Sexism and Gym-timidation

Sexism at the gym is keeping women from working out. A & B talk some history, some gym fashion, weightlifting, and how to make things better.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, this is Annie and this is Pritchett, and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. Today we're talking
about sexism at the gym, and I wanted to start

(00:26):
out with an anecdote that um has less to do
with sexism and more to do with problems at the gym.
But a couple of years ago, I went back home
to visit my parents. My parents live in a really
small town, and UM, I found these really old weights,

(00:46):
like dumbbells, and they were arrested and metallic, and I
decided I wanted to lift them because I like lifting weights,
and um, I was also trying to avoid a big
party my parents were having downstairs, which is really funny
because spoiler alert, I ruined the party. And this is
not the first time the duff this. Um. So I

(01:07):
was lifting the weights like, I guess that's a bench press,
but I didn't have a bench I was just on
the floor and the rust had eaten away at the
spiral keeping the weight on. It fell right on my
face and my tooth. It was like powder. It dissolved
like powder. Yeah, and I so I'm panicking. I look

(01:33):
in the mirror and UM, as I mentioned before, I've
done some acting and I'm like, my career is over.
I have only one specific type of role I can
get from your so because I'm I am less than
smart when it comes to my health. I finished my
workout circuit and then I went downstairs. I was trying

(01:54):
to avoid everybody and I managed to um. But when
I got outside, they're all of these cars parked behind
my car because I was trying to get to a
dentist right and UM, I had to go inside interrupt
my parents nice party and with my broken two and
ask everyone to move their cars. And so that happened.

(02:17):
And then because I was not where I live and
it was a Saturday, no dentist was open, No nowhere
was going to help me out except for one I
found off of a strip. And when I came in,
they didn't speak English. They only spoke Russian. And I've
never gotten like any kind of tooth work done before
other than wisdom teeth getting out. So they showed me

(02:38):
like this big needle and they're they're like not. I thought, well,
this is it for me, but it all turned out
and they replaced the tube. And now you can only
tell because when I drink coffee are are wine because
it stains differently. You have a you have a fake
tooth in your head. All this time I've been friends

(03:00):
with you, I didn't know that you had a fake
tooth in your head. It's the front one too, It's
the front one. Wait right or left on the left.
I literally couldn't tell. Good job Russian dentist, job Russian dentist.
They definitely implied. I couldn't really understand what they were
saying because it was like a I think they were
a husband and wife pair of dentists. But they definitely

(03:23):
implied to me that I was lying to them about
bleaching my teeth. But anyway, that is my fun non
jim but weightlifting story because we are gonna be talking
a lot about weightlifting. Have you ever experienced sexism at
the gym? Bridge I not, I would say, not that

(03:44):
I can remember off hand, but probably I also, I don't.
I'm not a big gym person. I do enjoy being physical,
but it's usually some sort of activity. So the gym
that I go to usually is it's like one of
those specialty gyms that we're going to talk about. Um,
it's off road here in d C. It's amazing. And
their slogan is Bike Box Build And so it's just

(04:07):
a really small, boutique specialty gym where you only kind
of do one of three things, you know, cycling boxing
which is what I do UM, and also cycling sometimes
and then like circuit training UM. And I think I
found that because it's a smaller gym and everyone knows
each other and everyone goes out for coffee or drink

(04:28):
after the workout, which I'm sure kind of defeat the purpose.
But it's such a small, tight knit community of mostly
women and gender not conforming folks that it it Really
it's just the only environment I want to be in.
Why work out? That sounds lovely? Yeah, it's I this
sounds like an ad for them, and it's not because
they're you know, they're not paying me. But I would
happily make an ad for them because it's such a

(04:49):
great gym and it's the only consistent Jim based physical
activity I've been able to do that, And I think
part of it is because of that sort of camaraderie.
It's really low key. Everyone is really nice. Everybody is
there to have fun, you know, it's really it's really
kind of like people go there because it's a pleasant

(05:11):
and fun way to spend an hour and a half.
It's not. It's not it's it's explicitly not a gym experience.
I don't go to the gym much anymore, but when
I was in college, UM, i went all of the time.
And um, it was in part to avoid my roommate. Um,
because you could watch TV as long as you kept

(05:32):
running on the treadmill or whatever, the TV would work.
So I would go and watch Jurassic Park like on
the treadmill, just to avoid my roommate. As long as
there wasn't anyone else waiting. I wasn't that jerk. Um.
And it was a really nice gym too. They built
it for the Olympics in nineties six, and they had
a pool with like all the diving boards and a
slide um and it was actually a really good experience.

