really helped me...”

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Conclusion: Progress Amidst Ongoing Challenges

While acknowledging the progress made in redefining women's fitness and body image, the hosts recognize that challenges persist. The transformation towards strength and health is a significant step forward, but continued efforts are necessary to foster a truly inclusive and positive fitness culture.

• Noel King [25:39]: “How much do you bench?”

• Casey Johnston [25:42]: “The most I've ever benched in the gym. So not in a meet, but it was 142 pounds.”

The episode wraps up by celebrating the strides made in women's fitness while remaining mindful of the complexities and societal pressures that continue to shape personal and collective narratives around health and body image.

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Produced by: Gabrielle Burbay
Edited by: Jolie Meyers
Engineered by: Andrea Christian's Daughter

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Note: Advertisements, promotional content, and non-content sections have been omitted to focus on the core discussion and insights shared during the episode.

Transcript

[Noel King]

2025 marks 50 years since a trailblazer named Jan Todd decided to go to the gym with her little boyfriend.

[Casey Johnston]

I had started going with Terry to the gym just because, you know, he's your cute boyfriend and you love him and like you want to spend all your time together not thinking about being.

[Noel King]

An athlete at all, jan told WHYYY in Philadelphia. There were no other women at that gym. It wasn't considered appropriate for ladies to lift weights. Some gyms even banned it.

[Casey Johnston]

The idea of a woman having musc seen as somehow being somewhat transgressive. There must be something wrong with you.

[Noel King]

If you want to have muscles anyway. Feeling spicy that day, Jan squatted down and deadlifted 225 pounds, which is a lot of pounds. She went on to lift more weights, set a bunch of records, model in magazines, and inspire other women to lift weights. More recently, millions of women have started but why now? Swole Girl Summer is ahead on Today Explained.

[Constance Grady]

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[Casey Johnston]

It's your turn.

[Constance Grady]

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[Casey Johnston]

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[Constance Grady]

My name is Constance Grady and I'm a senior correspondent on the Culture team at Vox.

[Noel King]

You recently wrote about a trend that has emerged that involves women and weightlifting. What's happening in women's fitness?

[Constance Grady]

The fastest growing sport among women in 2024 was weightlift. My whole life I thought that it.

[Casey Johnston]

Was all about cardio, like if you.

[Constance Grady]

Want to lose fat, you have to do cardio.

[Casey Johnston]

But I saw actual real results when.

[Constance Grady]

I Started lifting weights. Now I do no cardio.

[Noel King]

I'm trying to put muscle mass on. So I do. I lift weights now.

[Casey Johnston]

Stop being scared of lifting weights, girls, because you are not going to look manly.

[Constance Grady]

Two, you're not going to go bulky. And three, if you don't, you're gonna look exactly the same as you do right now.

[Casey Johnston]

You deserve to take up space. Whether you're pushing plates or just the bar, you belong here.

[Constance Grady]

If you read women's magazines, they're all telling you you need to start strength training. There's a bunch of recent research that says strength training is really important for everyone's health as they grow old. But actually, especially for women. When I was growing up in the 90s and 2000s, women really only worked out to be skinny. You know, that was the whole thing.

[Noel King]

Come on here on the floor. Have you noticed that lately every Tom Dick Fabio is telling you how to lose your love handle. And everyone from Estelle Getty to Barbie has got their own workout video.

[Casey Johnston]

The stomach stays in, the back is.

[Noel King]

Straight and you're smiling, aren't you?

[Casey Johnston]

Because you're gonna look good.

[Constance Grady]

Move down those hips. There was no pretense that you're just trying to be healthy. There was nothing about wellness or how you just really love the way salads taste. You know, what you were really taught to aspire to in mainstream media at that time was just to be as skinn as possible. And everything in your exercise regimen and the way you ate was really supposed to be in service to that goal.

[Noel King]

Do you remember heroin chic?

[Constance Grady]

Oh boy, do I.

[Noel King]

Do you remember Kate Moss? What she said?

[Constance Grady]

Nothing tastes as good as skinny. Feels. It didn't feel like a particularly bold statement at the time.

[Noel King]

Right, right.

[Constance Grady]

It just sort of felt like that's probably true. If you're as skinny as Kate Moss, it seems to be really fun for her. Sure. I believe that that's sort of what it felt like at the time.

[Noel King]

There also were moments where a celebrity was suddenly put on the COVID of magazines and it was to show us how much weight she'd gained and how big she'd gotten. Jessica Simpson had that happen to her very famously.

[Constance Grady]

Absolutely. The image of Jessica Simpson that lives rent free in my mind is she was wearing a pair of high waisted jeans. She looks incre and the magazine has like circled her belly in yellow ink and is like, what is she trying to hide under those mom jeans, these.

