3B
Wednesday, October 24, 2018 // The Statement 

Navigating campus gyms: Rules that 

objectify

A

t the University of Michigan, 
sexism is often subtle. It’s 
hidden in plain sight, lodged 

in the school’s culture and traditions 
in ways that are hard to see and even 
harder to address.

One unexpected location of sexism? 

Campus gyms.

Ideally, campus gyms are a space 

for students to unwind from the 
stresses of college life and stay 
physically active. In long Michigan 
winters, snow and freezing weather 
make 
outdoor 
physical 
activity 

nearly impossible. From November 
to March, the three campus gyms 
(North Campus Recreation Building, 
Central Campus Recreation Building 
and the Intramural Sports Building) 
are the only places where students 
can exercise indoors without paying 
membership fees for access to off-
campus gyms, yoga studios or other 
workout spaces.

However, many female University 

students 
feel 
that 
Recreational 

Sports’s 
dress 
code 
policies, 

specifically 
those 
enforced 
in 

exercise settings, treat their bodies 
as dangerous and distracting.

In an online petition to change the 

IM Building’s dress code, Information 
student Ankita Avadhani wrote about 
her 
roommate’s 
experience 
with 

being asked to cover up or change.

“I am absolutely appalled by the 

University of Michigan’s Intramural 
Sports Building,” Avadhani wrote. 
“Today my roommate went to the 
IM building to work out in between 
classes. In the middle of her workout 
she was approached by an employee 
who told her that she was reported by 
someone using the space for wearing 
a sports bra … at the gym.”

The petition, which as of Oct. 20 

had 604 signatures and 48 comments, 
explains that the roommate eventually 
left after being told she needed to 
cover up because she was violating 
the dress code. The Recreational 
Sports’s participant guidelines for 
facilities states, “Members must wear 
appropriate athletic clothing while 
working out and must wear shirts in 
all activity areas except the pool and 
saunas.”

“Yet, when I go to the gym, I 

frequently see men in cut-out shirts 
which fully expose the rib-cage and 
torso side,” Avadhani wrote in the 
online petition. “This has become 
such common form of gym apparel, it 
is now a cliché commonly referred to 

as ‘bro-tanks.’”

“We are not blaming 

the 
IM 
building, 

its 
employees, 
or 

the 
University 
of 

Michigan,” 
Avadhani 

wrote. 
“We 
are 

simply 
asking 
them 

to 
reevaluate 
their 

policies. Their current 
attire policy prioritizes 
the 
discomfort 

members 
have 
with 

women’s bodies over 
the benefits to physical 
and mental health for 
women. This alienates 
women who are seeking 
out a judgement-free 
place to improve their 
overall 
health 
and 

wellbeing. We need to 
change the dress code 
because sexism has no 
place at the University 
of Michigan.”

Numerous 
women 

commented 
on 

Avadhani’s 
Facebook 

post, which included 
an image of what her 
roommate wore at the 
gym, with accounts of 
their own experiences 
with dress code violations 
at campus gyms.

Irregular enforcement of dress 

codes at college gyms is not unique to 
the University of Michigan. In 2017, 
a College of Charleston student was 
asked to cover up and ultimately leave 
the gym for wearing a long sports bra 
and leggings, an outfit which she was 
told did not comply with the gym’s 
dress code. Another student had a 
similar experience at a New York 
University gym last fall.

Both students were told that the 

dress code was meant to ensure that 
the gym remained sanitary.

In 2016, a student at Santa Clara 

University was asked to leave the 
campus gym after being told that 
her crop top could facilitate the 
spread of MRSA (a bacteria-resistant 
infection) and that it also violated 
the university’s Jesuit ideals. A quick 
Google search brings up page after 
page of similar stories.

In private gyms, the issue is 

no 
better 
addressed. 
Women 

are 
frequently 
cat-called 
while 

exercising and subjected to sexual 
comments about their bodies. At 

best, these violations make women 
uncomfortable. At worst, they can 
end in violence and tragedy.

Women’s 
bodies 
are 
especially 

vulnerable 
to 
harassment 
during 

physical activity, and the attitudes 
that permeate campus gyms are 
not unrelated to this vulnerability. 
Unnecessarily gendered dress codes 
don’t keep gyms sanitary, they simply 
create environments where women 
feel as though their bodies are on 
display for others to examine and 
visually dissect. Dress codes that 
target female bodies place the blame 
for harassment and sexualization 
on women. They reinforce the idea 
that men are not to blame for their 
actions, and that women must censor 
themselves to avoid violence.

While the University’s Recreational 

Sports dress code is not overtly 
sexist, the accounts of many female 
students suggest that women may 
be held to it more strictly than men, 
which is simply unfair. Recreational 
Sports 
should 
take 
women’s 

complaints seriously, and they should 
reconsider why, exactly, sports bras 
are considered inappropriate attire. 

I can’t help but wonder if it has 
more to do with the sexualization of 
women’s bodies than concerns about 
cleanliness.

I’ve been to the CCRB, and no one is 

monitoring everyone, ensuring they 
sanitize their machine after using 
it. If Recreational Sports is worried 
about exercise equipment spreading 
illness, that seems like a far more 
productive 
strategy 
than 
trying 

to reduce the amount of exposed, 
sweaty skin.

When so many very big unfair 

things are happening to women in 
America, real rights, respect and 
safety all feel monumentally out of 
reach. While being asked to wear 
an extra layer at the gym may seem 
unimportant 
compared 
to 
more 

extreme forms of discrimination and 
bodily harm, sexist enforcement of 
dress codes is just another example 
of the self-policing women must 
perform in public. By not allowing 
women to exercise in the clothes that 
make them most comfortable, campus 
gyms reproduce the same problematic 
environments that give way to more 
blatant forms of sexism.

BY MIRIAM FRANCISCO, COLUMNIST

Alexis Rankin/Daily

The Central Campus Recreation Building.