(05:53):
I did lift Um. I did lift weights at the time,
and I didn't really get any any dudes coming up
to tell me that I was doing it incorrectly, which
we're going to talk about that does happen quite a bit. Um.
Before we get into some industry numbers, just a disclaimer.
The fitness industry has a world of other problems to

(06:14):
tackle on top of sexism, homophobia, transphobia. They are not
always welcome to non binary folks. There's able is um um.
They can be exclusionary because of cost and time commitment
or even travel. So there there are all of these
things on top of the conversation we're having today. I'm
glad you've mentioned that. I have to say, I think

(06:35):
I've mentioned this on the show before, but I I
love riding my bike. I love city bike riding, outdoor
bike riding. But what I wanted to continue to, you know,
be in shape during the winter. I was looking for
a cycling a cycling program, and before I found my
my gym, I am, we're going to soul cycle. And
you know, no shame to a soul cycle, but feeling

(06:56):
really out of place that I didn't have super fair
and see athletic wear. Like the people who did soul
cycle looked like fitness models. They all had this very
specific kind of athleisure outfit and yeah, it just it
didn't feel like I certainly couldn't afford, you know, forty
five shirts just to ride a bike. And I really

(07:19):
felt like I was like, I'll never go here again,
Like it just really I felt super out of place. Yeah,
it can really add up, and that like that forty
five shirt on top of what you're paying for membership
or for classes and Jim's Jim's can be places that
do not feel welcoming for one reason or another. And

(07:40):
we're going to talk about all of that, but well,
let's start with some numbers just to show how to
give this conversation while we're why we're talking about it,
like meaning how much money it is. So the fitness
industry is a big business. Some estimates put the number
of Americans that have at least one gym are club

(08:01):
membership at forty five million people. A membership typically costs
somewhere between fifty dollars to fifty dollars a month. Around
the world, the health club industry accounted for over seventy
five billion dollars and almost on two million members, and
specialty gyms like soul Cycle or CrossFit grew by seventy

(08:21):
percent between and and probably surprising no one. Women are
more likely to drop out than men, and one of
the main reasons for that is this feeling of being judged.
Teen surveyed from Cosmo found that women are gym timidated.
That's their word, not ours, although it's a good one.
Twice as many women reported feelings of embarrassment and working

(08:43):
out as compared to men. Almost half of the female
respondents that they avoided the weightlifting area because of the
quote type of people there, which we can assume is men.
Oh for sure. Yeah. I mean not that they're not
women weightlifters talk about. But you know, when you think
of having to walk through the weightlifting area of a

(09:05):
gym to get to wherever you're going, I would imagine
that would be a heavily male, you know, male skewed area.
It is. And we have some numbers behind that that
we'll get into later. Millions fewer women regularly take part
in sports or exercise than men, and many studies have
found that this intimidation and sexism are some of the
reasons behind that. And this is a big deal because

(09:26):
it directly impacts your health and your well being. Absolutely.
Another aspect of this is black women report working out
less because of hair. A study in the Archives of
Dermatology found that two out of five African American women
avoid exercising them because they're worried about their hair. Dr
Amy McMichael, the study senior researcher and a dermatologist at

(09:47):
Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston Salem, North Carolina,
based to study on her own experiences. She says, as
an African American woman, I have that problem and my
friends have that problem. So I wondered if my patients
have that problem them as women. It sucks that many
of us are letting sexism, letting things like concerns about
our hair, letting things like sham about our bodies impact

(10:11):
our health. It sucks that this is the world that
we have to live in. It does, and it's it's
so we can't even let go of how we look.
When we're at the gym where you're not supposed to
look good like your gross you're sweating, and you're you're
working on improving your health, are you know? Unfortunately oftentimes

(10:33):
your looks but your health. And even so this self
consciousness about how you look gets in the way of
that and prevents you from pursuing something that you might enjoy,
that you might want to pursue and that is healthy
for you. That that's upsetting. And you made an interesting

(10:53):
point off Mike where It's this weird when you actually
think about the gym and you think about fact that
women aren't going because of you know, they're they're feeling
whatever kind of way about about our bodies. It's so
weird that you are working out in some ways, like
you just said, to improve the way your body looks

(11:14):
in some cases, but you're that same body or that
same weirdness and shame around the way that our bodies
present keeps you from the gym. It's this very weird
cycle that doesn't really make any sense when you when
you think about it, you know, yeah, I I was
telling ridget Um, I now feel like I just want

(11:34):
to do a whole mini series about all of these
fascinating social like more raise and things that occur at
the gym. I have a friend who specifically will leave.
She goes to a small gym, and she goes it
really off hours so that no one else will be
there to see her work out, and she'll leave if
someone else comes in. She's too self conscious, she won't stay.

(11:54):
My gym doesn't have a changing room. But my favorite
displays at bigger gyms are those older women who don't
give a who are walking around the locker room naked.
I'm like, yes, please do you? I love it. I
hope that's me one day. UM. So I've wanted to

(12:15):
include a brief history of jams because I thought it
was fascinating. UM and plus just to see if this
kind of dichotomy of men and women at gym's has
always been a thing that's been around. Um and before
we get into the sexism bit, we're gonna we're gonna
look at that history and um CMC did an entire

(12:35):
episode on the history of American gyms. So this is
gonna be brief, and um, very very brief. But Jim's
first got their start in Greece, where naked men attended
public gym's as a way to prep for battle or
competitions or other male only activities. The word gymnasium, by
the way, if you're looking for some trivia to impress

