Wednesday, November 1, 2017 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, November 1, 2017 // The Statement
5B
Gender and the Gym
coping with masculine stereotypes in fitness
b y S a m R o s e n b e r g , Daily Arts Writer
“
You need to be more aggressive.”
I nodded quietly at my baseball
coach and walked back to home
plate, where I attempted to muster
up all the energy in my lithe, eight-
year-old body to hit the ball. My helmet felt too
big on my head. My milk-white pants felt too
tight on my legs. I already had two strikes, and
I knew that I was a swing and a miss away from
my third. It didn’t even matter at that point. I
wasn’t “aggressive” enough to play baseball,
and I couldn’t pretend to be.
From an early age, most boys are expected
to embody ideals of masculinity — strength
and competitive attitudes — often in physical
activities, like sports. Unfortunately, sports
never really stuck with me.
During soccer tournaments, I would try to
entertain myself with an inner monologue.
I’d even sit on the field when I sensed the ball
wasn’t going to be kicked in my direction. Bas-
ketball was fun at times, but my short stature
made it difficult to compete against my much
taller, faster and more athletic teammates. I
played tennis for several years, but I never felt
skilled enough to commit to it. Of every sport
I played, baseball was the most excruciatingly
tedious. I would often either be sitting in the
dugouts or standing in the outfield, both of
which were paradoxically the best and loneli-
est parts of my Minor League career.
It wasn’t until the end of eighth grade that
I found a sport more suitable to my interests:
cross-country running. I would spend each
fall semester of high school running with my
teammates in the dry San Fernando Valley
heat, sweating and heaving until my calves
grew sore. I felt incredible knowing that I was
getting stronger and faster with every meet
and practice, beating my personal records and
starting to feel like “a man.”
As co-captain of my team during my senior
year, I was thrust into a position of leadership
that encouraged the macho, aggressive men-
tality I eschewed when I was younger. I need-
ed to use a “manly,” aggressive voice to prove I
could be a strong leader for my team.
Before becoming captain, I never expected
to be the best runner or athlete or version of a
man, because maybe I was never meant to be.
I ran because I liked it, because it was good
exercise and because it was easy. But perhaps I
also ran because I felt the need to show myself
and others that I was capable of expressing my
masculinity in the most socially acceptable
way possible: through sports.
For someone who doesn’t fully fit the domi-
nant mold of masculinity, sports can be alien-
ating. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found this
alienation doesn’t escape the college campus
either.
*****
The Intramural Sports Building and the
Central Campus Recreation Building are the
largest gyms on campus, and they’re free and
accessible to undergraduate and graduate stu-
dents. Given the academic rigor and heavy
workload of the college atmosphere, exercising
at the gym makes for a great stress relief. It also
helps that gyms have been statistically found to
increase GPAs for college students.
U.S. fitness centers reached a total mem-
bership of 57.25 million in 2016, with roughly
36,000 membership-based exercise facilities
nationwide. Clearly, gyms are an important
part of American and college life, and as such,
they often reflect the same gender-based
norms that dictate men lift weights and women
run on the treadmill. Only 21 percent of women
participate in strength training, according to a
2017 study from the National Center for Health
Statistics.
Many female students at the University of
Michigan find the gym to be a rather intimidat-
ing place — especially the weight room.
“As a girl, I know most people don’t expect
me to do anything other than cardio,” LSA
junior Ali Rosenblatt, said.
Since Rosenblatt’s freshman year of high
school, she has been consistently doing a mix
of cardio and weight training. While she has
become used to working out in the weight
room, Rosenblatt still senses a stigma against
women lifting weights at the gym, since
weights are generally associated with “manli-
ness.”
“There’s usually a look of, ‘What’s she gonna
pick up?’ ‘Does she actually know what she’s
doing?’ ” she said. “People kind of look for you
to mess up. I have a lot of friends who don’t
want to go, whereas I see boys who clearly do
not know what they’re doing, but they’re com-
fortable because it’s a ‘boys’ room.’ ”
LSA junior Phoebe Hopp echoes Rosen-
blatt’s sentiment.
