The latest outrageous assault on Men’s Rights? Well, according to more than a thousand upvoters* on Reddit, it’s this: some gym somewhere might be considering women only hours in its weight room to accommodate women who feel uncomfortable lifting amongst men.
A female MRA who goes by the name of stuck_at_starbucks came to the Men’s Rights subreddit with this tale of anti-male injustice from her local gym:
I was on the treadmill and saw two women start walking towards the weight room, then stop at the entrance and one if them said, “oh nooooo, we can’t go in there, there’s men!” They started complaining that it “wasn’t fair” that they “couldn’t use the weight room ” and took it to the front desk. The manager came out and told them that they were considering having girls only hours for the weight room.
Naturally, the Men’s Rightsers responded to this with the calm, reasoned comments for which they have become so famous. Ah, who am I kidding: they posted nearly 300 comments that ran the gamut from screechy outrage to, well, slightly-less screechy outrage.
Bilbuthehobbit won nearly two dozen upvotes by complaining that these “those bitches with 40 IQ should stop hitting the gym and hit the local library to get dem brain juices flowin.”
A number of commenters suggested that women-only hours would be the virtual equivalent of Jim Crow laws. Ghebert001 took it as a great opportunity to pull out the n-word:
![ghebert001 9 points 1 day ago (13|4) Essentially it boils down to "We can't use the weight room with those filthy niggers in there. We need a time that's only for whites". permalink save report give gold reply [–]carniemechanic 5 points 1 day ago (5|0) You've captured the essence of it.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gher.png?ssl=1)
Others contemplated some kind of civil disobedience to fight this as-yet-nonexistent policy:
![Aaron565 7 points 1 day ago (7|0) Meh, I would just show up during women only hours. It would be great to watch their faces churn. permalink save parent report give gold reply [–]cynwrig 4 points 18 hours ago (4|0) Instead of a sit-in, you can call it a 'lift-in'.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/aaron.png?ssl=1)
Nightforker suggested that the complaining women were probably just lazy fatties anyway:
While Vaker extended a similar analysis to “most women.”
Gosh, I wonder why some women might see themselves as unwelcome in male-dominated gyms?
But my favorite exchange in the whole thread was this one, in which BlueOak9 argued that what the complaining lady needed was some good old-fashioned forced labor:
![blueoak9 14 points 1 day ago (14|0) Drag her out to work on a road crew. She'll get all the anaerobic exercise she could ever need. permalink save report give gold reply [–]Happypants 21 points 1 day ago* (22|1) And pretty much every guy will ignore the fact that she's a woman just like pretty much every guy in that weight room would have. I worked in garages for years. The only women that ever got sexually harassed were the ones up front who used their tits to sell tires. The women who came into the shop, worked, and showed the were worth their weight got the same treatment any of the guys did (probably a little bit better... never saw one get smacked in the vag as she came around a corner).](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/blue.png?ssl=1)
Yep, that’s right, 21 upvotes for a comment suggesting that the only women who get sexually harassed in garages more or less deserve it because they “use their tits to sell tires.”
Remember: the Men’s Rights subreddit by and large represents the more moderate wing of the Men’s Rights movement. This is what moderate MRAs look like.
* The post in question, last I checked, had gotten 1130 upvotes and 305 downvotes for a net 825 upvotes.
And that’s partly because male hostility has created so many de facto male-only places. Like weight rooms where women don’t feel safe or welcome.
Also! I will never go the gym unless a) I’m in “guy mode” or b) I easily pass as a girl. If you folks think that cis women have a lot of shit to deal with from men who harass them in the gym (and they certainly do), just think about what trans women have to deal with. Not only do they face the same casual ogling nad transmisogyny that they face everywhere else, but they also have to deal with assholes who ridicule trans women for “being just like men” due to working out. As if a trans woman’s participation in a gym has nothing to do with her own desire and everything to do with some dormant manliness that apparently all trans women have just because of their genitalia.
Whether she’s a trans woman is going to the gym for strength training or a trans woman is in a self-defense class to defend herself from chasers and abusers – it’s all because deep down “‘she’ is a ‘he’!” Every time we express anger or resistance in any form, someone out there is going to take the opportunity to highlight our indignation as “proof” of our inherent maleness. Disgusting.
My old gym had a women’s only workout room in the ladies locker room. They gents lucked out. They got a steam room instead. We only got a dry sauna. (I don’t care for dry saunas.) It was there because some women feel self conscious working out with men. Some of them have been conditioned to never make funny faces, sweat or even be seen looking the way people look when they work out, in front of men. Others don’t want to risk being hit on or bullied. If they had to take that risk, they’d just refuse to use the gym.