(12:57):
people with, stems from the Greek word gym nose, which
means naked. When the Greco Roman Empire collapsed, Jim's were
seen as unfashionable and did not make a comeback on
a larger scale to the nineteen hundreds, and it was
around this time that schools started including Jim's to support
growing up programs in pursuits. The first commercial gym opened

(13:19):
a little before this in eighteen forties Brussels, Belgium. The
y m c A got its start in eighteen first
in London, and this would become a big player in
terms of the fitness for men and boys, and the
term body building was coined at the Boston y m
c A in eight one to describe a set of

(13:39):
fitness courses. Now we're mostly talking about male only spaces,
but there were still some women in the mix. Katherine
esther Stowe's eighteen fifty six book Physiology and Calistics for
Schools and Families recommended physical education for both boys and girls.
She did think that some exercises were not met for
quote the Female Constitute Usan, but her work was pretty

(14:01):
revolutionary for the time. When Jack Lolaine opened what many
believed to be the first American Health Cup in ninety six,
he was a big proponent of women being allowed to
lift weights, but for the most part, folks ignored him.
The first salons for women open during the thirties to
courtesy of rivals Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, and these

(14:25):
were some of the first places to sell women on
the idea that their physical appearance was in their control,
not just a matter of say God or nature. With
a regiment of light exercises like stretching, yoga and dancing,
and some cosmetics, you could achieve the look, figure, and
posture you desired. And this is one of the many
ways that wait and figure got all tangled up with

(14:49):
the beauty standard. As Rubinstein used to say, there are
no ugly women, only lazy ones, right, So this easily
transitioned into the fat of women during the forties and
fifties of reducing a k a losing weight. However, exercise
was not the way that women went about this, since

(15:09):
sweating and public was used as unladylike and physical exertion
was believed to be bad for the uterus. Quick f y, I,
it's not women. Women use diet pills or machines that
shook you and rolled you out like dough to get
rid of that fat. The most successful of these salons
with a chain called Slenderella, who we are our eternal
thanks for the quote bikini body. Oh, thank you so

(15:32):
much for that, Slenderella. Thank you also, f I I.
If you have a body and a bikini you have
a bikini body. That's just how words work. Trail raising.
American female bodybuilder Pudgy Stockton opened her salon of figure
Development in but even that was advertised as a place

(15:53):
to reduce, not a place to put on muscle or bodybuild.
It wasn't until the sixties and seventies that women begin
extra sizing and bigger numbers, not at gyms, though in
their homes where no one will be exposed to their
unladylike sweat and flab. Now the main reason behind this
were televised we day exercise programs targeting housewives. Jack Lelane

(16:13):
was one of the more popular ones, along with Debbie Drake.
Drake was the one who first popularized representations of what
a woman exercising should look like. The message of these
shows seemed to be watch your figures, ladies, or your
man might ditch you for a better looking woman one
who exercises the lanes. Nineteen sixty four exercise album was
called How to Keep Your Husband Happy, Look Slim, Keep Trim,

(16:36):
which is a great example of the divide that we
still see in the exercise world, women exercising for their
looks and men exercising for achievement in night. Physician Kenneth
Cooper also played a role in getting more women to
exercise when he released his book Aerobics, a term he coined.
In it, he presented scientific evidence that exercise what's good

(16:57):
for you, It was good for your health. The first
bar studio got its start during the sixties two and
if you're unfamiliar. Bar is a type of workout program
that combines some ballets, some yoga, some stretching and strength exercises,
and a fun fact. It used to be used to
teach women to improve their sex lives. Oh, that is
a fun fact. It's mostly seen as something more women

(17:20):
take part in than men. Jazzer Size, another physical activity
typically dominated by women, got going in nineteen sixty nine.
This company would become the second fastest growing franchise by
second only two Domino's Pizza. You got to eat your
pizza and then jazzer Size. That's what's the gym that

(17:43):
they do have pizza at the gym? Is it Planet Fitness? Oh? Man,
I didn't know such a thing existed. Yeah, it's true.
Pizza Monday. Planet Fitness has Pizzaoney, not that makes a
difference to this episode. I just thought you should know.
The seventies saw a lot of things that made go
into the gym a more popular activity for women. The
invention of the sports brawl and Title nine, chains of

(18:06):
quote figure salons promising women that they would be able
to get back into the dress size that they're proud of.
While COVID places did exist, a lot of them operated
on an alternate schedule of male to female days. Isn't
that wild? You'd have to know the Oh, today's the
woman day. I can't go to the gym. I don't know.
It's interesting interesting. What else is interesting is the number

(18:31):
of women going to the gym went up even more
in the eighties thanks to Jane Fonda's exercise videos. I
had heard of these until I researched this episode. I
had no idea what a huge cultural deal they were.
Oh my god, they were huge. They were huge. I
remember my mom was into Jane Fonda's workout videos. And
don't you remember that the lyrics to um baby got back?