“You never really feel like you’re just work-
ing out for yourself,” Hopp said. “Every time
you do work out, it feels like there’s an audi-
ence.”
At non-campus gyms, Hopp says she has
been interrupted by guys trying to instruct her
on how to use the equipment and sometimes
even use that opportunity to ask for her num-
ber.
“It makes your workout feel like it’s some-
how inferior to the other guys that have been
working out,” Hopp said.
Building self-confidence can be tricky when
appearance — looking physically strong — is at
the forefront of gym culture. Even for people
who have been working out since they were
young, like Data Science junior Isha Kathuria
trying to perfect one’s body can be an emotion-
al burden. Since she got her first gym member-
ship at age 13, Kathuria has grown accustomed
to the gym atmosphere.
“A lot of times, there weren’t very many
people at the gym I went to, so I was able to
become very comfortable with myself being
there,” Kathuria said. “When I went to bigger
gyms, I was already comfortable with myself. I
don’t really pay attention to what other people
are doing and just focus on my own workout.”
But it’s easy to become self-conscious of
one’s body image given the influence of social
media, where Instagram fitness models gain
popularity for posting pictures and videos
of their exhaustive workouts and toned phy-
siques. Kathuria subscribes to fitness users
like Whitney Simmons and Linn Lowes, both
of whom have accumulated about one million
Instagram followers.
“When I haven’t worked out in a while and
feel down on myself, I avoid going on Insta-
gram Discover so I don’t have to see the videos,”
Kathuria said. “You have your own body and
you have your own goals, but they shouldn’t be
based on what other people look like.”
While watching these videos can negatively
impact one’s self-esteem — Instagram, in par-
ticular, is a known detriment to mental health
— Kathuria says fitness models can sometimes
be helpful when explaining the strenuous
nature of their process.
For someone like Janae Marie Kroc, a well-
known bodybuilder from the Ann Arbor area
who identifies as transgender and genderfluid,
the idea of conforming to the societal standard
of masculinity has never been easy.
“As a muscular male, (working out) is largely
seen as a positive thing,” Kroc said. “People
respect it. When you’re dating, it’s a plus.”
Originally from a small town in northern
Michigan, Kroc has maintained a passion for
exercise since childhood. By age 12, Kroc was
working out consistently. She entered body-
building competitions during her high school
years and continued lifting during her time
in the Marine Corps. Currently, she trains
five days a week, doing cardio every morning
and following a bodybuilding diet of oatmeal,
chicken and rice.
“It’s always about trying to be better than
yesterday,” Kroc said.
But since beginning estrogen therapy, Kroc
has noticed a few changes in the way people at
the gym perceive her.
“As a woman, it’s completely different.
Immediately, it draws a lot of stares and nega-
tivity. People question your sexuality. Especial-
ly being transgender, you get pushback from
your own community.”
Though she now mostly trains at home, Kroc
has added “post-estrogen PRs” to help broaden
her workout goals to gain as much strength as
possible during her transition.
“It’s still about progress, it’s still about mov-
ing forward. But now, it’s basically a different
set of rules and a different framework,” Kroc
said.
Despite the obstacles Janae faced in the
midst of her transition, she found solace in the
other women in the bodybuilding community.
“They struggle with all the same things
when their femininity is questioned in the pur-
suit of muscularity and strength,” Kroc said.
*****
The weight room may not be as welcoming
as it should be, but working out there isn’t the
only way to stay in shape. In addition to her
ventures to the CCRB, Rosenblatt partakes in
weekly yoga classes at the Center for Yoga on
the corner of East William and State Streets,
where she says some of her male friends also
practice.
“There’s a stigma against yoga as a more
feminine workout,” Rosenblatt said. “But my
(male) friends who go to yoga classes know it’s
a tough workout.”
Along with yoga, CrossFit provides a more
inclusive alternative to the classic weight
room. Mika LaVaque-Manty, a political science
professor and the director of the LSA Honors
Program, has been going to Joust Strength and
Fitness for nine years, a CrossFit gym in Ann
Arbor founded by three women. Though Cross-
Fit is notable for its intense, grueling weightlift-
ing, plyometrics, gymnastics and powerlifting
exercises, it has taken steps toward narrowing
the gender gap by applying a more group-cen-
tric approach, in which men and women are
given the same amount of attention and agency
in reaching their workout goals.
