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Is verbal harassment common at the gym? And do women or men catch more of it?
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This thread makes me sad, as a wife, a mother of two boys and a grandmother of four.9
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tbright1965 wrote: »
Second, it's right there in the post to which I replied, "You shouldn't feel painted by the brush unless you identify with that behavior."
That's not asking anyone to listen, it's telling people how they should feel. It sets up the false equivalency of if you take offense, you must be guilty.
Why are you taking offense when no one is talking about you? If you don't behave in the ways described, it's not about you. Women talking about the reality of their lives is not about you. Again, you read an accusation into my statement that was not there. I'm saying that if you don't identify with the behavior described, there's no reason for you to feel accused. No reason for you to feel like the conversation is about you. No reason to say "not all men" because nobody said "all men."
No one is saying all men do the things described. They're saying that for many women, the repeated experiences with that behavior by some men, and the need to weigh whether any given place they might go or thing they might do is worth the risk, is really wearing/stultifying/restricting/other adjectives that may be true for other women. When you try to turn it into an argument about "not all men," you're making it about you and not about the women who have had that experience. If you don't do these things, nobody's talking about you.
But we can. You imply you don't do these things. How often do you call out the men who do? How often do you call out other guys in a guys-only space when they objectify women or tell stories about sexual conquests that involve women too drunk to give consent, or passed out completely, or in which they promise to give her a lift home and then pull over somewhere isolated and figure that if she doesn't actually scream and try to scratch their eyes out (because raising the stakes to a physical fight with someone stronger, heavier, with a longer reach who by this time may already be on top of you is clearly a good idea in all cases, right?), she's good with whatever happens? How often do you call out other guys? Because you wanted this conversation to be about you.
To get back to the original point of the thread (and I have said this elsewhere, or even in this thread -- there have been a couple similar ones), in my experience, gyms are among the safest places in my experience to be a woman and not have to worry about being there alone and the ways some guys might behave.
But there are a lot of other health-positive things I don't do because of the risk of harassment or worse -- and it's a scale of bad behavior, pretending that we're only going to talk about orders to "smile" is ridiculous, because a woman can never know whether it's going to end there. There's a great trail that starts in a park near me that I could get on and bike for miles and eventually connect to other trails that go on for scores of miles. But I won't do that alone. The risk is just way too high.20 -
So, "men act like jerks, telling women to smile and catcalling them" (something I wouldn't say, as a generality, but it gets said, out of frustration/anger-induced hyperbole) is a thing that calls out a group or class ("men") for doing something that an annoying minority have done for probably centuries without much push-back (though it could get you beaten or lynched if the power dynamics were a little more murky). Yes, that particular phrasing strictly needn't mean "all men do this" but could mean "the people who do this are men".
Except in this particular case, what set off this particular "not all men" response was not anybody saying men are jerks, but someone saying everywhere women go (presumably including the gym) they run into jerky behavior by [people who are] men. Not even every time women go anywhere, but just that no space is a refuge from this kind of behavior. The "not all men" response that diverts the conversation from women explaining what their realities are to worrying about the hurt feelings of men who say not all men are like the ones giving women a hard time (again, nobody said they were!) doesn't need anything close to a "hyperbolic" suggestion that "men act like jerks, telling women to smile and catcalling them" to trigger it from some men.
I think I've gotten through life so far pretty lightly compared to vast numbers of women, but I'm pretty sure that if I put out there on most any forum or comment board that had men on it that by the time I was 13, two men had exposed themselves to me; the older brother of a friend had pinned me against a wall, groped my breasts and ground his penis against my body and laughed about it/at me when I managed to slip out of his grasp; a boy in the neighborhood with whom I had next to no interaction out of nowhere one day yelled at me out on the street "[my last name] is a c**t; [my last name] is a *kitten*"; a male elementary school teacher repeatedly asked me (and other girls, but always just one at a time) to stay after class to do things like clean the blackboard and always insisted on hugging me before I left, in a way that made me uncomfortable although I wasn't really able to articulate why until I spoke to another girl in the class who was a little more worldly than me; and that I couldn't begin to count the number of times I had experienced cat calls -- all by the time I was 13 -- there would be a man on that forum or comment board saying, "not all men" in response to my specific, non-generalized, non-hyperbolic experiences.
ETA: the *kitten* was w***e (as in slang for prostitute) -- I assumed c**t would get the kitten treatment, but it didn't occur to me that MFP would give w***e that treatment.13 -
I had a naked conversation in a locker room with a gay guy, and no, never.3
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »I don't think anyone said unwanted touching is okay.
