Lucy Yen
UNIV 200
Gordon
Because We Can’t or Because We Won’t?
Addressing the Lack of Females in the Weight Room
The free weight area of the Cary Street Gym posts an invisible sign saying “No Girls
Allowed”. Seriously. How many times do you see a woman lifting weights? A common
answer would be “not often”. When I hit the gym for my triweekly squats, deadlifts, and
bench presses, I am one of a few women pumping iron, if not the only one. This is a
regular observation. Men dominate the free-weight area while women have crowd the
cardiovascular machines, Zumba, and yoga classes.
Contrary to popular myth, women are perfectly capable of lifting weights. Women,
biologically, cannot get “bulky” like men, but they certainly can gain muscle strength,
improved physical fitness, psychological health, and an ideal body size. Since I have
started weight training, I have discovered extensive benefits. I have made great strides in
both my athletic performance as well as my weight loss goals. For the first time since
childhood, I am in the “healthy” weight range for my height due to a combination of
weightlifting, running regularly, and a healthy diet. From trial and error, I found that
weightlifting has been the missing puzzle piece to keep me motivated to lose the weight.
Weight training makes me physically stronger, gives me confidence, keeps me interested,
and motivates me to improve. My positive experience with weightlifting is not a rare
thing. Jessica Salvatore, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Sweet Briar College,
and Jeanne Marecek, a Senior Research Professor of Psychology at Swarthmore College
(2010) state that the physical benefits of weightlifting include increased metabolism,
slowed aging, and contribution to overall fitness. Weight lifting is especially beneficial
for women post-menopause, who are more susceptible than men to loss of bone mass,
because it can help prevent osteoporosis. In addition, weight training can decrease
psychological conditions, such as depression, that are prevalent among women. Women
can also increase their body satisfaction by weight training and develop an increased selfesteem and feelings of self-satisfaction (557). Even though there are so many benefits to
weight training, not nearly enough women do it. This concern has lead me to believe that
the underlying factor that turns women off from lifting must not be health related, but
rather due to the societal boundaries that keep exercise gender-coded. More men than
women lift weights because women feel self conscious for being in a men’s territory,
strive to achieve the thin ideal, and fear a masculine physique.
Women avoid weightlifting because they feel self-conscious for being the minority in
a territory that is dominated by men. These evaluation concerns are present because
women have less experience than men lifting weights. Shari L. Dworkin, a female weight
lifter as well as the Vice Chair and Associate Professor for the Department of Social and
Behavioral Sciences at University of California: San Francisco, conducted an interview
and ethnographic research-based study of why women choose to perform certain fitness
exercises (135). Although the participants were varied in their fitness goals and workout
routines, Dworkin (2003) discovered that many of the women she interviewed described
feeling “intimidated,” “uncomfortable,” and “practically the only woman there” when
using the weight room (140). When I first ventured into the weight room, I felt like
everyone was watching my every move. I was anxious, clumsy, and stiff because I was so
concerned with how others judged me. Even though people there were probably more
concerned with themselves, I felt that being a girl and being a novice at weight lifting at
the time made me an outcast. Apparently, this is a recurring anxiety that women feel.
Jessica Salvatore and Jeanne Marecek (2010) discuss that more women than men have
evaluation concerns, which are an immense factor into why women feel like outsiders in
the weight room. Evaluation concerns are people’s interest with how others view them.
Salvatore and Marecek discuss the significance of evaluation concerns in humans as,
“The need to belong, to be accepted, and not to be ostracized…. which is served by
monitoring and managing social evaluations.” (p. 557) Salvatore and Marecek conducted
a study where fifty-six female participants were asked to characterize a bench press and a
Stairmaster as a men’s exercise or a women’s exercise. The majority of participants rated
a bench press as more characteristic of men with a mean score of 6.20 on a scale from 1
to 7, with 1 being “not at all characteristic” and 7 being “totally characteristic”, while the
Stairmaster was described as more characteristic of women, with a mean score of 5.79
(560). Participants were also asked to rate the evaluation concerns that they would
experience using a bench press versus doing aerobic exercises on a variety of scales from
1 to 7. These questions regarded the comfort level, concerns of people watching, and
deterrence from using that particular exercise of the participants when given a
hypothetical situation of using a bench press versus a Stairmaster in a busy gym scenario.