“You’re suffering together, supporting one
another, having fun together, and not compet-
ing against anyone else,” LaVaque-Manty said.
“In so many sports, the things that we associate
with masculinity and often with athletic excel-
lence like strength aren’t the things that make
somebody be better athletes.”
He pointed out that CrossFit gyms generally
don’t have mirrors. With greater gender and
age variance, CrossFit gyms have provided a
conscientious approach to fitness in regards to
challenging and shifting preconceived notions
of gender, body image and masculinity.
*****
But the question still remains: How do we
enforce more inclusivity at gyms here on cam-
pus, and what exactly would that look like?
Mike Widen and Lisa Shea, the director and
associate director of University Recreational
Sports, take that issue into account when deter-
mining how to improve activities and spaces
offered at the CCRB and the IM Building.
When setting policies, Shea and Widen receive
feedback from students, faculty, alumni and
the Rec Sports advisory committee about what
changes need to be made to on-campus gyms.
“Students play a valuable role in the process
because they see it from both perspectives,”
Widen said. “They experience the spaces them-
selves, but they also understand the logistics
of what makes a place like the gym the envi-
ronment that it is. Whatever the decisions we
make, we want to make sure that recreational
sports are inclusive to all students, regardless
of gender.”
Since the IM building reopened last school
year after renovations, the space has made sev-
eral significant changes regarding inclusivity,
such as the addition of gender-neutral bath-
rooms and locker rooms.
“It’s about the environment and physical
structures of making our space feel welcome,”
Shea said.
In addition to the gender-inclusive spaces,
Shea added that incorporating a tubular design,
softer colors, a wider entrance space, greater
visibility and lighter-weight strength and
cardio equipment helped implement a more
comfortable and inviting atmosphere at the
IM building. The rec sports’ Group X program
also gives students a more individualized cur-
riculum through small group training in yoga,
mindfulness, meditation and movement.
Widen and Shea both hope to apply simi-
lar gender-inclusive improvements to the
CCRB, which is slated for renovation in
2021, following the completion of the North
Campus Recreation Building’s renovation in
fall 2018 and the restoration of the Michi-
gan Union.
While gender-neutral bathrooms and locker
rooms are creating progress in inclusivity at the
IM building, Kroc believes education is a key
solution to combating hyper-masculine men-
tality at the gym, to make it a safer space for
women and gender nonconforming people.
“Being open helps a lot,” Kroc said. “For
me, being as big and muscular as I am, it’s
kind of a double-edged sword. On the one
hand, it makes it very difficult for me to
pass. Even when people read me as a female
bodybuilder, I’m often bigger than anybody
they’ve seen before. My muscularity also
offers me a small measure of protection
because people are less likely to be aggres-
sive with me.”
Men at the gym aren’t just perpetuating a
hyper-masculine mentality; they’re affected
by it as well. A 2017 study on masculinity
from the Journal of American College Health
found that college-aged men are under sig-
nificant social pressure to conform to mas-
culine gender roles. Trying to embody these
hyper-masculine traits has also been linked
to mental health issues, such as depression
and substance abuse, and less favorable atti-
tudes toward getting psychological help,
according to a 2016 study from the American
Psychological Association.
Usually when I go to the gym, I’ll first do
15 minutes of running on the treadmill, fol-
lowed by exercise machines, free weights and
pull-ups. Whether it’s at the CCRB or the IM
Building, I am constantly aware of my skin-
ny frame in comparison to the much buffer
men standing near me. Through the mirror,
I can feel the weight of others’ stares on me,
even as I attempt to focus on myself and my
physical growth. But seeing how these men
have perfected themselves is a hard thing to
come for someone who doesn’t participate in
a sport anymore.
But going to the gym shouldn’t be about
acting the most “aggressive” or looking the
most “masculine.” It should be about lim-
proving our physical health, appreciating
our vulnerability, understanding our limita-
tions and, ultimately, finding our own inner
strength.
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily