This week I delve into the embodied experiences of “The Gym Girl”. As a girl who goes to the gym and thrives off of the positive, mental and physical outcomes I have struggled to understand why some women found it so challenging to enjoy the gym environment. However, on further research, I have discovered The Dark side of the gym. Women are led to believe their gym struggles are self-inflicted. However, there is a much greater understanding of this – gyms are not built-in favour of women and the media is responsible for the unachievable body standards. These are some of the real reasons for women’s suppression. I hope this article is a device which educates, empowers and inspires a drive for change.
DAMAGING SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING
Social media and marketing treat human bodies as a site of consumption and seeks to influence consumers’ views of their bodies through the promotion of unachievable body images and healthy ideals. This societal pressure is propelled onto women and is a huge driver in pressuring women to go to the gym and/or take extreme measures. This suggests that a lot of women are going to the gym for the wrong reasons, and this is why they don’t value their experience. Their experience is not self-driven or personal. Women feel obligated to go to the gym because the media ordered them to. This unhealthy relationship women have with body image and the gym only ignites negative connotations to the gym. Women are taught to chase unreachable standards. Women feel like failures when they don’t achieve the perfect body (which is not perfect), it is underweight and unhealthy. The media should be taking much greater social responsibility for the content they are inflicting on society. Women are vulnerable in the gym industry as they are greatly impacted by unsustainable marketing.
There have been steps towards more socially responsible marketing. We are now seeing more diversity in media and marketing. The greater representation creates more relatability for women. It also displays that society acknowledges women’s differences and values them all the same. This is only the beginning of a better society; only a fraction of marketing and media is innocuous.
LOCATION
One of the most interesting discoveries I made about the dark side of the gym was the deliberate location of gym equipment and the influence it has on women’s experiences. The physical environment of the gym provides rich insight into the gender tensions within the gym culture. Where do women belong in the gym? If they belong at all?
The gym is highly structured along gendered lines, it is invisible to the plain eye but after my research, it has never been so clear! It has been right in front of me the whole time! On my next gym visit, I felt naive to have never noticed the calculated positioning of equipment and mirrors. Women are reduced to the classroom where there are lighter weights and cardio machines. Whilst men are dominating the rest of the gym. We even subconsciously call it the “men bit”, or “Shall we go in the men section?”. Gyms don’t blatantly oppress women; however, it is a hidden issue.
I have been in many scenarios where the location would have affected my experience at the gym, but I was blinded by social norms. In one instance, a male friend of mine was new to the gym. We both had separate introductions to the new space. I was shown the classrooms and how to start the treadmill whilst my friend was shown the weights and the best places to stare at women’s arses and tits in the mirror. It was something when I was younger that I accepted. Women are objectified by men and the gym is a male environment and I am the intruder. I didn’t belong. I am fortunate enough to be a strong individual who ignored these oppressions and still got what I wanted out of the gym. I have now realised by turning a blind eye to the incessant oppression of women in the gym, I have helped perpetuate the issue.
Writing this article was important to me as I feel a social responsibility to open my eyes to the harmful structure of society against women. Yes, we have made progress but there is still oppression in the shadows. It is down to us to uncover the truth behind women’s experiences and to share them. I hope this article is the beginning of your insight into women’s embodied experiences.
P.S – Be a force to be reckoned with <3