Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Author: Diane Harper
Diane Harper is a retired former public servant who lives and swims (and bikes) in Ottawa. In her hobby life, she is Siglinde Harfnerstochter, a 6th C Merovingian housewife from the city of Metz. Her primary interests are cooking, textile arts and bonecarving. Siglinde lives in the canton of Caldrithig, Barony of Skraeling Althing, Kingdom of Ealdormere.
If you do an internet search on strength and mobility for aging, you will get many recommendations for exercises, and explanations about the importance of maintaining muscle mass or preventing falls, get up off the floor or reach objects that are stored up high.
Then there are all the social media “influencers” pushing “seniors” (often defined as people in their 40s and 50s) to lift heavy. They rarely define what they mean by heavy.
Personally, I just want to be fit enough to keep up with my grandson. I have had the pleasure of babysitting him for extended periods twice in the last month.
He weighs about 35 lb (14 kg). It’s not super heavy, but it is a wiggly, unstable weight to lift, carry upstairs or in and out of the tub, onto the change table, or just up onto my lap for a big hug and a story.
Then there are the aerobics: chasing after him in the playground, pushing him on the swings, climbing play structures.
Plus I have to work on mobility to get down on the floor to play cars and clean up all the messes- and be able to stand up quickly when he dashes away.
And walking! So much walking and pushing the stroller! I don’t even know what kind of fitness goes into wrestling a child-filled stroller on and off the bus without stumbling, but I felt like I used almost every muscle in my body (kneeling buses are great).
A happy grandson slides down a large curving red plastic slide.
I can’t wait to go back to Toronto and be that tired again.
Or is it? I was sure I had seen a post about saying it was, but can’t find it now. No matter: I rode to work anyway, for the first time in over a year.
It’s the beginning of fall, and a perfect time to ride. No heat, no bugs, and the leaves are just starting to turn where I live.
A woman cycles along a path with golden leaves on the nearby grass. She is wearing a backpack. Does it contain her lunch, computer, or maybe a change of clothes for the office?
Now that one little “day” has me back on my bike, I am planning to “ride the thermometer down” so that I can be sure to do International Winter Bike to Work Day on February 12, 2027.
Sam’s post about her new knee’s fourth anniversary reminded me I have a small anniversary of my own. In a few days, I’ll be celebrating five months since my heart valve repair.
Sam’s posts about the importance of pre-hab and rehab helped me be as fit as possible before surgery, though they didn’t fully prepare me for the frustration of not healing as quickly as I wanted.
My cardiologist tells me I’m doing just fine and need to be patient with myself. Yeah right. Like that’s going to happen…
I still get out of breath when walking, but it may be because I’m going faster because now I’m passing people on the sidewalk. I am back to work, having passed all my fitness tests (I even knocked a second off my sprint time).
Diane, wet from the pool and suffering from goggle eyes, but with a happy grin on her face.
As promised, I have started doing exercise snacks at work. Those little swims between times of active lifeguarding are turning out to be rather addictive. I’m also back to weekly swim practice with my club, as well as ballet, Pilates and jazz classes.
Sleep remains a challenge. It is finally starting to be restful but now that I’m back to all my activities, I need to work on getting to bed early so I can sleep longer. I no longer have the luxury of sleeping late or having an afternoon nap.
An alarm clock showing it’s almost 7:00 in the foreground, with an out-of-focus woman sleeping in the background. If this were actually me, I would be late for work.
Hopefully this will be my last health update for a while. The cardiac rehab folks told me I don’t need to do rehab with them because I’m already doing plenty. My cardiologist wants to see me in about six months, but anticipates releasing me back to my family doctor for regular care after that.
Maybe I can knock a few more seconds off my sprint time by then. That’s the goal, anyway.
I have been interested in the history of swimming for a very long time. During the pandemic, I even recorded a series of videos demonstrating each of the strokes described in Everard Digby’s 1587 book “De Arte Natandi” (The Art of Swimming).
One of the best books around on swimming history is Karen Eva Carr’s “Shifting Currents”, a world history of swimming. It looks at evidence for swimming that dates back thousands of years. It also looks at why Europeans didn’t swim for centuries, and how important swimming was around much of the world.