(18:53):
You know what is it? Girlfriend drives a Honda? How
does yeah? Your girlfriend drops a Honda? Just brokeout tapes
with Fonda like it's a It was a cultural mainstay apparently.
It was worth noting though, that most gyms up to
this point were still single sex. Think about how recent

(19:15):
that is. That's the eighties. Um, more and more co
ed gym started opening as Jim chains took off and
women inspired by Jane Fonda flocked to them, and they're
wonderfully bright eighties gym fashion. The nineteen two cover of
Time magazine read coming on Strong, the new ideal of beauty,
and it had a picture of a woman like in

(19:38):
gym clothes getting ready to go to the gym. Sorry,
that's just like I'm thinking about. That was like incredible.
Their offense were amazing. They were going to the gym,
like just like you're going to a club or something,
or like eighties problem like those I could look at
eighties workout clothes for women for or it is so

(20:00):
interesting what I love about the eighties, Like anytime you're
watching a hundred years of fashion, whatever it is, like
wedding dresses, Jim, you can pick out the eighties. It
is wildly different than anything else. Definitely now that new
ideal of beauty still focused on slimness, and it meant
many hours of hard work and more women hitting the

(20:23):
gym but as scientific evidence came out suggesting that an
ideal exercise routine should include some strength training, more women
moved to traditionally male spaces. And you know what this means,
sexism gets exposed. And we'll talk more about that sexism
after a quick break and we're back. Thank you sponsor.

(20:51):
This moves us into the modern day. And yes, sexism,
because the fitness industry is rife with it. I mean,
think about the phrase law a room talk that that
is a perfect example of how much sexism is in
the industry. And they're also these really um not great

(21:12):
ads for gems. One of them reads cheat on your girlfriend,
not your workout. Gross. An ad for a gym in
Germany made headlines when it was named the most sexist
ad in the country. It was an image of a
traditionally attractive woman with her eyes closed sucking on a

(21:32):
very phallic shaped ice pop captioned with the words hot
hot baby, which in German is he host baby. I
think so like it's an ice ice baby pun. Um,
you wouldn't know it's for a gym looking at it. Yeah,
what does that have to do with working out? They
said it meant that you could get a nice refreshing
ice pop at the inter of your workout. Okay, I'm skeptical,

(21:58):
so I note. I hate advertisement where it blends sexy
stuff with things that aren't sexy. So it'll be like,
are you you know telling me that this gym is
a sex place? Like I get. I get very confused
by advertisements where it's like, am I supposed to have
sex with a sandwich? Yeah? I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.

(22:20):
Think about something like Sports Illustrated, which historically and hasn't
done a great job when it comes to depicting women
and issues from nine female athletes only accounted for three
percent of stories covered, and when the US women's soccer
team won the World Cup in several television stations spent
more time covering when one of the players took off

(22:42):
her shirt and revealed her sports bra then they did
covering the actual win that was so controversial sports Oh
my god, a sports bra. It's not just ads, though.
A sixteen study out of University of Westminister found that
the more muscle a heterosexual man has, the more likely

(23:03):
he is to have sexist beliefs like in traditional gender roles.
Perhaps the more muscular dudes were also more likely to
report hostility towards women. So it makes sense that a
lot of that attitude would permeate into the fitness culture
and gems where a buff guy would spend a lot
of his time putting on that muscle. Always important to

(23:23):
note difference between correlation causation things like that, but um,
it was an interesting finding by this study. On top
of that, activities that put on muscle have historically been
dominated by men and really kind of largely still are.
Now this is starting to change a little bit, but
very slowly. Women have been sold fitness has a way

(23:45):
to stay thin in tone, and men have been sold
as a way to bulk up. And on top of that,
since women are doing more of the child caring and
chores around the household, they might not have the same
ability as men to go to the gym. So let's
let's dive into some of the types of sexism that
you might encounter the gym, some of the flavors, if

(24:06):
you will, Starting with Jim dress code policies. Now, we've
already talked a bit about dress codes and some of
the messaging behind them. Jim's often outlined rules for how
women dress forbidding sports brawls only, or tank tops that
are quote too revealing, yoga pants that are too tight.
And we just saw this with Serrina Williams, which I
have to say pissed me off so royally. Oh me too,

(24:29):
me too, And I mean you don't see these kind
of guidelines for men. This is usually women don't don't
wear two revealing of tops, okay um. And this is
one of the biggest problems with women face in general.
And it's no different at the gym. That women's clothing
choice is solely to attract me all attention, and that

(24:50):
the less clothings she wears, the more attention she wants.
But it's a gym, it's hot, you're working out. Women
are told not to dress too provocatively, but we aren't
dressing provocatively. We're dressing for comfort for the working out
part that we're there for. And for women with bigger
boobs or butts, provocative is hard to avoid exactly. It's

(25:13):
just this assumption that men don't have to worry about
being provocative or attracting attention or blah blah blah whatever nonsense,
and that as women were there trying to you know,
stay in shape and and be healthy and take care
of our bodies. Our number one concern should be what
are men thinking? How are they responding to how I'm dressed,
not what you're there for, what you're paying money for,

(25:35):
which is to get in shape. And what's kind of
interesting about this is so many women have reported being
embarrassed working out in front of men as one of
their main deterrens for going to the gym, which we
talked about a little bit. In the front, you might
not have makeup on, you might be wearing your baggy
T shirt, or maybe you're wearing a shirt that rides
up and put your granny panties on full display for

