Coordinating the blog means that a lot of the social media content that comes my way is women’s fitness-related. I get inspirational posts about fitness and how-tos, race videos and analysis, and discussions and commentary on women’s fitness and fitness motivation. However, you look at it, it’s a lot.
This weekend I was struck by two posts, and I want to know what you think about them.
Here’s the first:
You can read the whole thing here, focusing on women athletes “inspiring little girls” is sexist.
If you’re new to women’s sports, you may be noticing how concerned the coverage and marketing of these leagues are with the next generation of players, the “little girls” who are watching and being inspired by their favorite athletes. When these leagues were first selling out arenas, I could maybe understand (and forgive) this focus. But as we are several years into the proof that women’s sports can sell out arena, this narrative is beginning to feel shallow and deeply sexist.
The tension between how women’s sports are being covered and how they perhaps should be covered bubbled over in last night’s post-game press conference following the Boston Fleet/Montréal Victoire matchup at TD Garden. The game had been played in front of a sold out crowd, a huge milestone for the Fleet and definitely a huge moment for the players. The game was also a matchup between the two best teams in the PWHL, with perhaps the two best goalies in the world.
The first three questions for Fleet players Megan Keller and Aerin Frankel were variations on the same question:
“Also kind of redundant, but what do you think young players can learn from the game tonight and the entire PWHL as a whole?”
“What does playing in a venue like TD Garden say about the growth of the PWHL?”
“A little redundant, but just being here and seeing the young girls with the signs, the older women who never thought they would get to see women’s sports celebrated like this—how much does a night like tonight remind you that what you’re doing is bigger than just hockey?”
At first, I thought they were exaggerating. Anyway, go read the whole post. It’s more complicated than you might think from the first slide.
We often do things for multiple motives, and surely it’s not so bad if one of those motives is to help others. I’m proud of my academic achievements and the things I’ve done in my career, but I’m also happy when young women undergraduates say they find my career inspiring. But I don’t do them to be a good role model–that’s just a side-effect of what I do. And at first, that’s how I felt about women athletes inspiring young girls to stick with sports. It’s not why they do it, but it’s a good thing that young girls are inspired.
And then I saw this post,
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DW9AsbCjoBC
And I began to think that women’s fitness and sports and motivation is more complicated. In the case of serious women athletes, there’s the young girls and inspiring the next generation narrative. In the case of everyday exercisers and regular women who work out, there’s the narrative about working out because it’s better for our families if we’re fit.
I thought, well, actually, what if I am exercising for me, so I can do the things I love. Is that so selfish? Is it so wrong to care about my future for me?
I’ve never thought that I should work out so my kids can look after themselves and not worry about taking care of me.
I exercise for me — so I can do the things I love, feel strong, feel capable, feel alive in my body. Not to be a good role model. Not to inspire the next generation. And definitely not so I won’t be a burden.
That last one deserves a closer look, because it comes up constantly in women’s fitness motivation, and it bothers me more than the little-girls framing does. At least “inspire the next generation” is positive and other-directed in a way that’s generous. “Stay fit so you don’t burden your family” quietly tells women our own well-being doesn’t count on its own terms. You’re allowed to care about your health — but only instrumentally, only in service of others, only so you don’t inconvenience anyone. It smuggles in a moral hierarchy where women’s needs are legitimate only when they’re actually someone else’s needs in disguise.
And as I’ve written before, it’s also bad reasoning. See What does 74 look like? And how much choice do we have really? and FFS, I don’t deserve my health.
Whether you’ll need significant care in old age is far more about genetic luck than about lifestyle. The people I’ve known who needed the most help did nothing wrong. They ate well, they moved their bodies, they slept, they lived. Illness and decline don’t arrive as punishment for neglect. Pretending otherwise doesn’t motivate better health habits. There’s no need to add shame to an already hard situation.
So here’s what I want to say plainly: it is okay to work out for yourself. To want to be strong because strength feels good. To want to keep cycling because you love cycling. To care about your future self not because she’ll be easier for others to care for, but because she’s you, and you matter.
Women are allowed to have self-directed reasons for the things we do — in sports, in fitness, in life. That’s not selfishness. That’s just being a full person.
What do you think?
