It could be any day after work at the gym. I'm on a cardio machine. My Misogyny Pandora station is blasting through my headphones (I work out harder if I'm angry at the patriarchy). Basically, I'm in work out mode. My face screams, "Leave me the fuck alone; I'm running and I'm not happy about it."
That's when it happens.
Some bro decides to stop and stare at me running. He's not even trying to hide it. He just stops in the middle of the cardio station at stares at me.
My initial reaction is, "Holy shit! What the fuck? Is my form that bad? Are my headphones that loud?"
And then he winks.
I stop running. I don't remove my headphones. I glare at him. I give him my best "you better run because I will fuck you up, you know I work out" face.
He saunters away.
After he's gone, all I can think is: "No matter the location of this situation, I still would have been running at some point. At the gym, I was already running. If this had happened on the street, I would have started running."
This is just one time out of a series of terrible encounters at the gym. I could write a novel documenting all of the terrifying experiences I've had at the gym.
The gym is not a safe place for women. That's why the existence of woman-only gyms is not an example of "male oppression."
Men outright ogle women. They openly stare as women run, lift, and stretch. Oh god, stretching. God forbid a woman stretches at the gym. Once, I was in a standing forward bend and when I came back up I was face to face with a man who was just staring at my ass.
Here's the really terrible thing though. I go to the gym because I do not feel safe running outdoors. As a woman who grew up on Law & Order: SVU and a slew of made-for-TV movies, I am fully aware of the dangers of jogging outside as a woman. I go to the gym because it's supposed to be safer than running outside. I'm trying to stay safe and not get victim blamed (Oh, she was running outside? Couldn't she just go the gym? Didn't she know what happens to women who go jogging?). I'm already pissed that I spend money on a gym membership just so I can have the semblance of a sense of security. However, that sense of security is taken by assholes who stare at me as I try to work out.
Now, I work out to stay healthy both mentally and physically. One of my big feminist projects right now is to unlearn the internalized misogyny of hating my own body and heteropatriarchal, racist beauty standards. I'm trying to go to the gym without thinking about calorie counts, jean sizes, and thigh gaps. As someone in recovery from an eating disorder, that is it's own battle.
As you can imagine, the gym is already a terrible place for me. I'd venture to guess, it's a pretty terrible place for other women, outside of the ogling bros. Women are taught to hate our bodies and to strive for a bullshit beauty ideal. Some women go to the gym to try to reach that ideal. So not only are they going to the gym due to a patriarchal mandate, but then once they get there, they are observed and policed under the male gaze. This is completely fucked up.
It's a good thing I work out harder when I'm angry at the patriarchy.