(25:56):
all to see. Older women said that they didn't want
to be the source of laughter or repulsion. So it
makes sense to me that some women do dress up
to go to the gym to combat this insecurity, maybe
you do put on those nice athletes your pants and
you put on makeup, um, just to give you some
kind of kind of like the armor we talked about before,

(26:19):
just something to combat that insecurity, even in a small way. Yeah,
I know that there's a lot of folks out there,
Like I see it online where people are like, oh, look,
at her and full makeup and hair going to the gym.
But if that's what makes me feel comfortable, you know, I, I.
You can't fault anyone for putting on the armor that

(26:40):
they need to feel confident in a world where women
are always scrutinized. Yeah, and we're not going to talk
about it in much in this episode. But I did
read that, Um, apparently gems are a place where you
meet people these days. You know, well, what, it's a
brave new world up there. Um, are you talking about dating?

(27:05):
You phrased that. I was like, you meet people? What
could she be talking about? Um? And here here's a
new one that when it for me, at least when
it comes to dress code. In a middle school sent
home a letter about their gym cloes policy. One parent
who received the letter posted about it on Reddit. Quote.

(27:29):
I was floored when I went to the school and
was told that my seventh grade daughter would be responsible
for bringing her gym uniform home, laundering it, and bringing
it back, while my eighth grade son would quote just
give it to the school for them to watch, since
they didn't trust the boys to do the same. I'm
so angry either. Watch all the kids uniforms are none

(27:49):
of them. Don't tell my kid that if he doesn't
accomplish something, especially historically feminine activity like laundry, that someone
else will do it for him. My kids have been
responsible for their own laundry for five years. Boys don't
watch their takeoff points easy as that fail them if
they don't do what they're supposed to do. I've never
heard of that before. That is wild to me, right,

(28:11):
and also it I mean, I know this isn't the point,
but one it completely you know, obscurity idea that there
are people who are not who do not identify as
boys or girls too. What if you were a little
girl and you didn't live in a household that has
launching facilities like that would be a real problem. It's
it's almost sort of adding this really weird burden on

(28:35):
the girls that goes beyond just like gender, it's also classes,
like not everybody grows up in a house where they
have a washer and dryer just like downstairs in their basement. Yeah. Absolutely,
Um my school didn't have JAM uniforms, so I'm very
I don't have much experience with this at all. I'm
just shocked by it. Yeah, my I went to a

(28:59):
really all all girls Catholic school. I think we had
uniforms for Jim, but we didn't really do a lot
during gym, Like sometimes on nice days we would just
like walk around the block and once we watched like
sometimes we watch movies, like I don't know much have
a movies and gym. I have a very distinct memory
of watching um this Ben Stiller Edward Norton comedy about

(29:24):
Catholicism Engine Class. So it wasn't even like about Jim's.
It was just and some and sometimes even do the
Richard Simmons workouts. Okay, so are are Jim? We were
sort of we were playing it fast and loose Jim Class.

(29:45):
I've got to agree, Bridge, I gotta agree with that
assessment before we move on. I wanted to include something
that gave me a good juggle. While researching this whole thing,
I was reading an article about the fad of ath
leisure and whether female sports where is sexist in itself,
and the author expressed shock that the study featured in

(30:07):
the article found that the biggest reason women reported for
wearing athletes your clothing outside of the gym was comfort
and not fashion. What we've been no no, that must
be incorrect. Oh my god, I have to say sometimes
this is such a like I shouldn't even admit this.

(30:28):
Every now and then I'll wear I do have a
little bit of ath leisure. I'll wear it around just
because I want people to like think like, oh, look
who's been working out? Like I want the smug feeling
that comes with It's like, really, I've just been sleeping
and watching TV all day. But if I go out
in this outfit, people will think, Oh, there's a girl
that's got her life together. She just went to yoga.

(30:49):
You know now that you mentioned that. When I see
people on athletes, you're the first thing I think is
that they are going to the gym. Are athletes like
yoga or something, So you're onto something, bridget. Nothing makes
me think a woman in public has her shipped together,
like being an athleisure and carrying a yoga mat under
her arm and like ten a, I'm on a Saturday. Yeah,
that's true the article. Other than getting that well a

(31:15):
little wrong, I would say the article did make some
good points, like the shift of women's sports where from
performance focused two looks focused and often a sexualized focus,
something that we don't see reflected in men's sportswear, and
that women's sports where is more expensive. Anyone who has
had to buy a good sports bra knows that absolutely.

(31:37):
We have some more, some more stuff to talk about here,
but first we're gonna pause for a quick break or
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay,
So now let's talk about female only Jim's because they

(32:01):
come up a lot when you're talking about sexism in
gyms and uh in the fitness industry in general. So
female only gyms and gym classes are they sexist? Well?
The question was the source of a lawsuit in London.
The man behind the lawsuit, Peter Lloyd, said, quote they

(32:21):
still charged men the same full price membership as women,
but refused to offer the equivalent option of male only sessions.
The gym and question had four and twenty two hours
a year set aside for female only classes. The response
to this was swift. Jezebel essentially told him to give
women the four hundred twenty two hours and stop whining.