The majority responded that they would experience a higher magnitude of evaluation
concerns when using the bench press rather than the Stairmaster (561). Salvatore and
Marecek (2010) suggest two reasons for these evaluation concerns: exercises are
“gender-coded” and the overstepping of gender boundaries leads to feelings of selfconsciousness as well as the lack of weight lifting experience from the surveyed women
(561). As a result of these evaluation concerns, women choose to avoid weight rooms
despite its immense physical and psychological benefits. The magnitude of evaluation
concerns is so strong that it pushes women away from healthy fitness choices.
A reason why women may feel evaluation concerns in the male-dominated weight
room is lack of experience. Dworkin (2003) argues that females are more likely to begin
weight training later in life than men, and therefore must “catch-up” by learning how to
use the equipment as well as stated/unstated rules (140). These rules are not taught, but
rather learned through experience and observation. This gap in knowledge could also be
attributed to women having less encouragement than men to be physical as children, with
unequal opportunities for organized sport (140). The activities that are offered to children
are extremely gender coded. Rigorous sports, such as football, are not offered to girls,
and some sports, such as softball, are softened versions of boy’s sports. Sports begin to be
separated by gender during this time, creating a mindset for children that males and
females are not supposed to cohabitate the same exercises. Girls being discouraged from
rigorous activity leads to women lacking experience in fitness criteria where males may
thrive, such as the training of muscle strength.
There is an agreement between the authors that inexperience is a factor into why
women feel like outsiders when stepping onto the weight floor. Salvatore and Marecek
(2010) discovered how lack of weight lifting experience in females strongly relates to
their avoidance of weight rooms as well as evaluation concerns (565). However, the
assignment of gender to certain exercises is a major factor in women’s evaluation
concerns, as seen with the greater feelings of self-consciousness when the women were
asked how they felt about performing what they defined as “men’s exercises” (561). It
can be concluded from these two authors that women’s avoidance of weight rooms can be
cyclic since women who avoid weight rooms due to evaluation concerns regarding their
experience and gender allow men to remain the weight lifting majority.
Women do not lift weights in their workout routine because they desire a thin
physique rather than a fit one. An ideal thin physique for women would be having little
muscle mass or body fat. When casually conversing with my female friends on the
subject of our ideal bodies, many of my peers use words such as “skinny” and “thin” to
describe their fitness goals instead of “strong”, “athletic”, or “healthy”. Smaller pants
sizes are coveted, and those who are “naturally skinny” are envied. This desire to be thin
is not just among my group of friends. American culture has come to celebrate a slim
female ideal. According to Caroline Davis, a professor of Kinesiology and Health
Sciences at York University, and Michael Cowles (1991), Western culture has come to
appreciate a more slim female body since the era of Marilyn Monroe curves. It is evident
that diet and weight loss have become an increasingly large concern among young
women due to the cultural standard for female attractiveness becoming thinner and
thinner (34). If given a choice, many women will choose a thinner body, as seen in
Dworkin’s (2003) research where participants were asked to choose between very thin,
non-muscular body on one side of an imaginary scale, and muscular bodybuilders on
another. When the women were asked what they want they wanted their bodies to look
like, most stayed close on the scale to the thinner body, rarely venturing even close to a
semi-muscular middle-ground. Some participants mentioned female supermodels as the
ideal body type, others accepted a slightly more athletic build that maintains femininity,
such as one of an aerobic instructor (139). Dworkin’s (2003) interviews strongly support
Davis and Cowles’ (1991) argument that a slim build with very little muscles has become
a cultural standard that many women aim to obtain.
For many women, gym attendance is not for health reasons, but for aesthetic ones.
Since our culture has come to celebrate the attractive female body type is having little
body fat or muscle mass, many women feel the pressure to get thin. This pressure is
continuous and gives women a narrow box they should aspire to fit into, despite other
factors, such as genetics, that could make standard a struggle and possibly unattainable.