[Noel King]

Pictures, that outfit, this woman, Jessica Simpson? People can't stop talking about it saying she looks fat. Do you feel sorry for Jessica Simpson.

[Casey Johnston]

Or did she bring it on herself by talking about pies and macaroni and cheese and everything else?

[Constance Grady]

That was just the way that we talked about women and their bodies at the time. There was always this sense that your natural default state is to be fat and disgusting, and you constantly had to be disciplining yourself into being as thin and flat and untextured as possible. And any deviation from that norm had to be sort of sniffed out and punished.

[Noel King]

So the late 90s and early 2000s, there is clearly an ideal female body type. And then something changed in a big way. Can you walk us through what happened here?

[Constance Grady]

Yeah. So I think there are three central factors that we have to look at in this transition from the heroin chic moment to where we are now, where strength training is really trending up. First of all, there's the advent of the Kardashians. How are you? I'm good.

[Casey Johnston]

I just. I just have anxiety.

[Noel King]

Are you sure it's safe here?

[Constance Grady]

There's people that are dying. They start to get famous in the late 2000s, early 2000s, and they really popularize a body ideal that has a lot more emphasis on curves than the heroin chic look of the 1990s. And then as I got a little bit older, I realized that, you know, no matter what size you are, as long as you're confident and you're, you know, you feel comfortable in your skin, that it was okay to be who I was. So I love it now, and I'm very proud of my curves and my body now. But it definitely did take me a little while to get there. It is still very much an unrealistic look for the vast majority of women, but it's a little bit more allowing of flesh to exist than the previous body ideal had been. The second thing we start seeing in the 2000 and tens is the work of body positivity activists starts making its way into the mainstream. Right? So people start getting introduced to this idea that it's possible to maybe like your body and feel good about it, even if it doesn't look like the cultural ideal.

[Noel King]

Starting this month, Women's Health magazine has decided to ban all body shaming language. It's part of the Body positive movement, which promotes being happy with your body and at any size. If you take this phrase, women are more than bodies, and you put it as the lens of your life. Through everything you see, through all the messages, through the ways you talk to other women, you can become really cognizant to the Things that are actually keeping you fixated on your body and other women's bodies as the most important thing about them.

[Constance Grady]

And there's been a lot of criticism about the way that body positivity got watered down as it went mainstream and how it's not really revolutionary anymore. But it does have this effect where we start seeing markets, marketers update their language as they target women to fit this new paradigm, right? They stop telling you that it is important to be as skinny as possible, and they start telling you that it's all about being strong and healthy, even though they're still selling you the exact same products. But the language changes, right? And then that brings us to the third factor, which is the rise of wellness as kind of this, like, hobby lifestyle imperative for women. So we started seeing a lot of these really elaborate skincare regimes emerge. People start talking a lot about the idea of self care. And then after the pandemic hits, the concept of wellness gets really, really entrenched in the culture, as it's very clear that we're living in an unstable time that is going to put our bodies in jeopardy. So the idea of finding ways to try to take control of the health of our bodies becomes really seductive. So all these factors really come together in a way that starts to push women away from focusing on being as small as possible when it comes to exercise. And the new paradigm that emerges is strength.

[Noel King]

Who are the ambassadors of the new paradigm? Like, once upon a time, we looked at Kate Moss and we were like, what does she eat or not eat today? Who are we looking at in the media world?

[Constance Grady]

I know that Casey Johnston is personally responsible for this shift among, like, half of the women that I know.

[Casey Johnston]

So just by lifting weights, you can build the skills and strength that you can bring into your everyday activities. Your body is where you live 100% of the time.

[Constance Grady]

She is a science journalist and also a powerlifter. In the 2010s, she had a lifting advice column on the hairpin. Now she has a substack that's called She's a Beast. And her new memoir just came out. It's called A Physical Education. It's sort of about her, her strength training journey. And for people in the sort of feminist media ecosystem, including me, she was just hugely influential at getting women to start lifting. But there's also, you know, a ton of more mainstream influencers who have really made strength training their niche. There's this sort of genre of, like, hot girls on the Internet who are telling you how to get their body. And there's a lot of options in that space who are ready to tell you about their strength training.

[Noel King]

This feels a lot healthier than the position we were in, than the ultra thin ideal of 20 years ago. But building muscle, it also is difficult. You also have to think a lot about, am I in the gym three to five days a week? Am I eating, oh, my God, the protein, Am I eating enough protein? There still is, and I will cop to this. A lot of thought going into the way that I look. Do you think that that old time, negative relationship that we had with fitness, do you think that it's just replicated itself in something that maybe feels more healthy but isn't?