(32:41):
Wonkett called him a limy nutsack. His comeback did not
paint him in the best light. To be sure, he said, quote,
a group of agenda driven feminist who say a minority
of women feel bad about their bodies were the ones
attacking him. I liked the I like the quote a
gen a fueled feminists. I'm gonna put that on a

(33:01):
T shirt. We should and we have the ability. Now, Oh,
that's right, we should fud the shirts. That's right. That's right. Also, listeners,
if you have any design ideas, send them our away
weekend make shirts. We can make shirts by no means.
Is this the only lawsuit against jims that offer female
only classes or female only Jim's Health Works of female

(33:23):
only JIM in Boston was sued in six by James J. Foster,
you know who came out on his side. The National
Organization of Women, The president of Massachusetts Now commented at
the time, if you want equal rights, then you want
them for everybody, not just when it benefits you. And
Foster won his lawsuit. The story does not end there.

(33:47):
Members of Health Works protested so much that in a
bill was signed making single sex gyms legal in the state,
and other states have followed suit, but more than one
has got in the opposite direction. One thing of note
um in some places like Fitness First and quitar men
and women are forbidden from working out in the same

(34:07):
space for sort of the opposite but same reason. It's
something that we'll have to come back to and talk
about because it's a different perspective on the issue, and
we'd love to do a deeper dive. Another thing that
we should mention are queer sports gapes, something like Gay Games,
which is a space for LGBTQ folks and allies. A
study found that not only were members of the Gay

(34:28):
Games more likely to report a sense of community and
higher self esteem, but they were much more likely to
become politically active when it came to LGBTQ causes, which
is not surprising to me at all. Yeah, a good
gym like you were talking about with yours is a
is a great place to find community and to just
have these conversations with people that perhaps you wouldn't have

(34:51):
encountered in your everyday life. Now, if you're wondering why
there aren't that many male only gems or classes, because
there are some, very few, but some, and that's because
there's not really a demand for them, I wonder why.
I bet could that be? I bet you could hazard
a successful guest on the flip side. If you're wondering

(35:14):
why there is a demand for female only gyms in classes,
you also probably know why that is. You can find
so many accounts of women facing incessant harassment from men
at the gym, going so far as to pull out
the headphones of women working out to talk to them.
Never do that, aside from me, women getting constantly asked
out at the gym when they're just there to work out,

(35:35):
Women being body shamed or cat called, women having men
man's plain working out to them. So many women have
shared their experiences with man's playing at the gym, whether
it's to just the weight on the machine to something
lower without her permission to keep said woman from hurting
herself or her lady parts. Um adjusting a woman's form
without asking, or even telling women that they're wearing their

(35:58):
sports brought in correctly. Um. Or that nice ass is
a compliment. Don't you understand how compliments work? That kind
of thing gross. And what's really awful is that these
behaviors aren't always just limited to JIM goers. You'll have
constructors say things like, ladies, it's okay if you need
to tap out, but fellas if you tap out you

(36:19):
will be ruthlessly mocked, and basically it's saying, oh, women,
you're so delicate, you can't do it, but men, men up,
you need to do it otherwise will be made fun
of and you won't be really a man, right. And
if there's a single female in the class, perhaps like
just one female and all the rest of the participants
in class or male, she'll often be singled out and

(36:40):
used to motivate the other male participants, as if the
worst thing would be for a woman to outperform you.
And yeah, that that might seem small and relatively harmless,
but it's still reinforces these sexist perceptions, and it undercuts
the what the woman is accomplishing and what she can acomplish.

(37:01):
And you're you're paying for the pleasure if you're at
if you're at a gym, odds are you're paying to
be there? You're you're paying for someone to basically insult
you had a room full of strangers. It's so awful,
it is. And this behavior isn't limited to men, or
at least I would say the body sharing part particularly isn't.

(37:23):
And probably the sexist language of dudes, um, don't let
this lady out do you. I'm sure some female instructors
have probably used that as well. Um also a decent
amount of women only boutique gems. We're pushing really hard
for weight loss, whether the gym goer wanted it or not.
So say you you come in and you're a new

(37:44):
you're thinking about signing up for a gym for a while,
and still sometimes they want to like the first thing
they want to know is how much weight do you
want to lose? Which is not great either that that
could be such a deterrent um. And this is changing,
but for a while it was pretty standard. Almost yeah,
and a lot of women when interviewed about why they

(38:05):
go to an all female gym, they pretty much said
that they would like to go to a co ed gym,
but that they're so male dominated and essentially they already
feel like male only spaces. So in really interesting study
explored how these spaces are kind of paradoxes. There's spaces
that are presumably about empowering women, but they still push
for this head of a normative female beauty standard, and

(38:25):
their spaces where women flocked to to escape the mail
gaze or being put on display. But it's almost as
women aren't comfortable with their bodies, they aren't satisfied with
their bodies, and they're uncomfortable trying to work toward the
body they think men will want in front of men.
And so it's kind of this paradox that we talked
about earlier where gyms are this weird space where you