Susan S. Levy, a Professor at the School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences at San
Diego State University, and Vicki Ebbeck (2005), an Associate Professor at the School of
Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University, reported that women have
lower self-esteem than men, and that women who exercised for aesthetic purposes had a
much higher body dissatisfaction (574). Levy and Ebbeck also discussed that the
relationship between physical acceptance and self-esteem is extremely important (581).
Women strive to “fit in” to what society presents how the female body should look, and
feel a higher self-worth once they achieve body satisfaction.
For many women, attaining the thin ideal is thought to lead to physical acceptance.
Many women try, through exercise, to reduce their body size in order to fit into the thin
ideal that our culture values. On the contrary, the male ideal body is seen as having large
visible musculature. Although our culture puts an emphasis on both genders to have
minimal body fat, there is more pressure for women to get thin. An example of cultural
influence on body type is the fashion industry. Male and female fashion models that are
displayed in billboards, magazines, and television commercials are vastly different in
their body types. Male models are shown to be lean, but with defined muscle and rarely
any bones showing through. Female fashion models, by comparison, have been notorious
for being very underweight, oftentimes with ribs showing and small breasts and hips.
According to Nancy Theberge, a Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo,
“The power of the media lies in their ability not only to provide information but to
formulate imagery and shape ideas.” (p.37) When thin has become the standard for
female beauty, everyday women feel pressured to fit in. As a result, more and more
women are concerned with their body image. A study conducted by Jessica Salvatore and
Jeanne Marecek (2010) where images of fitness goals were searched for and analyzed for
gender representations. In the years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, two Google Image
searches with the search terms “burn fat” and “build muscle”. A researcher noted how
many men and how many women were depicted in each image for the first 100 images in
2007, and then the first 200 images in 2008, 2009, and 2010. The results showed that
each fitness goal was linked to particular gender, with men dominating the “build
muscle” search and women the “burn fat” search. However, the ratio of men to women in
the “build muscle” search term has had a steady increase, while the ratio of women to
men in the “burn fat” search term has had a steady decrease (558). While men continue to
be associated with building muscle, burning fat is becoming a concern relevant to both
genders. It is apparent, however, that women are slightly more associated with burning
fat than their male counterparts.
Women also rely heavily on cardiovascular exercises for body size reduction.
More caloric burn creates more of a calorie deficit in the body, which in theory, will
make the body use fat stores for fuel. Ideally, this simple formula should be the answer to
body size reduction. In Shari Dworkin’s 2001 article “Holding Back”: Negotiating A
Glass Ceiling on Women’s Muscular Strength, women who were non-weightlifters and
moderate weightlifters were interviewed in several local gyms on the West Side of Los
Angeles regarding their experiences and choices while working out (336). Non-lifters
avoided the weight room and instead relied heavily on cardiovascular exercises to
“decrease size” and to maintain a feminine appearance of being slim with some curves.
Both non-lifters and moderate lifters described necessity of cardiovascular exercises as
more “bang for your buck” in that it can burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time, a
benefit most commonly associated with body fat reduction (340). However, heavy
cardiovascular exercise is not always the answer for fat loss. Research conducted by
Kathleen Cullinen, a public health nutritionist with the Rhode Island Department of
Health, and Marjorie Caldwell (1998) shows that weight training can be significantly
helpful in increasing fat-free mass in the body. Thirty undergraduate women who had no
previous weight training experience were given a 12-week weight-training program with
a coach. The program asked participants not to perform aerobic exercises during this
time, and to not change their eating habits. The program consisted of 2 supervised
sessions per week with 6 types of lifting exercises per session. Results showed that
although body weight did not change significantly for the subjects, the average body fat
percentage decreased 9.0 +/- 0.9%. Thus, the bodies of the participants became healthier,
with an increase in fat-free mass and a lower body fat percentage (416). This study shows
that without altering the energy intake of the participants significantly, they were able to
achieve a favorable body composition, disproving the theory that fat loss is just a calorie
deficit. With that said, women still are choosing cardiovascular exercise over
weightlifting. One of the reasons for this is that there is a misconception that a favorable
body composition is a direct result of a low bodyweight. Muscle weighs more than fat,
and a person who lifts weights regularly may weigh the same as someone who does not,
but could have a much more favorable body composition where fat has been replaced by
lean muscle. Muscle, although helpful in achieving fat burn, is often misunderstood as
being a mechanism for looking masculine.