Yet today, we often think of swimming as very European/North American, while African and Asian swimmers, in particular, seem rare.
When I lifeguarded as a teen, I remember there being exactly one Black man who came for lane swims. I never saw another non-white swimmer; not at lane swims, public swims, or taking lessons.
I have written about swimming as a transgressive activity in the context of women and larger-bodied swimmers. But there is an important history of excluding minorities as well. One of the most powerful moments in the American Civil Rights Movement came on June 18, 1964, when Black and White protesters went into a Whites-only pool in Florida together. A photograph of the owner pouring acid into the pool to force them out helped galvanize the Senate to pass the Civil Rights Act the next day, after an 83-day filibuster.
A black and white photo shows then 17-year old Mimi Jones and two other protesters screaming as James Brock pours acid into the pool. Photo: Bettmann/Corbis
More recently, women wearing modest swimsuits have been targeted. Tracy wrote about it here.
I have really noticed how the currents have shifted in recent years. Most of the people during public swims at my pool are from visible minority communities, and Burkini-clad hijabi women sometimes make up 10% of the patrons. Some pools also offer girls/women-only lessons and swim times.
My swim classes are made up mostly of students who are either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. My social media is filled with stories of excited adults (most of whom are Black) who are finally learning to swim.
We’re not where we need to be yet. But I like to think that we may be better n the way to truly inclusive spaces at our swimming pools.
I rode about 14 km total in Toronto last week, most on bike lanes. The total distance was less than 10 km, since I rode much of the same route going to and from my destination. A good chunk was on Bloor, which was busy, with many more bikes parked at bike racks alongside the road. Bikes are efficient, so lots of people got where they were going, then parked to go shopping or work.
I love this image because it shows several ordinary commuter bikes parked at bike racks, plus people on bikes at the intersection ahead, and a person in an electric wheelchair using the bike lane. The lane itself is wide enough that people can pass safely, and it is physically separated from the road.
On that stretch of Bloor, I saw two ghost bikes, plus one on Dundas. For those who don’t know, a ghost bike is a memorial for a person killed by a person in a car or truck, while riding their bicycle. Three in the short distance I rode is a shockingly high number.
The ghost bike on Dundas Street
But the Ontario government is starting to rip out the bike lanes following a court case. They are knowingly putting the lives of citizens at greater risk. And yes, it is “knowingly”.
According to the CBC “Internal documents from the Transportation Ministry that were made public as part of a court challenge to Bill 212 — the legislation that gave the province sweeping control over municipal bike lanes — …include a report prepared by engineering and urban planning firm CIMA+, which said collisions for all road users could increase upwards of 54 per cent if bike lanes are removed, based on existing research.”
The irony of ripping out an excellent climate change mitigation measure and then being hit by a major storm last week is also not lost on me.
Protected bike lanes and safe sidewalks are essential public safety infrastructure, not luxury amenities.
Downtown Toronto multi-unit housing (whether condos or apartments) are being built with less and less parking, and more people are relying on transit, biking and walking. Removing bike lanes without looking at how people actually get around the city doesn’t make sense.
The proposed alternative of moving some bike lanes to side streets will add significant distance compared to the current route, with lots of turns and street crossings that don’t have signals. Why not move the cars to the side streets instead? They can navigate that extra distance more easily than a person taking a couple of kids to school or the library on a cargo bike. Or someone with panniers full of groceries.
Nine years ago, Premier Ford said felt safer in a bike lane. Now, people who aren’t brave enough to take on Toronto traffic will be forced to abandon cycling as a transportation option. I don’t live in Toronto, but I visit often and love riding around the city to explore or do errands. I have even blogged about it.
I’ll leave you with one last image from this report on the court decision. It was taken by Patrick Morrell of the CBC. Assuming each car has the average 1.5 people, compare the space for those 5 cars vs the fourteen cyclists.
Five vehicles take up two lanes of traffic. A third lane is dedicated to parked cars. To the right, fourteen people on bicycles are in less space than a single car lane.
It’s the weirdest thing, and I’m not even sure when it happened. Lately, no matter how tired I am, I feel compelled to move.
Once I’m moving, I sometimes feel energized for a while. Other times, I keep chugging away, even as my brain is telling me it’s okay to stop (and the rest of my body emphatically supports the brain).