The whiners are not being harmed by women having a safe space to get fit. They just hate women and anything that improves our quality of life. They’re the same sort of guys who whine about Black History month.
I never understand this. One example that springs to mind is watching women olympic swimming on television in a public place where every time they had a close-up shot of a female body there would be noises or someone would make a lewd comment. I notice the same whenever people online discuss women tennis and volleyball (or yoga pants for that matter). I’m sure these people must realize how obnoxious they are, but it doesn’t seem to stop them as they always get validation for their behavior. I think if more people called them on it (as opposed to, say, reddit massively upvoting and applauding every stupid yoga pants remark) it would stop.
trans commie,
I’m sure it is much harder for transwomen. A dear friend of mine is a transwoman and because she spent her youth trying not to be “discovered”, she had lots of stereotypically masculine hobbies. She played football, wrestled and learned several kinds of martial arts. She would be the most reckless and tough to pass as a “boy”. I’m sure there are people who think that is “proof” of her gender being the one she was assigned at birth, but it isn’t. It’s a result of her desperately hiding her femininity. She still has some of those hobbies. Women can and do enjoy rough and tumble hobbies too. :p People can be so closed minded and stupid.
btw, it’s a bit naive to think mra’s would not know weightlifting lingo given their worship of it, they’re not that dumb that they would use ‘anaerobic exercise’ wrongly
oh, look its ye olde you need to be responsible to your safety/how dare you offend us with the precautions you take for your safety paradox. haven’t seen that since yesterday.
This pisses me off almost as much as the transphobic paradox that often accompanies it; when people try to exclude transpeople from sex-segregated facilities because they fear trans people will exploit their position to ‘gain secret access to the “opposite”(SERIOUS AIR QUOTES) sex. Frequently, in the transmisogynist form”Oh noes, the transwomen will assault our ciswomen with their secret penises” (and usually also accompanied by the homophobic variant; “just like the gayz want to perv on me in our locker room” fear.)
I work out at a coed gym, predominately in the women’s only area. It’s not because I think EVERY dude there is going to perv on me, but because some have and it’s really inappropriate and unattractive. Once a guy sat atop a pile of gym-mats and stared intently at a group of women doing boot camp exercises. I was in the class and felt really uncomfortable. It got so bad that one of the trainers (a guy) had to tell him to leave! This isn’t some kind of sweeping generalization about men in gyms because I believe the majority are really there to work out. Rather, it’s a justifiable reaction to a persistent problem with a minority of the gym’s patrons. Unless the “women’s only” work out hours are during all peak times so men can’t use the equipment, I don’t see a problem. More than likely they’re an hour or so a day during a non-busy time
@misery
You’re assuming we believe everything that MRAs say, let alone that they’re all in shape and up on gym lingo.
Really, there’s three options:
1: Women-only hours/rooms.
2: The gym takes a really, really aggressive zero-tolerance policy towards creeping, leering and harassment, so that women feel safe at all times.
3: Women leave and find someplace that provides at least one of the other two.
Only one of these options is likely to cost the gym significant amounts of money. Welcome to capitalism, lads–sucks being on the other foot for once, eh?
This reminds me of the time I took an intro yoga class at university. Forty nine women in yoga pants and me. Very relaxing for me, as I had no distractions. I now wonder if any of the women noticed that I did no ogling.
Also, the weight room in the gym had a coterie of the bull-necked sweaters, who had to be repeatedly warned not to drop the weights. One particularly beefy specimen had been loudly grunting through his workout, and finally finished with a might UGH (clang). There was a round of sarcastic golf clapping.
Robert,
*In my best Shepard Book voice* There is a special place in hell for people who drop weights. It’s right next to the people who talk during movies.
Planet Fitness has a “Lunk Alarm” siren that goes off whenever someone grunts, drops weights, or judges. In addition to the siren, they get a public scolding about gym etiquette.
…Is there an actual physiological reason for bellowing like a rutting water buffalo when hoisting weights? Or is it a Monica Seles psych-up technique?
Assuming the poor guy doesn’t smother…yikes!
Oh gods, the pounding music in gyms. My few months of going to a women’s gym came to an end partly because being told to “put more aggression into it!” when I was just doing weights (the machine sort, not actual things you pick up) or aerobic exercises was really offensive, and partly because I got sick to death of having my eardrums assaulted by fucking awful loud crap.