[Constance Grady]

Yeah. This is one of the things that also gives me pause about strength training and the ecosystem that's getting built up around it right now. I think that our culture has, you know, a lot of structures in place, really exist to just force women's attention onto policing their bodies in whatever way seems like the correct way at a specific moment. It's a system where whatever exercise you're doing, whatever diet you're following, it is never enough. It can always be better. Your body can always be better. You know, that idea is just. It's grooved really deeply into the brain. So I think that our culture is good at taking practices that we try to create in order to subvert these systems. Like the idea of trying to get strong instead of small and then turning them to its own purposes. It's really hard to escape.

[Noel King]

So at the end of the day, what do you think? Progress? No progress.

[Constance Grady]

I do think there's progress here, you know, even if it's not perfect. The thing is, strength training isn't the only fitness trend we're seeing right now when it comes to women's bodies. The other big news of the past year or so is the rise of Skinny Talk. That's a community on TikTok that is devoted to getting skinny at all costs in this very sort of old school, throwback 90s 2000s way. And it's promoting a lot of pretty disordered and unhealthy paths to skinniness. So the strength training space isn't perfect by any means, but. But I think it's gonna mess with people's minds a lot less than Skinny Talk. Will.

[Noel King]

Vox's Constance Grady. Coming up. Constance. We got the swole lady. We got Casey Johnston.

[Constance Grady]

Hell yes. Hell yes.

[Noel King]

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[Casey Johnston]

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[Noel King]

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[Casey Johnston]

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[Constance Grady]

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[Casey Johnston]

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[Noel King]

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[Casey Johnston]

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[Constance Grady]

Let me see.

[Casey Johnston]

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[Constance Grady]

It's Today Explained.

[Casey Johnston]

My name is Casey Johnston and I am a writer and author. My book is called Aphysical Education.

[Noel King]

I started lifting waste about 18 months ago because I had stopped drinking and I was like, I want to do a pull up. That's what's going to make me feel good about my life. You have been doing this, though, much longer than 18 months. Tell me about how you got started and when.

[Casey Johnston]

Yeah, I've been lifting now for a little over 10 years, 11 years as of May. I was into running, got into running when I was in college, mostly out of a sense of obligation, of like always losing weight and being on a diet. And I always hated running, but felt like I had to be doing something and I started getting injuries. I felt like the pieces were not clicking together of like the dieting I was doing and all of I was running more and more and eating less and less and like not getting the effects that I felt like I was promised. So I at one point stumbled across a post on Reddit where a woman described her six months of weightlifting experience. And it sounded like she was getting all of the things that I wanted from diet and exercise, but was doing everything the complete opposite. She was like working out half as much as I was, she was eating twice as much, and she was. She seemed really happy, like she was really enjoying the process, which was not something I felt like exercise could even be about. So I from that point had to know more about what she was doing.

[Noel King]

Before you came across that post, how did you think about lifting and women who did it?

[Casey Johnston]

I think I thought of it as something that mainly men did, like Jim Bros and people in the military and just meatheads. And I didn't think it had anything to offer me. The thing that I always heard from the ether of talking about women and working out was like, you don't want to lift weights. It'll make you bulky. It sounded really hard and really intense. And it was like, cardio is easier, cardio burns calories, and that's what you want. So just stick, stick with the sort of cardio rivers and lakes, if you will, and don't complicate it too much. And this new format of lifting that I saw in this Reddit post was like, it's just three movements a day and three sets of five reps. And I was like, that's so. That sounds so simple and very compelling to me. And then there, there was also sort of a blossoming of resources around that time where there were starting to be more fitness youtubers Instagram had only added video, video maybe a year before that. So there was like a sort of onslaught of information and formats that were really conducive to learning lifting at that time. This was about, like, 2014.

[Noel King]

When did you hit the moment where you were like, I really love this in a way that I definitely did not like running, and I'm probably going to do this for a very long time?

[Casey Johnston]

I think it was once I. I was able to see that I really liked the workouts. I loved the sort of alternating between doing a. You do a set of reps and then you rest for a minute, and you're basically asking yourself, how did that feel? Was that too light, too heavy? Am I really tired? Could I go again immediately? Should I up the weight? And that practice of checking in with myself was really, really became really, really compelling. At first it was a bit confusing because I was like, I don't know. I don't know how I feel. Like indexing for how I felt in any way was always very difficult for me. But as I got into the practice, I really liked a style of workout and I was eating more, and it was all sort of fitting together. And once those pieces started coming together, I was like, why doesn't. Why didn't I know about this? Like, there's no. I had no one telling me about this stuff at the time.

