Gender at the Gym

Things I noticed while at the gym today:

• 14 females on treadmills
• 2 males on treadmill
• 3 females on ellipticals
• No males on ellipticals
• 19 females in spin class
• 1 male in spin class
• Weight room full of males (did not count numbers)
• 1 female in the weight room, being stared at 

Do you notice a trend? I did. I do every time I go to either Brodie or Wilson gym on this campus. I notice it every time I am at my gym at home. I notice it when I'm outside and the majority of people running furiously are female. Why is this? Well our society seems to praise the "thin" and "petit" body shapes of women and the "buff" and "large" body shapes of men. People associate "feminine" qualities with thinness and "masculine" qualities with having bulging muscles. We see models on the covers of magazines or walking down the runway and the females have prominently boney structures while the males have prominently muscely structures. Confirming your gender seems to be done in the gym as well as the with the clothes we wear. Is it forbidden for females to lift weight or males to crush the elliptical from time to time? 

A friend and I walked past the male on the elliptical and they made a comment to the effect of "yeah that elliptical is really going to help build those chest muscles really well." I hear daily comments from my girl friends such as "oh my god my legs are getting so big, I need to lay off the squats" or from my guy friends "I can't date a girl who has bigger thighs than I do... It would make me feel weird." I guess bigger legs aren't a gender confirming quality of females. 

What if you saw a biological male  doing a cardio machine with skinnier legs than the girl upstairs busting her butt on the treadmill for hours a day? Or a biological female with baggy shorts and larger legs than the guy busting his butt downstairs in the weight room in the squat rack for hours a day? Sometimes we hear that the woman with muscles "manly" and that is "unattractive" or that the man who lacks muscles looks "weak" or "feminine." This is another example of how many things most people do are based on the constructed gender roles which creates a gender binary. 

Biological males naturally have more testosterone and are able to more easily build muscles than women. If a trans male wants to build muscle like biological males, but is not able to, will this affect the way he is seen by society? Will he be seen as feminine or less manly? And vice versa with trans females. If a trans female builds muscle more easily than biological females and is therefore physically unable to reach the specific "feminine" physique, will she be considered less attractive or manly? Hormone supplements could potentially help with these situations, but should it be this way? Is it fair that someone who identifies with the opposite gender, or neither gender, gets labeled based on ideas our society has constructed about physical appearance for the gender binary?

My answer: No.

https://communicationandgender.wordpress.com/gender-construction-and-identity-in-todays-mass-media/
^check this blog out for more information on constructed gender roles in mass media