I know that part of this is habit after years of commuting by bike to work, plus various dance classes and swim practice each week. The 22_ workouts in 202_ challenge has reinforced my tendency to want to move every single day. I see everyone else’s joyful pictures and activity reports and I want to do things too.
There is absolutely no logic to it. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of people participate and post. Most post no more than a few times a week. I think Sam is the only one who consistently does at least one thing every day. But do I think that it’s okay to take a rest day? No! Because people (not the same people) are posting every day and therefore I must post.
So, I’m trying to take a page out of Christine’s habits: be kind to myself, and give myself a gold star when I sit back on the couch like Milo, even if I’m still playing with something (usually knitting, not a kitty toy like Milo).
Milo, a great and white cat who alternates between intense action and total chill, is flipped on his back on the couch, playing with one of his favourite toys.
The National Capital Commission has opened several swim spots that are proving very popular, helping turn Ottawa-Gatineau into much more enjoyable river cities. The first was the River House, which opened in 2023. I wrote a bit about it here, after my first visit. Last year, it opened another one on Dow’s Lake, and this summer we got spots at the Museum of History in Gatineau and one at the base of Kiweki Point, right where the Rideau Canal empties into the Ottawa River.
I hadn’t made it to Dow’s Lake last year, or visited the new spots this year, so last week I headed out by bike with my friend Florence so we could try them all before they closed for the season.
We didn’t swim long at any of the venues but it still took us almost four hours to complete the route.
The first image shows the location of each of the swim spots and the Econ shows our route to get there. Most of the way was on NCC bike paths.Clockwise from top left: Diane jumps in at Dow’s lake, then at the Museum of History (with Parliament Hill in the background), Florence and Diane head in together below Kiweki Point (with the Museum of History and Alexandra Bridge in the background), and Florence and Diane at River House.
To finish off, we joined a couple of swim club mates for an easy loop around a small private lake. That took us to a little over 1800 M of swimming for the day.
Florence floats in the water as Diane collapses backwards off the dock on a lake surrounded by trees, with blue skies and fluffy clouds overhead.
Strava tells me that ride was my longest in 2026. In fact, it was about 26.5 km for the day (my phone died for the last bit). That makes it my longest ride since 2024.
My conclusions?
The new swim spots are great. In addition to clean water, plus some swim lanes and islands for floating on or jumping off, they all have decent bike parking, lots of chairs/benches with pleasant views, and places to get food and drink nearby.
Silly challenges like this are the best way to get me moving, especially with friends.
Back in 2022, Dr Sheree Bekker, who researches gender and sport, said “Non-binary people are not a problem in women’s sport. They are meant to distract us from the real issues facing women’s sport. The medicalization of women in sport for what is perceived as the legitimate female athletes has harmed all female athletes.”
Thankfully, the historical fencing and armoured combat sports my friends enjoy have not been infected with transphobia. That’s my friend Lynette, a woman of trans medical history on the left, fencing another woman. She’s a really good fencer, but she’s not invincible. (Photos used with permission from Lynette)
Now in 2026, we are really seeing what Dr Bekker predicted.
In March, the International Olympic Committee announced a new policy that “Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening.” It was not supposed to apply to grassroots and recreational sports programs.
In June, the US Supreme Court ruled that State bans on transgender athletes in female school and college sports are allowed, despite Title IX, which bans sex-based discrimination in schools. Twenty-seven states now have bans on transgender participation in school athletics.
Shortly afterwards, the Heritage Foundation—the right-wing think tank—published a report calling for the rollback of the Title IX protections that have driven the explosion in popularity of women’s sports in the USA.
You can read the full paper for yourself, but one key point for me is that schools should be allowed to “accommodate sex differences” by replacing competitive women’s sports opportunities with “cheerleading, dance, yoga, hiking clubs, recreational intramurals, and other athletic opportunities more aligned with average female interests and tendencies.”
I have no issue with any of those activities, but do not appreciate them being considered “more aligned with average female interests and tendencies.” In fact, I see them as mostly welcoming spaces for all genders. My university cheerleading team had male cheerleaders when I started there way back in 1980. Dance schools and professional ballet companies go out of their way to recruit, train and retain male dancers.
