Women avoid mixed sex gyms due to male harassment

[SamW98]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68145372

Well call me shocked - not!! And they wonder why we want to preserve single sex spaces

up to her, that is

Believe it or not, not all woman find it easy to be assertive. And in these situations, come on, you know what the response will be, "why can't we both use it - you're taking a break anyway" etc etc etc.

Is this genuine confusion or just faux "oh, but why do women put up with this shit?"

If I was using a machine and a guy came over and took over (which i doubt happens) I would I hope i would say something.
And about being bothered conversationally, well listen to something on headphones. I was being bothered (by a woman) and this solved it.

With people hogging machines, I used to find it a bind. But now my routine is 4 repetitions of 10. With 1.5 minutes rest between. So what I used to think was hogging wasn't the case.

The comments on the bbc story on the local bbc Facebook feed are … depressing. Full of comments on the appearance of the woman in the story, how women should go to the gym in baggy clothes if the don’t want any comments, lots from women who like having men talk to them.

Sometimes I really don’t like my fellow humans.

I’ve always used mixed gyms of lots of different sizes and never been harassed. I’ve been using mixed gyms since my early 20’s. Including jaccuzis, saunas.

obviously my anecdotal evidence isn’t everything but I’d suggest that it shows that it doesn’t apply across the board.

I go to a very small gym which only does classes/small group training. Everyone has a station and does the same routine with one instructor. The majority of the people at the classes I attend (varies across the week so I've a reasonable idea of the client mix) are women. The owner is 6ft3 guy. I'm 5ft2. He asked me recently if I'd change my 4 star Google rating to a 5 star. I told him I will when the gym is better set up for women - the lighter equipment (5kg weight plates, 10-14kg kettle bells) are all on higher shelves/racks than the heavier ones. The benches are too high for me to be able to plant my feet on the floor for bench presses/support my chest comfortably for flies. The cables are too high to easily change handles without stepping on the bench. He looked at me like I was mad. Fortunately the instructors are great and grab me what I need when I ask and over all the classes are worth it, but it's damn infuriating.