(I hate having exercise, simple physical effort, coded as something that requires aggression. Aggression to me means hostility. There’s no pleasure in it. Loud music, especially the thumping kind, is stress city, and stirs up genuine hostility to whoever’s doing it. I don’t want to experience either – the noise or my reaction.)
That sounds awful. I am the same way about noise of any kind. I want to be the one to choose what I listen to.
But when it comes to gyms, they don’t all do that. I joined one a while ago that was just a regular chain gym, and they seemed to have a policy of “if you want noise, bring headphones”. The good thing about gyms is they are always desperate for new members, so if you shop around for one where you feel comfortable, you really do influence policy with your consumer power.
There will still be gyms where manly MRAs can grunt and sweat and have dick-swinging competitions, because they have consumer power too, but they’ll have to put up photos of women to leer at, since women will have plenty of options for avoiding them.
I was going to say something funny, but the comments in here are too much. Makes me never want to go to a gym, ever. And I’m too old to have anyone look at me. So, women can’t even go to a gym without jerks being, well, themselves? Ugh, why?
@TinaS: Don’t lose hope. In my experience the majority of men are capable of being decent human beings and just focusing on their own workouts. Jerks will be jerks, but it’s possible to find gyms that are jerk free.
I told a former friend that I preferred working out in women-only spaces after he invited me to join him at his gym. “Why would you do that?” he asked me. “Checking people out is half the fun of going.” Yes, congratulations, you are the problem.
The secondary annoyance, of course, was that if I really did want to creepily ogle people while they are trying to work out I could do that at a women’s gym, which he should have known; but like so many of my friends he had unfortunately contracted a very rare form of amnesia that only targets memories of bi women coming out.
THIS. I don’t understand why people think “real” workouts only involve aggression and brute strength. Fitness, like intelligence, comes in many different dimensions. There’s grace, coordination, endurance, flexibility, spatial body awareness and control; but those get dissed because they’re ladythings. If those macho gym lunks ever tried one ballet class, for example, they’d quickly realize how clumsy and uncoordinated they are.
I guess the thumping music is supposed to provide rhythm for people who are doing reps or running on the treadmill. Not everyone has the same ideal beat, though, and it’s distractingly loud. I have a hard time focusing when there’s a wall of sound pulsating from the ceiling.
With music, it seems like there’s an inverse relationship between volume and quality. It’s like chili, invented by cooks in the American Southwest who learned to disguise old, bad meat with pungent spices. You never hear Brahms blasting out of 32 subwoofers.
Not a fan of the 1812 Overture?
Brahms didn’t write music for blasting through stereos. I’m not sure it’s fair to criticize other kinds of music for sounding best the way they were designed to be played.
That said, I absolutely think it’s better (or at least, appeals more to me) to have a policy where you can bring your own music to enjoy without inflicting it on everyone. Blaring music through loudspeakers is going to make an establishment instantly inaccessible to people with audio sensitivities, and annoying for plenty of other people.
Seconded.
Man, you guys have the most talented boobs. Mine were such lackadasicals that I had to kick them out!
Also, I’ve been wanting to start exercising more diligently; it used to be a lot of fun with my hubby. However, since over-exercise is a part of my ED, I have to be really fucking careful about it. Plus, I’ve been completely swamped with writeathon, con, taxes, and other stuff this month. So I’ve been just doing my normal daily half-hour walk.
I really miss working out more. Fortunately, once shit calms down, we can start walking to the park, which has its own free exercise machines! Very simple ones, obviously, intended to withstand being outside all year round, but still pretty cool, and saves me the anxiety of being around people much stronger and fitter than me. Also, being in a nice green park is way better than being in a gym full of screens!
I’m definitely one of those guys who prefers lighter activity. Although the theory’s still in testing, it looks like I might not feel pain properly, meaning I tend to way overdo it. (Which let me tell you, combined with an ED can get really ugly, really fast.) I’d love to have greater upper body strength, but most of the workouts I see for that seem to be for guys way fitter than me, and I tend to get left in the dust, which never feels good. My roommate has little ten-pound barbells I’ve been doing simple little things with; does anyone have any advice for an EDer who’s made of wet noodles and trying to move very gently and slowly?
RE: katz
Not a fan of the 1812 Overture?
I was imagining Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights or the Sabre Dance myself. Seriously, the former would give your subwoofers all the pounding you want! The second would be fantastic if you like treating your treadmill time like a hamster wheel.
My favorite for blasting is Carmina Burana, but I save that for when I’m in my car on non-residential roads. It’s great, because there are lots of quiet parts where you have to turn it way up to hear and then all of a sudden–WHAMMO–it gets loud again. There go my eardrums.
Good times.