Female only gyms.

I wasn;t going to post as I have no experience of women-only gyms but the reference to Muslim women made me remember my antenatal swimming sessions in the local pool. The pool was closed for men to use on, what was it, Tuesday night and all the staff appeared to be female. There was a group of 10-12 of us. Amongst us a Muslim woman who came every week without fail with her husband. The said husband apparently did not allow her to go anywhere in public on her own, but was very comfortable sitting close by reading the newspaper... not like he was staring at us in our swimming suits splashing around but he was not exactly somewhere out of site waiting for his wife.

Now, nobody else battered an eye-lid, but subsequently I wondered if by this "female only" we just encourage the exclusion of women.

I do not thing there is such a straightforward answer.

No, private men's clubs still definitely exist.

Ah yes, I think it is because gyms are "clubs" they can set criteria for joining, which could equally be about age if they wanted it to be.

You can have Men only gyms. Many boxing gyms are men only.

My friend runs a female only gym and she said it was overweight and Muslim women who went to it because they did not like exercising in front of men.

It is allowed because it is a private club.

Like you have Private mens clubs, Womens institute. etc You can exclude the other sex from a club.

its mentioned in the golfing thread sizzled

My friends are Muslim and go to female only gyms, or they wouldn't be able to go at all. Same with swimming, they book out the pool for their own use. Why assume that men at gyms are ogling anyway?

I go to a women's gym because it's the most convenient one, I like the facilities and it's cheaper than most of the other gyms. There are fitness activities in leisure centres round and about that are specifically for men, for women, for young people, for pensioners, etc. As long as there are similar facilities available for others who want to use these, I don't get why folks get so aerated that there are some spaces set aside for certain groups - particularly where they might otherwise not engage if there weren't.

Yes, there are some Muslim women who come to my gym who probably wouldn't use the gym at the local leisure centre. There are also some women who are very self-conscious about their body image and wouldn't dream of setting foot in a mixed gym because of it. Many of them are quite young women, but who don't lead particularly healthy lifestyles and if fitness activities can be made less threatening and more welcoming for them, that's got to be a good thing. Me? I could care less whether a man nor beast was in the gym with me as I have my eyes closed and concentrating on what I'm doing most of the time.

Single sex gyms aren't the same as institutions that make big political, social or economic decisions or where power deals are brokered (so where direct or indirect exclusion of women isn't a good thing.)

load of blocks tbh. You'd think a woman who goes to the gym would be strong; obviously not strong enough to tell ogling men where to go

Many gyms are de facto male anyway, so as a real life question, it's not that relevant, I don't think. I'm not sure if there are 'officially' male-only gyms (there might be, I guess), but councils etc. often offer female-only exercise sessions as part of their equality and diversity initiatives, as otherwise women of certain religions might be excluded altogether from the facility.