Women’s only workout spaces: how do we feel about them?

[SoEasyToFallInLove]

The women’s only space at my gym was a big selling point for me and I enjoy using it. But it’s made me quite sad today that it seems to now be the default position that we must hide away and segregate ourselves instead of the behaviour of men being what changes.

I'm old and some men have always posed a threat. I don't see this changing in my lifetime. I would only be interested in women only classes.

That’s true, and I don’t blame the women who use them (I love the one at my gym!). It just feels like the gyms and other places that put them into place are just accepting the poor behaviour

I used to attend a class at a women only gym and I quite liked the vibe, I was only about 22 at the time and it was nice to be around women of all ages.

Personally I like women’s only classes in that they are a woman centred space rather than an absence of men.

Not fussed about sharing a gym with men otherwise, I work in an office with men and get on a bus with men.

I've never used one to be honest. I use a mixed gym.
We do have a women's gym on the site but I don't feel the need to use it.

There is no women-only space at the (council-run) gym I go to, and afaik no poor behaviour either. There are always staff on duty to answer queries and potentially deal with issues as they arise. We are lucky.

It's not either/or.

Women only spaces give us the space and respite we need to realise how men, often unconsciously, impose on us and restrict us in our lives. Sometimes because of what they actually do, often just because we are chanjng what we do because of what they might do.

And "what they do" isn't just how they might hurt us, it's also friendly but uninvited interaction that nevertheless sucks away our time and focus, or entitled overoccupation of supposedly common resources. It's ending the day realising your smile muscles are tired from holding a pleasant expression that you don't feel all day and your shoulders are tight from being a little on edge all day.

Getting away from that is what gives us the perspective to realise male behaviour is the problem and the energy to fight it so in the long term maybe we could need fewer women only spaces.

I feel they’re an important option for women who want or need them for whatever reason. As the PP said, it’s not an either/or.

It’s also the grunting and the swearing I’d like a break from. Oh and the performative dropping of weights

Nope, not for me. I like going in the morning with my fellow gym bro's. I learn a lot from them re form but mostly we all just get on with our workouts.
If you're intimidated by the free weight section hire a trainer to give you confidence but, I'd say this should apply to women only gyms too.
Ive never encountered bad behaviour from the men at my gym. In fact it's often women i find who behave in an entitled way.

Anything that keeps men away is fine by me - I'm fed up of having to deal with their shitty behaviour.

I haven't used a gym for many years, but when I last did I went to women only gym. I really enjoyed the relaxed and female friendly vibe of the whole thing. If I should go again, that is most definitely what i'd be looking for.

I was always sporty in my youth, and went to an all girls school where sport was a strong feature. To my mind it is perfectly natural and comfortable to be playing sport, doing yoga, and/or exercising with other women.

I think that often there just aren’t enough women interested in particular activities for it to work well. My gym for example holds several activities with separate classes for beginner, intermediate and advanced, mixed sex. They also have a women-only class for a couple of the activities, but there aren’t enough women to have separate classes based on skill level, so it’s one mixed level class and unfortunately it tends towards beginner level, so I don’t bother. So I suppose we’re back to the issue of how to get more women involved in sports which they traditionally eschew.

When I lift, I don’t care who’s around tbh. I have my earbuds in, my music on, and I’m concentrating on my reps. Everyone else is just doing likewise, male or female we all quietly pretend we’re alone.

You’re maybe at a more civilised gym than me. At mine the guys swear, grunt like pigs and drop the weights. Pure gym. I stick with it as it’s cheap and near my house but I hate the vibe when there’s lots of guys in.

Tbh I think anything that helps women get into fitness is a good thing. I don’t think it’s a negative - agree with some posters about the different vibe especially in more traditional gyms, and I think if you’re a woman who’s experienced male violence the gym with men working hard to be more powerful us probably a space where you def need a segregated option.
it’s also good for women in religions who have various rules that would otherwise prevent them going.

its optional usually rather than enforced as well.

Brava

Would prefer a no kids gym but I'm a grump.

I go to a weightlifting gym and am often the only woman there. I always feel comfortable, but then again, I guess I'm possibly slightly arrogant. I'm in my early 40s, so may be too old to get any grief regardless, but I see young girls walk in and they also don't get looks or stares from anyone. Perhaps I struck lucky and it's just a nice gym.

