Gender Fender-Bender

No this isn’t about cross-dressing, it’s about sexual politics and gender roles. (Bye! See you next post, which I’ll try to make more frivolous.)

Still with me? Heh. Thanks for that. Seriously, I figure it’s about time I tell you some of the stuff I see every day in my gyms. I’m fascinated because the same patterns play out in such different configurations.

At the big chain boutique gym, the one I loathe, I watch reasonably-fit guys preen and swagger, and largely-unfit young women simper and flirt. Gender stereotypes played in classic fashion. No surprises there.

But in my hardcore gym, where there is serious muscle on both sides of the gender divide, the exact same patterns occur. Today I watched a muscle-bound pretty thing – she’s got a face like the St. Pauli girl but walks like a linebacker -- tilt her head coquettishly and try to giggle. The guys there make what I call “look at me” noises when they lift. I’m not talking about an involuntary vocalization to get out that final rep, these are rhythmic and consistent porcine beats that can be heard from a distance and do nothing but draw attention to the grunter. Let’s ignore the ones who count out loud, they’re low-hanging fruit. The women don’t do that, at least I’ve never heard any.

There’s a woman who has to be 80 if she’s a day. She wears a sports bra that looks like two black socks filled with oatmeal, and the entire Sherwin-Williams line of make-up. She’s less embarrassing than the equivalently aged man who acts like he’s Tom Sawyer and his trainer is Pa Walton. The trainer is half his age.

Nature or nurture? I learned my own gender patterns from watching endless “Love, American Style” as a tween. I’m still looking for an explanation for the buff older man who announces loudly, proudly and often, “People ask me if I believe in God. I tell them, sure, I believe in myself.”