Misogyny At The Gym!

In my experience, often times gym coaches can be sexist "even if they don't mean it."

Listening to: Work by Rihanna

Our car broke down the other day. The battery spilt some bluish, whitish gunk and— thankfully I was very near home!— the engine wouldn’t turn on. So I went to the gym on commute. With crazy gas prices these days, it’s a reprieve.

I made it clear with Coach M, 2 months ago when I first talked to him, even before the actual gym exercises took place, that I have a fragile, broken body. The pandemic gave me lower back problems like pain I have never felt in my life. I told him, point-blank, that I neither cared for the “sexy bod” everybody’s after. (or not yet, at least. Those things are still so far into the future, I hope). I just wanted my pain to go away.

I experienced the nastiest gout flare and had to be bedridden for ten days. When I came back to the gym, the atmosphere was pretty much the same. Misters Buff and Twink Crush still arrived the minute the gym opened, like I did. Coach and Manager were still endlessly sweeping. The only true change was that I saw three new lovely ladies in the morning scene.

Because of my absence, Coach had me train general whole-body routines again. Weights had significantly lowered and Coach advised that I took it slow. Peace in the kingdom. For the first hour at least.

The weights eventually increased, bit by bit, as the routines progressed further and Coach kept imparting pieces of wisdom as I labored through:

1. It’s just pain.

2. It’s all in the mind.

3. Your mind will tell you what to do so when a set has, say, 15 reps, it’s going to tell your body to get tired at 12. So just push through.

4. A straight 15 reps is better than dividing it in half. Force yourself to battle on and finish the reps!

Then came the lagging due to my great propensity to overthink.

Still, Coach pushed me, often joking and laughing along the way. But as comedian Dave Chappelle said during his Oprah interview: (paraphrased): You tend know when someone’s laughing with you and/or they’re laughing at you. While usually, it’s just the typical jokes and banter with us, this time I truly felt it was the latter kind of laugh.

At one point, I became so insecure that for the first time at the gym, a place which I have tremendous fun, I risked my safety. The barbell was too heavy but I did my best until at the fourth lift, I couldn’t push anymore, and I lowered and lowered it, my strength waning, almost about to crush my neck. Coach saved me just in the nick of time. Almost no harm done. He revised his advice, saying it was fine if I couldn’t complete the upgraded sets with added weights.

Came the time for the next exercise, the pullover, Coach gave me a 15-pound dumbbell and suddenly said:

“I think you can do 15. (Pointing to the woman beside me*) She’s doing 20 and she’s just a woman.”

And he laughed tremendously.

I only hoped the nice lady didn’t hear him. I only laughed nervously.

But beyond physicality, I lost all strength to go on then and there. I continued silently, thinking 8:30 AM (the time which I usually bid goodbye) couldn’t arrive any quicker. Coach further mused that we were still doing “basic” exercises and that when the “hard” ones came, there would be no room for cheating. ???

I’m tempted to switch to another gym and go solo. I simply cannot stand misogyny.

But it is important to note that, having known Coach for a decent two months now, that we’re dealing with a kind and decent man here. And I think there in lies the problem. Misogyny is so rooted within our culture that many times it simply and unknowingly pass as jokes.

Just like what’s happening now with the current Manila Mayor running for President (links one and two).

I theorize that this is because the workplace, the gym, are still vastly male-dominated and male-led and though the feminist movement has come a long way, there are still many, many things to be achieved.

I was supposed to go the gym today but I just couldn’t face Coach yet. Instead and for now, I’ll write.