A couple of times now I have watched Joe interact with guys who haven't seen him in a while. "Dude," they will say, "you're looking really big."
They intend this as a compliment. "I can see you've been working hard in the gym," they are saying. But this is about the most gendered thing I can imagine, aside from "Nice Y chromosome, man!"
No woman, I've told Joe, would ever -- ever -- say to another woman "Hey, you're looking really big!" That's a surefire way to damage a friendship and get yourself labeled as a tactless ogre, a person to be avoided.
Right?
Lots of people have written about fat-phobia and the pressure it places on women to vanish (partially, at least) -- to make themselves smaller. This summer I am also bumping up against some internalized muscle-phobia.
If you asked me outright whether it was unladlylike for women to open their own jars and move their own boxes, I would snort and and roll my eyes. "Of course not," I would tell you. At the same time, somewhere along the way an idea took up residence in my brain about the "right" amount of strength for a woman to have.
Which is weird, but maybe you know what I mean. I'm guessing you do not aspire to look like Mrs. Olympia.
At our gym fitness activities have fairly predictable gender ratios: a Pilates class might include one man but probably not; the same is true for dance-based classes like Zumba. Spin classes and cardio machines are roughly 50-50. The weight room is 80% male; some days it's closer to 90%.
Why is that?
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