Mostly, I love my fancy new gym.
But there is one way in which it chafes. It definitely rubs me the wrong way in terms of gender.
To be clear, it is a very gendered space.
I’ve written a bit about this before. See Gender is weird, or Sam’s first reflections on her fancy new gym
“I’ve been feeling more and more that I don’t belong in women only spaces. It’s not that I don’t identify as a woman. I do. But lots of the people I want to spend time with don’t. I don’t want to be in spaces that exclude them. Lots of my friends identify as gender queer or gender fluid or gender non binary and it feels different excluding them than it does excluding cis men.
I’m still thinking lots about this and I’m not sure what this means for me and my future in women only environments. I used to think it was okay as long as they were trans inclusive but that’s no longer enough for me, I think. And it’s not that I don’t think there should be such spaces but I am wondering more and more about my place in them.”
Lately where it’s been bugging me is in the regular weight room. There are an awful lot of men there and not very many women. But it’s not that there aren’t any women in the building.
The women-only part of the gym, accessed through the women’s change room, is hopping. But it doesn’t have the same range of equipment and it’s not as nice. I’ve never worked out there.
I know why they have it. There are women who for cultural and religious reasons don’t work out in front of men. And I’m glad there is a space for them.
The women’s workout area also has video access to the kid’s supervised play area. (But what about dads who want to watch their kids play while they work out?)
However, the existence of the women’s workout area means there are fewer women in the regular weight room. That space, which is enormous and very well-equipped, starts to feel like the men’s workout area, which it most definitely is not.
There’s a tension between inclusivity for women who need a women-only workout space and inclusivity in the gender-neutral space for those women who don’t want to work out only with other women. It’s a fine balance between creating safe spaces and unintentionally reinforcing the gender divide.
So many of my students now identity as gender non-binary that I wonder if this problem will just go away with time. I hope so.
(Again, thanks to MS’s co-pilot for help with the title!)