I think women-only spaces are great for those who want them and who HAVE experienced bad behaviour from men.

From a fitness perspective though, I like mixed spaces as I find I push myself harder in them. That's one of the reasons why I like cross fit.

My nearest gym is one of those 24 hour ones which is often unstaffed and you have to go through weird futuristic double doored capsules to get in. It's huge and multi level and tbh I do find it an intimidating space. It's the lack of staff, the presence of men, and also the architecture of it. Lots of dark corners and lurking places. Changing rooms that are completely cut off that nobody could hear you from. With pathetic flimsy shower curtains. And of course they had a self id policy on changing rooms anyway. I'm no longer a member.

I can see from the replies that there are some gyms where a women only section is desirable - especially the unstaffed 24hr gyms.

But I'm guessing that my gym isn't unusual in the safe and welcoming vibe that is present in all of its spaces. All facilities (other than toilets/changing) are mixed sex and the men don't appear to be badly behaved.

What does happen is a kind of unintentional segregation, in that the free weights bit is very, very male and many of the classes are entirely female (or have just the occasional man).

I love the vibe of these women-only classes. Very different indeed from a mixed space. But I also love it that men come sometimes and are happy to cope with the femaleness of the space. I also love it that a few women go into the free weights bit without any problems. I'm sure there sometimes are problems, because men. But on the whole I like the dual experience of majority-female spaces welcoming men and majority-male spaces welcoming women.

I'm in a very friendly part of the country, though. I was struck when I first moved here that men were more likely here (than in my former region) to engage in simple friendly gossipy chat with women

I’m another who likes unspoken single sex provision, which I know isn’t fair. But there’s a class I like which tends to have one or two men in it, and the teacher often does bits where she asks people to pair up, and I both feel guilty if I ignore the man (partly because I don’t think the younger women in the class should have to pair up with him), but also don’t like pairing with him for something quite physical, it makes my skin crawl to have his hand on my knee or whatever even though he has never done a thing to deserve that feeling but I don’t want a strange man touching me. The dislike of that makes me go much less often. Also the classic problem of swimming when the pace I swim at is not fast enough for the lads but I would like to swim fast enough to be out of breath.

I've shared the same above - my gym is so 'neutral', I've never had any trouble, even though it's full of big weightlifting men.
I'm only 8&1/2 stone so feel like an absolute weed and had to give myself a pep talk at the start that "yes you're small and are lifting lighter weights but you have JUST as much right to take up a bench as they do".
They always make space for me, or let me know when they've finished their final set and so on, and I find the young men particularly sweet.
I appreciate I might just have got lucky.

I personally wouldn't use a women's only area but I think it would be great if there were women only spaces for those ladies who for whatever reason, cultural, religious or personal couldn't or wouldn't otherwise use the gym and wish that every gym could provide them. But I suppose not every gym has room to fit in a special space for the minority of users. Mine certainly doesn't. I'm lucky, my low cost gym is incredibly diverse and for the most part everyone minds their own business and doesn't hog the equipment.

Well, apart from the 20-something gentleman who beckoned me over to advise me that my daughter (16 years old at the time) was doing her squats wrong. She was actually doing her ballet plies having passed her grade 6 exam last year... 😂

I don't think of it as segregating women away from men's bad behaviour or threat, so much as making the gym available to women who for cultural/religious reason etc can't use a mixed gym.
I do agree that if men are hogging machinery/weights, staring at or commenting on women etc, it is their behaviour that should change.

I agree that really men’s behaviour should be addressed but this rarely happens so better that we have the opportunity to get away from them.

In my gym days I was lucky to be able to go along during the day midweek when it was entirely middle aged or older people and disabled people.
Everybody was very considerate of each other and just getting on with their own programmes.

When I tried weekends or evenings the place was full of loud men hogging equipment, not using towels to sit on as was the rule or even just wiping their manky sweat off seat or handles.

Also populated at these times by numerous young women in full make up and coiffed hair clearly more interested in flirting and capturing the attention of these men than exercising.

It seems that most 'serious" gyms are nice places, where people just get on with their stuff and respect others for doing the same. The biggest scary-loiking blokes are often the most pleasant and helpful- they have nothing to prove.