Necessary seems like a strong word doesn’t it? Some people might not consider the “women’s only hours” at our university rec center discrimination, but is there a better word to use for denying service to a certain group of people based on their sex? This kind of blatant sexism demonizes masculinity while further marginalizing women. All students pay the same rec center price (through tuition), but are receiving a different level of service because of this policy.
“People are different in many brilliant ways. If we strive to make everything as fair as possible, we forget the fundamental lesson that life is not fair.” wrote Jessica Foster in her most recent opinion piece where she praises the gender segregation encouraged by this policy. Of course, her statement seems silly. “Women’s only hours” should be justified by more than just a “life isn’t fair”argument, right? I just watched Selma, a fantastic film about Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights Movement. Imagine someone trying to tell the civil rights activists that the racial inequalities our nation faced were actually appropriate because they reminded us of “the fundamental lesson that life is not fair.”
I recently had the chance to sit down with the rec center staff and the people who design the operating policies for the facility to discuss the history and reasons behind the “women’s only” policies. Of course, the reasoning and intentions are not malicious by any means. The policy is a solution to a set of problems regarding women feeling uncomfortable or intimidated while working out and specific religious constraints that don’t allow women to workout or swim with males around. I’m not dismissing these issues, but I wonder if the solution our university has chosen is appropriate. Isn’t abolishing gender role expectations and stereotypes part of what third wave feminism is all about? As a university community, don’t we have a responsibility to ensure that our policies promote gender equality instead of furthering the divide?
While the “women’s only” policy isn’t uncommon on universities and is designed from a practical standpoint to allow for women to work out in a safe, comfortable environment, the unavoidable political statement that it makes seems to rest on promoting the idea that women are somehow unequal in that they need a special time to workout. As we explore the implications of this policy, suddenly we discover that this method regresses the achievements that our society has made in fighting for gender equality and fairness.
Do men not also face uncomfortable situations when working out at the gym? The “women’s only” policy rests on the assumption that intimidation, harassment, and self awareness only affect women­ and are only perpetrated by men. The reality is that all these issues happen on an individual level and for unique reasons strongly based on level of fitness and ability. Intruth, lots of people (from both genders) feel uncomfortable going to the gym. This type of insecurity can be overcome and combated in different ways, but designing inequitable policies around this problem is unjustifiable. Furthermore, the “women’s only” policies do not actually do anything to combat gym harassment, judging, self confidence issues, and creating a refined atmosphere for working out. Rather, this policy allows us to ignore these important issues by offering a work around. Maybe, instead of using gender segregation as a solution, we should focus on discouraging harassment and intimidation in our facilities? Is there really no way to create healthy, safe, sophisticated atmosphere within our student body without resulting to this?
I invite a campus discussion of the “women’s only” policies that we have in place, and I maintain that these policies hurt both genders. Policies designed around gender discrimination have no place on our campus.
This guest viewpoint was contributed by University of Oregon student Thomas Tullis.