How my gym views women

[shabach67]

@debyfabienne I actually stopped going to a gym a while ago. I live in the US and too many men would tell me “to smile” I’m like; “I’m lifting weights, why the heck would I smile!” I got fed up and just go to yoga and lift at home. Then I noticed a guy almost follow me into the locker room. I stopped and looked dead center at him and abruptly turned around. My yoga studio just started a new class that’s circuit training so 2 circuits 4 rounds a minute a workout. I started doing that 3-4 times a week. They have upper/lower and full body workouts.

 

[debyfabienne]

@shabach67 That’s absolutely terrifying about the guy following you. But that yoga class sounds dope! I would like to find something like that

 

[shabach67]

@debyfabienne There’s an online free video from Nourish Move Love that I get all my circuits from. She’s amazing! If you don’t mind lifting at home.

 

[debyfabienne]

@shabach67 Not at all. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[yurtiestv]

@debyfabienne I might be misunderstanding the first poster, but it seems to be going for a "haha, our women are stronger than you" sort of thing. Which on the surface might look encouraging to women, but I don't like the implication that being weaker than a woman is something to be ashamed of.

 

[nebula1]

@yurtiestv No, it’s definitely not. Frequently women are stronger than men in a gym setting

 

[theodoulos]

@nebula1 Do you live on a different planet…?

 

[nebula1]

@theodoulos A woman with 10+ years of training experience is frequently stronger than 16 year old boys just starting out. I was literally squatting 100kg this morning and the boy beside me was squatting 50. Maybe you live on a different planet?

 

[theodoulos]

@nebula1 A 5 year old is stronger than a newborn baby, not sure I get your point. Women aren’t “frequently” stronger than men who go to the gym as much as they do.

 

[nebula1]

@theodoulos Sure if everything was equal then most men would be stronger but it never is equal. I think it’s easy for women to overplay the strength differences when women are only around 25% weaker (at least that’s the scale my gym uses). This is not a huge gap between men and women when you take training age, natural abilities and body size into account. In my gym women frequently have more weight on the bar than men. Edit: this is also due to women doing heavy lunges and hip thrusts and men doing 5 different kinds of bicep curls and bench press

 

[sylk]

@yurtiestv I think that’s what it’s clumsily trying to say, but I agree with OP that it reinforces the idea that women need to pick up after men and passes the buck on to others to uphold etiquette standards. I’m in North America and I’ve noticed the people at my gym that lack basic gym etiquette are overwhelmingly male. Many women already don’t feel like they belong in free weights sections anyway. The ad is just gross.

 

[debyfabienne]

@yurtiestv I’ve also debated that interpretation of it, but there’s a couple things that have me leaning away. First, is the amount of weight on her back is laughable from anything beyond beginner/rehabilitation weight. And second, taken in combination with the other posters and programs, it seems unlikely that’s what they mean. I would love to be wrong. But even if I am wrong, why suggest women will clean up after others?

 

[mcmuhammed]

@debyfabienne I read the sign in German before reading your translation and I definitely read it as "bro, if are too weak to pick up your weights to clean them up, the girls here can pick them up for you". I didn't read any of the other stuff into it. That said, it's still playing on the shaming men by putting women's strength down, but not as bad as what you're reading into it.

The photo is just weird though lol. And the other sign is also silly. I assume they assume it's usually men not cleaning up...

 

[baberean2]

@debyfabienne She is lifting little weight because a photo shoot takes quite some time and it’s hard to pose with working set weight. Also I didn’t know it was cool to disregard people for lifting little weight.

 

[dawn16]

@debyfabienne Yeah, I think you just misunderstood the meaning here - the idea is not that they're asking women to clean up after men, but rather that they're chiding men for not cleaning up after themselves and joking "if you're too weak to do it, maybe [obvious weakling] can do it!" It is super gross and sexist but not in the way you think.

 

[sylk]

@dawn16 “The girls will happily do it for you”? Historically, women were homemakers and the issue of unequal division of domestic duties is still relevant today. Women aren’t happy about picking up the slack for lazy and inconsiderate men. The creator of the ad is the one who is misunderstanding— not the OP.

 

[catmom87]

@debyfabienne The intention is definitely joking and meant to guilt the men to put away weights themselves so as not to be perceived as weaker than the women.

Which… is, at best, only very marginally better of an interpretation, but it isn’t intentionally implying that women are supposed to be cleaning up after the men.

 

[dawn16]

@debyfabienne The fawning sign is extra gross! The women are not a trophy to be won by being a baseline decent human being.