[Noel King]

Not to overstate, but there is something revolutionary in that thought that you are. Many of us are not primed to think about, how do I feel about this? We're primed to just, like, do it. And then, like, let's not think about it, especially when things are difficult. And then you decided that the value was in figuring out what you were thinking and what you could handle right there in the moment. You recently did something else that I believe to be revolutionary. You wrote a piece for New York magazine, a viral piece about deliberately gaining weight, about bulking so that you could lift more.

[Casey Johnston]

It was a beyond the pale concept. The idea that you would intentionally gain weight for really any purpose. Everything I had ever done about my body had been oriented around losing weight and making myself smaller. Sort of had a conversation with myself of like, okay, I want to keep getting stronger, but in order to do that, I will need to. To eat a little bit more and be consistent about that for three months. And in that process, I'll gain some body fat and gain some muscle and gain some strength. And I decided that I did want to be stronger more than I was afraid of gaining weight. So I started it out and Almost immediately, I felt just the feeling you get in the gym when you are sort of. You have that additional calories that come with bulking. You feel like you have wings. It's. It's just the most incredible feeling when you're used to sort of finding your struggle point pretty easily, and suddenly your struggle point is so much farther down the line than you think. And everything just feels really good. You feel really powerful. You even sweat less, I found.

[Noel King]

Huh.

[Casey Johnston]

And it was. It was like, I wish I could just give this experience to everybody because it was the most incredible feeling.

[Noel King]

We talked in the first half of the show about, you know, 20 years ago, the obsession was with women being very, very, very tiny, very, very, very thin. How do you strike a balance between. Lifting is important to me, and I want to do it, and I spend time doing it, but I'm not going to become obsessive about it.

[Casey Johnston]

These things are tools. Lifting weights is a tool. Even running, which I had a problematic relationship with, is a tool. They're neutral. The thing about lifting that made it atomically different from running for me was that was this practice I developed or the practice I described a little earlier of the self inquiry. And as someone who grew up in a family, my father was an alcoholic, abusive, and my mother had her own struggles. And it was very, very tense and very difficult. And there was a real dynamic of needing to disconnect from my own feelings and needing to stay focused outwardly in order to be responsive, in order to try. And I was trying to create safety for myself, really. And that led to a huge disconnect between myself and my feelings, both physical and emotional. And that meant that certain relationships with exercise that were pushed out there in the world, whereas there are a lot of, like, no pain, no gain, and like, ignore your pain, your sweat is your fat crying. And all of these things that are sort of intense and about deprivation and denial resonated with me, but for a problematic reason. And when I came to lifting, the practice of asking how things felt in this really focused and contained way really helped me. What it turned out to do, I didn't even know I was doing it at the time. But now looking back, it started to help me learn to rebuild that connection to how I was feeling. And that practice of monitoring myself, asking, asking myself how I felt, I was able to bring out into the rest of the world. So I think that's the main thing for me that stands between having this turn into another vicious cycle of trying to be enough and never becoming enough. It's about building that. Rebuilding that connection with myself.

[Noel King]

How much do you bench?

[Casey Johnston]

The most. The most I've ever benched in the gym. So not in a meet, but it was 142 pounds.

[Noel King]

Holy shit. Holy.

[Casey Johnston]

I mean, how much do you bench now? You have to pay the test.

[Noel King]

Okay. 65.

[Casey Johnston]

Okay.

[Noel King]

I've never gotten above 65. And, like, I want to. I think I squat better than I bench.

[Casey Johnston]

I think you're being way too hard for your. Way too hard on yourself, especially for someone who's only been doing this for less than two years. I wouldn't even think about that, you know?

[Noel King]

Thank you, Casey. Casey Johnston is author of A Physical Education. Gabrielle Burbay produced today's show and How Jolie Meyers edited. Andrea Christian's Daughter Is Our Engineer. Today's episode was inspired by a great piece that Constance Grady wrote for vox. You guys want to see a dead body? No. I'm just kidding. Sorry. You guys want to become a member? Go to vox.com members. And do recall, our sister city drops in this feed on Sunday. Explain it to me. We'll explain it to you. I'm Noel King. It's Today Explained.

[Casey Johnston]

Paramount plus is your streaming home for the nwsl, the best women's soccer league in the world. Oh, my goodness. The game's brightest stars. Huglison Thompson surging forward. And the world's top clubs.

[Noel King]

Kansas City cannot stop scoring.

[Casey Johnston]

Battling it out on the pitch in pursuit of the ultimate prize outstanding, the nwsl. Streaming all season long on Paramount.

[Constance Grady]

Welcome to NWSL.