(38:45):
go there, you're sort of sold that it's an empowering
thing for a woman only jim to exist. You go
there to avoid the male gaze, but then once you
get there, there's this real pressure to work out so
that you will be a active to men. And it
really is kind of another kind of cool girl way.
It's like the cool girl workout a kind of way. Yeah,

(39:07):
where trying isn't cool. You don't want to show men
that you're trying to get this body that you think
that they want. It's so you go to a female
only jam to escape the male gaze, but it's still there.
Like there's so many accounts of women saying like you
could you could almost feel it even though they were
no men um. A lot of co ed gems are

(39:31):
laid out in a way that requires women to walk
through the weightlifting section where often mostly men are working
out and this walk can be awkward and lead to
some unwanted leering and comments. And that was the case
for Vanessa Golumbuski, as she described in her article Why
I Quit the Gym for Refinery twenty nine, she quit

(39:53):
her local Planet Fitness branch after months of being cat
called and harrassed and having her complaints ignored. When she
posted about it on social media, the Planet Fitness social
media account suggested to her that she should try quote
going to the gym a little earlier or later to
avoid the rush of male members. Change your schedule. We
don't need to fix the problem you you you'd work

(40:15):
on that on your end. What a crappy response. That's
totally just shifting the onus onto the person who was
there to work out, was paying for this this opportunity, Like, oh,
our gym suck. Yeah, maybe you should try changing your
whole schedule to fix it for us, right. Musician Ellie
Golding has also spoken up about this. She's apparently been

(40:35):
leered at when she goes to the gym, and I
guess I've I've thought a lot about all of this
um recently because it has been really fascinating research and
I suppose to me female only gems is it's kind
of like female only train cars in India where I
get it and I'm not really opposed, but it does

(40:57):
feel like you're dealing with the symptom and not the problem.
And it's once again putting the responsibility on women for
men's behaviors. So I would rather we didn't need them,
but that's not the reality. And to be clear, I've
gone to a female only gem and loved it. Like
I am more comfortable in general when it's or at
least nowadays, when it's mostly women, but that when I

(41:21):
was in college it was mostly men and it didn't
bother me at all. But I had a female workout
partner and also, like I said, it was a pretty
good experience. So it's one of those things where I
get it, but I'm a little sad that it is
a thing that has to exist for people to feel comfortable. Yeah,

(41:42):
And I just wish that we lived in a world
where we didn't have to have female only gim's, female
only to train cars. I think I think there is
something really powerful about women's only spaces and collectives, and
I think that, you know, I have found a lot
of power in those spaces. But I want them to
exist because we want them, not because we need them.

(42:04):
Right and if we're if we look at like weightlifting,
because that is something that has been typically male dominated
son Jana or maybe it's son Yana, so I pronounced
it incorrectly. Um Sathia and wrote about this while working
out as a gym and why it sucks as a woman,
especially when it comes to weightlifting. She pointed out that

(42:26):
many gems are segregated to the bulky men lifting weights
and to the women doing cardio, much like a middle
school dance men on one side, women on the other.
And it's true that several surveys have found women avoid
lifting weights out of fear of getting to buff, which
is perceived as unattractive or even unnatural in our society.

(42:48):
Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson even suggested that women avoid weights
over three pounds. In Lorie Schultz wrote, the deliberately muscular
female body is dame risks and disturbs dominant notions of sex,
gender and sexuality, and any discressive field that includes her
risks opening up a side of contest and conflict, anxiety,

(43:09):
and ambiguity. So we have a lot of work to
do when it comes to dismantling all this gendered stuff
that we put in around body building and weightlifting and
f y I science says that you won't accidentally bulk up,
so don't worry about that. No, don't worry about that, okay.
So in conclusion, here's the thing. Working out is oddly vulnerable,

(43:30):
and sexism at the gym touches on so much more
than it seems on the surface, but there are positive things.
Trends show that jims are moving away from the men
lift weight, women do crunches approach. You can search hashtag
fits to gram to see all kinds of women looking
to put on some muscle. The hashtag gaining weight is

(43:52):
Cool had eighty thousand posts in October of lifting weights
and getting us six back. For sure is not attainable
for everyone, but it is positive that more women feel
comfortable doing it if it's something that they want to do.
Experts do warrn against treating one ideal for another, so
just keep that in mind when you're scrolling through these images.

(44:12):
Do not become obsessed with that ideal that is not
achievable for everybody, and something that I thought was really
interesting is that Saphian, the writer that we highlighted earlier,
she suggested hiring more female staff at Jim's with the
ultimate goal about split as a way to combat this
gym sexies them and to make the spaces more comfortable
for women. I would also add hire more gender nonconforming

(44:35):
folks just so everyone feels like they are represented and
welcome in these spaces. Yes, um, and if you are
able and have the body and the time and the
money to work out and the desire, because let's be real, um,
it sucks that so many women are avoiding a healthy
activity because they don't want to be her ass or
because they feel too insecure, and this is actually impacting health.