Another reason why women do not lift weights is that they fear achieving a
masculine physique. A masculine appearance and having muscles are oftentimes
misunderstood as being the same. A common myth that exists is that, despite biological
differences between men and women, you will get “bulky” when you lift weights. This
“bulk” is large amounts of muscle mass on the body, something that women cannot
achieve unless they took performance enhancing drugs and/or worked out for long
periods of time every day. In Dworkin’s (2001) ethnographic research of active women,
both non-lifters and moderate lifters expressed a fear of increase in muscle mass. An
upper limit that prevents women from pushing past the cultural association of weight
training and masculinity is described as a “glass ceiling” where non-lifters do not come
close and moderate lifters bump against, then hold back to maintain femininity. This
glass ceiling has been constantly changing and being challenged as social norms and
definitions of femininity are shifting (336). Moderate lifters discussed their choice to hold
back from pushing their muscular limits by taking breaks from lifting and even
decreasing the time spent in the gym. Dworkin (2001) interviews a woman who combines
light weight training and cardiovascular exercise. This participant discusses her reasoning
behind this exercise choice as, “ ‘…because I don’t want to be like some women who are
losing their femininity, you know, their curves. I don’t want to be like a female
bodybuilder.” (341) This fear of becoming too masculine is very present in this quote and
it is evident that many women lack a belief in a middle ground between extreme muscle
building and regular exercise for a healthy body.
A study performed by Robert W. Duff (1999), a Professor of Psychology at the
University of Portland, Lawrence K. Hong, a Professor of Sociology at California State
University, and W. Stephen Royce, an Associate Professor of Psychology at University
of Portland, showed that collegiate female athletes were motivated to commit to their
weight training requirements out of sheer enjoyment. A sample of a private university’s
male and female athletes were asked to take complete a mixture of questionnaires and
interviews regarding their feelings towards their required weight training. The results
showed that 27% of males, and 49.3% of females expressed their enjoyment of being
physically strong as “It’s a great pleasure”(80). This result shows that many women like
weight lifting, maybe more so than their male counterparts. If more women were
introduced to weight training, they might find it much more fun than long periods of time
running on a treadmill. My personal view is that exercise should be fulfilling and
pleasurable. Moving your body should feel good, not like a chore. Weight lifting is
challenging, certainly, but becoming physically strong is one of the best, most
empowering feelings. If weightlifting became the norm for both men and women,
physical strength would no longer be associated with just men. With more women lifting
weights, we can change gender stereotyping and make more women feel empowered,
independent, and capable. Although weightlifting is certainly a step towards better health,
it is also a step towards a society where gender-associations are broken, and where both
men and women can be equals.
Works Cited
Cullinen, K., & Caldwell, M., (1998). Weight training increases fat-free mass and
strength in untrained young women. Journal of the American Dietetic
Association, 98, 414-418. doi: 10.1016/S0002-8223(98)00094-7
Davis, C., & Cowles, M. (1991). Body image and exercise: a study of relationships and
comparisons between physically active men and women. Sex Roles, 25, 33-44.
doi: 10.1007
Duff, R. –RW. (1999). Gender comparisons in weight training for collegiate sports.
Gender Issues, 17, 74-85.
Dworkin, S. L. (2003). A woman’s place is in the…cardiovascular room?? Gender
relations, the body, and the gym. In Athletic Intruders: Ethnographic Research on
Women, Culture, and Exercise (pp. 131-158). Retrieved from
/web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/
Dworkin, S.L. (2001). “Holding back”: negotiating a glass ceiling on women’s muscular
strength. Sociological Perspectives, 44(3), 333-350
Levy, S. –S., Ebbeck, V. (2005). The exercise and self-esteem model in adult women: the
inclusion of physical acceptance. Psychology of Sport & Exercise
Salvatore, J., Marecek, J. (2010). Gender in the Gym: Evaluation Concerns as Barriers to
Women’s Weight Lifting. Sex Roles, 63,556-557
Theberge, N. (1991). A content analysis of print media coverage of gender, women and
physical activity. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 3, 36-48.