I want to get a workout in today. Should I go to the gym? No, that’s too scary.
Actually, never mind, I'll go lift so I can feel strong and productive.
Ok now that I’m here I’m really nervous.
I kinda want to go home, but I'll just go inside anyway. I can do this!
Oh. My. God. It’s packed. Look at all these zoned in people with bulging muscles who know exactly what they’re doing. I don’t even know how to use all the machines. I’m definitely not gonna try because what if I do it wrong and everyone sees? I don’t even want to do free weight exercises anymore because what if I get the form wrong and everyone looks at me like I’m a fool?
Ugh ok, ok power through you like working out.
Let's start with some deadlifts.
But what if everyone is checking out my ass when I bend over? Should I do a different exercise? Damn! That person is using the 100 pound dumbbells at the bottom of the rack! I’m lifting half as much. What if they think I’m weak, incapable, that I don’t belong here?
It feels like they take up all the space, pushing me into a corner to do my silly little exercises and go, so I don’t have to deal with their looming presence anymore.
At this point, I am clutching my dented blue water bottle tight to my chest while my fingers fiddle with my airpod case as I scan the room, trying to find a little corner to do my exercises in where I'll be out of the way. I feel an overwhelming sense of intimidation when I see the men who dominate the weight room. They are big, strong, tall men who lift super heavy weights and slam them down on the floor when they are done with a set. Men who grunt loudly as they maneuver their heavy load. Men who seem to constantly flex in the mirror, admiring their gains. They just can’t get enough of their swole biceps and bulging quads. They also sometimes smell really bad and sweat profusely all over the equipment, but that's a different thing. It feels like they take up all the space, pushing me into a corner to do my silly little exercises and go, so I don’t have to deal with their looming presence anymore.
……
I remember being at the checkout line as a little girl with my mom in the grocery store, staring at the magazines on the racks. The men’s fitness magazines featured jacked men on the cover with captions about building muscle and getting ripped like some hot male celebrity. Next to Chris Hemswroth’s abs, the women’s fitness magazines featured slim women on the cover with captions promoting readers to lose weight quickly, kiss their love handles goodbye, or achieve a flat stomach. Similarly, some “sexy” female celebrity like Jenniffer Aniston would be gazing at me out of the glossy front cover.
Both magazines enforced the idea that a person’s body was tied to either their masculinity or femininity, which aligned with their sex. Being a big, strong man was associated with being masculine. It was associated with being someone who could provide, protect, and dominate. These ideas manifest in the desire to have a built body, as if the big and dominant male persona coincides with one’s physical largeness.
It is as if we are expected to make room for the men, to shrink down our bodies and physical presence to clear space for their superior existence.
Women on the other hand, are traditionally expected to be submissive. We are expected to be demure, not too loud or outspoken, allowing men to make the first move and pay on dates so as not to emasculate them, and to have nice manners. To be a woman is to be soft, agreeable, and pleasurable. It is as if we are expected to make room for the men, to shrink down our bodies and physical presence to clear space for their superior existence.
But why?
Why would my parents ask one of my brothers to help them lift something heavy, as if I couldn't because I was a girl? When visiting my grandma and taking out the trash at her apartment, I would pick up multiple trash bags at once, and she would protest, telling me to put them down and give some to my brothers. I inevitably would not listen, and carry the “heavy” (it really wasn’t that heavy, Grandma) trash bags despite her instructions. Why were my brothers allowed to be strong while I was assumed to be weak?
During lockdown, I did my field hockey workouts via Zoom in the backyard. I used my dad’s weights from the basement and, when my mom saw me lifting them, she suggested I put them down and switch them out for lighter weights. “You don’t want to get too bulky, Bailey,” she said. If I was working out in order to maintain my fitness for a sport, why should the focus be on the way I looked rather than maintaining my health and strength? Of course, I protested, inevitably annoying my mom as I usually do when I refuse to listen to her suggestions. Annoyance was warranted as she is usually right (which I typically find out later), but not in this rare case.
My mom has always been strong herself, as I know from my dad’s proud tales of how she would go for miles-long runs, even after she had just given birth to my older brother.
In fact, it was my mother who raised me to see myself as an equal, to never accept unjust treatment, and to NEVER not do something just because someone made me think I couldn't. Both my parents encouraged me to play sports. They always showed up to my games, pushing me to do extra practice because they knew I could be better. My mom has always been strong herself, as I know from my dad’s proud tales of how she would go for miles-long runs, even after she had just given birth to my older brother. So why do strong (physically and mentally), independent, and confident women like my mom still believe that women should lift lighter weights, and that somehow being too bulky is a bad thing for a woman?
Clearly, there is an accepted idea that, if men are supposed to be the strong ones, there is no room for anyone else to be strong, too. This is, quite frankly, exhausting.
The girlies are tired of these lies!! Femm people should not think the only purpose of exercise is to slim down. There should not be a stopping point for our strength progression before we get too “big.” No one is forcing this narrative on men.
We do not need to make ourselves smaller to make room for anyone else. Women can be big, too.
Women and femme people are allowed to go to the gym to get strong, and not just to slim down. We are allowed to go to the gym and take up space. We should not feel like we need to shrink into a corner because we don’t know what we are doing. So, the next time I go to the gym, I will make the following promises to myself, and I encourage all the non-men to do it with me:
I will allow myself to take up space.
I will allow myself to focus on exercises that will make me feel strong, not ones that will make me look a certain way.
I won’t be intimidated by all the massive men in the gym, because it is not shameful if I lift less than them.
Most importantly, I will remember that I belong here, too, and I won't be afraid to get big and strong.