(44:58):
Good physical health ripples out to all source of things
like um getting better sleep, combating depression, increasing bone density,
better balance, decreased stress, lower risk of chronic diseases. Most
of us aren't going to gyms for the abs, but
they can be a good place to get these benefits,
the things that can improve your everyday life. And think

(45:18):
of the women. All of the women who could have
been great boxers are female weightlifters or bodybuilders that were
turned off of the gym from a bad experience or
who avoided the gym or weightlifting in particular because of
all of this stuff we've been talking about. And I
hadn't really appreciated how underrepresented women have been when it
comes to this until recently. How it's just assumed that

(45:39):
men will be more athletic than women. Yeah, asked someone
who boxes in her spare time. You know, I came
to boxing and because my dad box, and my brother box,
and my cream power box and boxing is a big
part of my family. And you know, being born a
woman did not mean that I got to escape the
family pastime of boxing. But for every woman who came

(45:59):
to it that way, there are probably women who are
just been turned off of the sport and just you know,
stopped doing it because of this. And you know, we
could be missing out on a really great female athlete
because of sexist nonsense. And think about um kids when
all these p classes and gym classes we've been talking about,

(46:19):
gym classes, apart from watching movies, they can be a
great learning opportunity for kids. If the gym teachers call
out any quote locker room talk, which admittedly only works
with the gym teacher. Also isn't sexist harass or what
have you. Studies show that girls are socialized, starting in
physical education classes, to think that they are less athletically

(46:42):
capable than boys and that less is expected of them
in that arena. It makes young girls feel and capable
and insecure with their bodies, and we need to start
changing that. And I personally had a horrible experience in
gym in middle school. There's this group of dudes that
named all of the girls after states. So the bigger
the boobs you had, the more mountainous state name you

(47:03):
would get and they'd shout it as you ran past,
which was really awful. So would be like Colorado was
like the big one you wanted was the so I have,
I'm completely flatchested, and I would have been Kansas. That's
like arrested development. There's a surfboard in the shot, yes exactly,

(47:24):
and it was. It made me very insecured. It made
me not want to participate, and it's also got me
thinking about tom Boys, which is usually a sporty girl
who likes comfortable clothes. How the masculine world of sports
fandom is legitimized, and sports that are seen as male
and those that are seen as female, like gymnastics, just
that whole thing, like how female sporting events are taken

(47:46):
less seriously received, less funding and subpart equipment. There's so
much going on here, so much, and it's all just
so gendered, and it reinforces this idea of the gender
buying area. Just it's just so it's just exhausting and tiring,
there's no other word for it. People should be encouraged

(48:06):
to pursue whatever athletic you know, past time they want
to and just having it work along this this gent
entire gender notion. It's just we just have to get
past it. Yeah, we really do. UM. We need to
save our energy for working out in the gym and

(48:28):
last for all of this gender nonsense. UM, if you're
nervous about going to the jam or uh yeah yeah,
working out in general, we have some suggestions, some quick suggestions. UM,
a workout plan is always good, so that like when
you come in, you know you want to hit these
certain machines or you want to do this for however
much amount of time. UM, if you if you want

(48:50):
to get into lifting weights, but you're you're worried about
going up to the machine and appearing like you don't
know what you're gonna do or how to work it.
You can always talk to somebody who works there, or
you can watch videos online or read tutorials online about
the machines you want to use before you go. UM
and for Gim's offering an orientation option for beginners to

(49:11):
reduce this invisible barrier at the gym. That would be
one thing. Diversifying gym space in terms of age and
body type, just so people see all sorts of different
people there and make it make all of us feel
more comfortable. I think I can say when I first
started lifting weights, I had a female partner and that
really helped me get over the intimidation factor, especially because

(49:31):
she already knew what she was doing and she taught me.
So if that's an option for you, If a workout
buddy is an option for you, I highly recommend that
UM And it's also good for accountability if that's something
you're worried about and you really do want to make
sure that you keep up to some kind of schedule.
We had a Google calendar we shared UM. But if

(49:52):
it is something that you want to do, we really
want you to be able to do it and feel
comfortable doing it. So yeah, and we shouldn't let sexist
nonsense stop us from a being healthy and getting in
shape or be just pursuing the athletic activities that we
want that we're drawn to, whether it's boxing, weightlifting, whatever,

(50:14):
you know, we shouldn't let this really dumb societal notion
and gendered bs keep us from doing the things that
we want to do in life. No, we shouldn't. And
we've heard from several listeners who who are weightlifters or
are casually or even professionally um who haven't let this
gender bs get in their way and the sexism get

(50:35):
in their way. And we would love to hear from
more of you. What has your experience been with the
GEM and physical education or sports anything like that. Um
We because we had a lot to say about the GEM,
We're gonna eskew listener mail, but it will be back
in the next episode, and if you want to email us,
you can. Our email is a mom Stuff at houstaf

(50:57):
works dot com and reveal double on social media. We're
on Instagram at stuff I'm Ever told You, and we're
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and you can check
out our new line of T shirts that you mentioned
in this episode at t public dot com, slash stores,
slash stuff Mom never told you. Yeah, we'd love to
have some design ideas from you guys. We could make

(51:18):
it happen. Thanks as always to Andrew Howard, our producer,
and thanks to you for listening.