In response to my saying
She didn't say all guys. It doesn't take 100% of guys being jerks who think they're entitled to have women pay attention to them, smile at them, talk to them, and let them touch them for those kinds of experiences to pervade women's lives. You shouldn't feel painted by the brush unless you identify with that behavior.
tbright1965 saidLet's unpack this, you suggest that someone shouldn't feel something.
Okay, so if someone said you shouldn't feel threatened when the bad man looks at you, are you okay with that?
I just want to know the standard. Who gets to decide what someone should or shouldn't feel?
Is it not okay for men to tell women what they should or shouldn't feel "Come on, smile for me..."
But it's okay for women to tell men what they should or shouldn't feel, "You shouldn't feel painted..."
You see, from my perspective, those are exactly the same thing. The words are different, but the pattern is the same. Someone projecting upon another what they should really be feeling. Invalidating what they are feeling or experiencing and replacing it with what the speaker has decided they should feel.
So what's the standard here?
May I request that it be consistent and evenly applied?
That's either saying that unwanted touching is OK or pretending it doesn't exist. Sweeping it under the rug. Ignoring the fact that it happens. It's just about being told to "feel something," not about being told what to do ("smile") and being told that you're uptight if you object to someone putting their hand on your shoulder or your waist or wherever it goes next.
Quotes are messed up, but I really don't get how you get that from what tbright said.
The charitable thing would be to ask him if that's what he meant.2 -
I don't think anyone said unwanted touching is okay.
In response to my saying
She didn't say all guys. It doesn't take 100% of guys being jerks who think they're entitled to have women pay attention to them, smile at them, talk to them, and let them touch them for those kinds of experiences to pervade women's lives. You shouldn't feel painted by the brush unless you identify with that behavior.
tbright1965 saidLet's unpack this, you suggest that someone shouldn't feel something.
Okay, so if someone said you shouldn't feel threatened when the bad man looks at you, are you okay with that?
I just want to know the standard. Who gets to decide what someone should or shouldn't feel?
Is it not okay for men to tell women what they should or shouldn't feel "Come on, smile for me..."
But it's okay for women to tell men what they should or shouldn't feel, "You shouldn't feel painted..."
You see, from my perspective, those are exactly the same thing. The words are different, but the pattern is the same. Someone projecting upon another what they should really be feeling. Invalidating what they are feeling or experiencing and replacing it with what the speaker has decided they should feel.
So what's the standard here?
May I request that it be consistent and evenly applied?
And then I saidThat's either saying that unwanted touching is OK or pretending it doesn't exist. Sweeping it under the rug. Ignoring the fact that it happens. It's just about being told to "feel something," not about being told what to do ("smile") and being told that you're uptight if you object to someone putting their hand on your shoulder or your waist or wherever it goes next.
And then lemurcat2 saidQuotes are messed up, but I really don't get how you get that from what tbright said.
The charitable thing would be to ask him if that's what he meant.
Yeah, when I saw they were messed up it wouldn't let me edit it. I think I've fixed them here.*
I said something. Then someone said nobody is talking about that. His response to my saying it was to ignore it. He even quoted just that portion I've quoted here in the second quote block (but without the bolding I added because apparently it was in invisible pixels nobody could read) and still insisted nobody was talking about that.
I make an effort in almost every interaction I have with people to assume the best when it comes to their intentions.
But I have been around the block too many times with the rhetorical device represented by "not all men" and "all lives matter" to be willing to always be the one in the conversation making the effort to be "charitable" when someone is trying to derail that conversation to undercut the people explaining the reality they live in and instead make the conversation about themselves.
*well, I didn't fix them the first try here. Trying again, but I'm killing the auto attribution as I'm afraid that has gotten messed up, and I don't want to misattribute something by mistake.7 -
The conversation about gyms was derailed way upthread.8
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I was very specific where I commented on the part about men shouldn’t feel ....
I made no comment about the touching part of the post.
I thought it was obvious the touching was wrong and didn’t say anything.
I should have been more clear.
One can be critical of ONE part of a post without invalidating the entire post.
Perhaps this is the disconnect here.
Thoughts?10 -
Identity politics makes everything awesome.13
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Last week a man who was old enough to be my grandfather watched me doing hip thrusts and said in a really creepy way.
"Well done girl. Are you feeling the burn?"
I almost threw up a bit!7 -
Last week a man who was old enough to be my grandfather watched me doing hip thrusts and said in a really creepy way.
"Well done girl. Are you feeling the burn?"