And hiking? I associate that with Girl Guides, an organization that has been subversively feminist since its inception; the place where I and my friends learned the value of cooperation and supporting other women and girls (and also lots of useful skills). To learn more, I recommend this book:
Book cover for How the Girl Guides Won the War, showing guides in blue uniforms playing a game of blanket toss.
There have also been allegations that since January 2025, the Office for Civil Rights in the US Department of Education has lost half its employees and regional offices, and failed to enter into any agreements addressing sexual assault or harassment in schools. Many of these cases involved girls in sport being harassed or assaulted by boy and men (but, notably, not trans women).
Through all of this, sports media has been obsessing about trans women in professional sport, “even though there are currently no trans women athletes in any major women’s professional league or on track to enter the leagues any time soon….[and] there is no trans woman dominating at professional—or any level, for that matter—women’s sports (source: Xtra Magazine).
It’s a pity, because professional women’s sport is booming. We have the WNBA, a new baseball league, four team expansion in the PWHL, and the Northern Super League in soccer. My PWHL team, the Ottawa Charge, is moving to the venue used by the Ottawa Senators this year because their old arena is just too small.
Xtra also reports that “In Washington state, spurred by this endless discourse cycle, a new policy is going to public vote that will subject children to invasive genital examinations if they want to play sports. Voters will head to the ballot box to weigh in on the policy this fall, and if it passes, kids from kindergarten to high school will be subjected to genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test or an examination of their reproductive anatomy at their yearly sports physical.”
We need gender inclusive sport that is safe for all women and girls, and we need the media to pay attention to the real issues that are making sports unsafe for them.
We talk a lot here about physical fitness and health, and frequently about mental health. This week, though, I have been thinking a lot about financial health. Or at least about having my financial affairs in order.
I’m some ways, my financial things are pretty straightforward. I worked for the federal government for most of my career, so there was only one pension to worry about, and I’m already collecting that. I have a will (it was actually a requirement before my first posting abroad). But there have been other bits and pieces of information that I really should put together someplace where my kids can find it: I have a bit of money in other financial institutions, an RRSP I set up years ago with a out-of-town friend who has long-since retired, account numbers and passwords for everything from the hydro bill to credit cards.
And I need to figure out how to keep it all up to date (lesson learned from my dad, who kept records of everything including the adoption of our family dog in 1969 in his handy binder of key information, but had not updated info on an insurance policy so it took me a over year to track it down to get it paid out).
I have questions too. Do I need to keep some sort of proof of ownership for my cottage and house, or will that require a title search anyway before the kids can take over and sell them? What do I want to happen with my cats?
And my books? I have some that are probably of value because they are rare and out of print, but they are pretty niche. I have promised the kids I would provide the names of a few friends who might be interested in them. I’ll provide a list of those I think would be worth reselling or passing on to a museum. But if they choose to just dump them? I have promised I won’t be offended because I’ll be dead.
The same general principle applies to my craft supplies and the furniture I love because it came from my grandparents, assuming I haven’t yet downsized myself.
Speaking of being dead, I should add funeral plans to my list and make sure the kids know my wishes (and if I arrange a pre-paid thing, ensure they know where to find that information).
It feels overwhelming to deal with all these details, on top of managing Mom’s financial affairs. But each time I get through a little task, the mental burden lifts a bit.
This week’s achievement was moving furniture from Mom’s and my houses to the cottage. I finally have a proper bedroom and place to eat, and both Mom’s basement and the room I use for my fitness studio are significantly less cluttered. It was definitely a workout loading up a van then getting into the cottage from the parking area.
My cottage bedroom, finally with a dresser and a proper bed. One of my grandma’s crocheted throws is at the end, with my cat Pandora sitting on it.
I spent much of the rainy long weekend relaxing on that bed, alternating with making lists of next steps to ensure my financial health.
How about you? Do you have all your financial information and wishes organized and accessible? Or is it something you dread contemplating?
All of us who swim, do Aquafit, or just enjoy hanging out at the beach or pool with loved ones, are grateful that you are there to help keep us safe.
A woman wearing a lifeguard pinny, sunglasses and a hat sits atop a large lifeguard structure at a beach. There are palm trees in the background and two red rescue tubes at the base of the structure.