I almost threw up a bit!
did you say anything back to him what did you do?
I wonder if you could report these men to the managers or something and if they are able to actually do anything.0 -
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Last week a man who was old enough to be my grandfather watched me doing hip thrusts and said in a really creepy way.
"Well done girl. Are you feeling the burn?"
I almost threw up a bit!
did you say anything back to him what did you do?
I wonder if you could report these men to the managers or something and if they are able to actually do anything.
I didn't because I'm a non-confrontational person. I just pretended not to hear him over my music. Unfortunately I think I have been socialised to accept this type of behaviour but if I see him again and something similar happened I would definitely report it.4 -
I’ve seen far more people offer sincere advise (which can be not helpful, but almost always with perceivably positive intent) than any other thing for talking to a stranger in the gym.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a confrontation other than meatheads dropping/throwing weights down or people hogging equipment.0 -
I’ve seen far more people offer sincere advise (which can be not helpful, but almost always with perceivably positive intent) than any other thing for talking to a stranger in the gym.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a confrontation other than meatheads dropping/throwing weights down or people hogging equipment.
Meatheads?2 -
I have been hassled by another woman at the gym, at least until I called management. She would get in my face in the locker room, every time we were there at the same time and were alone ( I go really early in the AM), and flip out over crazy stuff like me "needing to learn to share space" when we were the only 2 there, as well as making nasty comments about me being middle aged. Or she would accuse me of bizarre stuff like smearing makeup around. The manager apparently spoke to her about it, because it abruptly stopped; however, she still does things like come up and stand/put her stuff really close to me with music blaring from her phone, etc. I did tell her and the manager that if she got aggressive I had no problem calling the police, but aside from her childish antics, she's backed way down, and I'm good with that. This middle aged woman doesn't have time for middle school locker room bullying...7
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I have had people hit on me. I’m good with that. I have in the past either flirted back when single and interested or shut it down when not single and not interested. It has never bothered me for people to make their move, then I can make the choice to either be flattered and say thanks or roll my eyes and say no thanks. I do think I must be oblivious most of the time because I have never felt publicly harassed. I have heard stories of guys refusing to take no thanks as an answer but I’ve been pretty lucky obviously.2
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I haven't noticed it in any gym I have frequented. In fact, the only place that I would say nurtures a somewhat hostile atmosphere is Planet Fitness (e.g. banning large water containers, lunk alarm, etc.), but I understand that's their way of enticing new gym-goers.0
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Personally I have a workout partner and talk with them between sets or I have earphones in and keep to myself. After 26 years I've never had a problem aside from the odd guy (a few times ever) who may seem a little impatient when I asked how many sets he has left on a piece of equipment.
I would say that younger fit girls in the free weight section appear to be the celebrities of the gym. If you watch the eyes of most males they are usually staring directly or indirectly through a mirror but I've yet to see anything dramatic come of it.
Overall, I get that there can be an intimidation factor but as a lot of other posts said it isn't much different than any other new place. Most people are just doing their own thing and worried about their own progress. To each their own. We all start somewhere. It would be unfortunate to not go for it and change one's life for the better.2 -
FitFamilyGuy wrote: »Personally I have a workout partner and talk with them between sets or I have earphones in and keep to myself. After 26 years I've never had a problem aside from the odd guy (a few times ever) who may seem a little impatient when I asked how many sets he has left on a piece of equipment.
I would say that younger fit girls in the free weight section appear to be the celebrities of the gym. If you watch the eyes of most males they are usually staring directly or indirectly through a mirror but I've yet to see anything dramatic come of it.
Overall, I get that there can be an intimidation factor but as a lot of other posts said it isn't much different than any other new place. Most people are just doing their own thing and worried about their own progress. To each their own. We all start somewhere. It would be unfortunate to not go for it and change one's life for the better.
^All of this...
I have experienced several debates/(proverbial)backstabbing/arguments, but in the end, it turned out, that the participants all knew each other outside the gym, some for many years. They just ran into each other (literally) inside the gym.
Not sure how they do in the cardio section at the gym, as I never use any of the machines. We have some competitive bodybuilders in the weight room, though, and we tend to cut them some slack, when they get close to a competition. No brain can reasonably function on this much testosterone, and SO FEW carbs... But we like them, and they usually do better after competition and the first pizza...
As for bullies trying to get into someone's face...pointing out that there is a 20 lbs dumbbell hovering above their toes, should make them back up fairly quickly... The beauty of lifting and strengthening the back: It also helps strengthening the back bone, IMO.
Happy lifting!
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