Jackass Sues Gym
From the same paper that brought us Samantha Brick, meet an even bigger intentionally-controversial shitnugget. His name’s Peter Lloyd, he’s a London-based men’s issues journalist, and he’s suing his gym, the Kentish Town Sports Centre, for gender bias. Specifically, for hosting women’s-only gym time for 442 hours out of the year.
(I repeat: the YEAR, which comes out to 18 days a year comprehensively). How in the world would a human rights crime like this occur, one might ask? Lloyd has an answer. “We live in an age of acceptable misandry, [and] most people are too polite to say anything.”
After Lloyd complained to the gym manager, he received a response that cited statistics from the Women Sport and Fitness Foundation, which focuses on getting more women athletically active: 26% of women “hate the way they look when they exercise,” and, when compounded with the male gaze, significantly decreases the number of women who go to the gym regularly. As Llloyd puts it:
Translated into plain English, this means that a group of agenda-driven feminists say a minority of women ‘feel’ bad about their bodies. And because heterosexual men are naturally attracted to women, their very existence makes it worse, so they should be banned. No, seriously. That’s like trying to clean a dirty face by rubbing a mirror.
Peter Lloyd is a professional writer and knows what metaphors are.
He goes on: “If these women have issues with their bodies, I truly sympathize – but it’s their problem, not mine. Nor is it any other man’s.” Jesus Christ. It is not just ISSUES WITH OUR BODIES, dude. It is years and years and years and YEARS of putting your head down in what’s notoriously been a hostile and unwelcoming environment for women.
It also assumes that all men in the gym are straight, when many of them are gay and have no interest in the female aesthetic. In fact, if they really wanted to, these men could be voyeuristic in the showers.
And, hey, speaking of agendas, Peter Lloyd doesn’t even care about the pocket change he’s going to make off this gym. It’s the principle of the thing. “I’m suing the gym for gender bias. Not simply because their policy is unfair, but because it pathologizes masculinity while simultaneously repressing it.” And then he cites the massive, ongoing worldwide history of the oppressed patriarchy. Oh, wait, no, he doesn’t, because that’s not real.
Instead, he uses Sex and The City.
Tellingly, the gym’s policy also assumes that only men can objectify the opposite sex. But if TV shows like Sex and The City taught us anything, it’s that women can be just as forthright.
And who’s to say we don’t have our own body hang-ups? We know for a fact that increasing numbers of men suffer from anorexia and bulimia as well as ‘bigorexia’ – the need to be as muscular as possible. Rates of men having cosmetic surgery are also increasing year-on-year, so the facts speak for themselves.
I agree! It’s fucking shitty of us to marginalize boys and men with eating disorders, and we should do something about it. That’s a completely different subject, and, for that matter, one that Lloyd doesn’t really give a fuck about other than its use as a handy citation for his argument.
This is a toxic message to send out, especially when those affected are frequently young boys in crucial stages of puberty and self-development. Such messages are pernicious. They criminalise men for being male, while telling women that they have less responsibility to contribute to functional gender relations.
Image via Kzenon/Shutterstock
I actually agree with Mr. Lloyd and I am a female. I don’t think either sex should be banned from a gym they pay to belong to during any sort of time. If the gym is going to set certain hours for women then it should do the same for men. Are there not men out there who are uncomfortable in their own skin and don’t want fit, attractive women gazing their way while they step it out on treadmill? Saturday 6:11pm
Question, though: couldn’t Mr. Lloyd just go to another gym? If he’s inconvenienced by ladies’ day in the gym, the gym loses his business. Simple as that. Saturday 6:24pm
Would you say the same thing If Mr. Lloyd was complaining about “thin people only” days, or “white people only” days? Saturday 6:27pm
I can’t even. This is like that MRA that sues clubs for having cheaper cover charges for women.
Solution: go to a different gym, and don’t go to the kind of club that has cheaper cover charges for women. Saturday 6:10pm
Do they realize that those bars have a cheaper cover for women so that they encourage women to go there?
I really wish guys like this would choke to death on their undeserved smug sense of self-worth. Saturday 6:17pm
Just like people who had to deal with segregation should have just moved to a state without it instead of trying to change their state…
This guy has a completely legitimate point; this sort of sexism should not be allowed. I’d be pretty pissed if I went to my gym and was turned away because it was “women-only” time. Saturday 6:17pm
No, I’m sorry. Normally I’m totally against any of the shit that MRA trolls throw out there, and the fact that the dude used the term “Misandry” is frustrating, but HE HAS A VALID POINT.
He’s paying for a shitload of hours in which he is barred from using the gym, and lots of men have the same self-esteem issues that women do. Either they should provide men-only hours or they should charge men less.
Moreover, people go to the gym to work out. That is the POINT. If men ogling women and being dirtbags is that big of a problem, you BAN them for it. You don’t go charging all men for 442 hours they can’t use just because some are being reprehensible.
This is just like the trans* bathroom issue. If it’s about using the bathroom, you should be able to use the one matching your gender identity. If it’s about people being perverts, those people should be thrown out of the establishment. Saturday 6:27pm
you can’t ban men from oogling. how the hell do you prove it?
at my gym, there is a guy that wears a SHOW ME YOUR TITS shirt to work out in. At a coed gym with young women present (high school athletes working out). That’s not intimidating, oh no, not at all. I’ve complained but officially there’s no “dress code” so they can’t make him change.
Until and unless men stop being idiots when women are present, we’re unfortunately going to need women-only time. Saturday 8:05pm
As I’ve said in this comment thread at LEAST five times now, YES. WOMEN-ONLY HOURS ARE NECESSARY. I am not, have not, and WILL NOT EVER say they are not! They are! Men can be dicks! Society ENCOURAGES men to be dicks! It’s a major problem and it needs to be fucking dealt with!
I just don’t approve of them saying he has to pay for time at the gym that he can’t use! Saturday 8:09pm
His argument is nuts, but the old Consumerist commenter in me agrees with him in small part. I think his argument to arrive at his conclusion is whiny and lame, but as a consumer rights advocate, I have to say that a women’s-only time policy is wrong from a consumer perspective. But then again, the women also have a legitimate argument in favor, so I’ll bring up both and let everyone disagree with me.
Consumer Perspective
If the paying customer is paying for access 365 days a year, and is not being provided that access but another customer is, then it is consumer abuse arguably. I would say this regardless of the group. If women get access to more hours than men, then men should be given prorated memberships— at least from a consumer perspective. You could argue that there’s price discrimination here (which can be legal, such as student pricing), but reduced service is usually hard to argue for.
BUT, here’s the caveat to this. Women also don’t get the product that they pay for, which is a comfortable environment to work out in. So arguably, women pay more for a product that doesn’t necessarily meet their needs either.
Women’s Perspective
If a customer goes to use a service and is unable to maximize their utility per dollar because of controllable circumstances, then the company has an obligation to provide a solution, right? Women get shitty experiences at gyms because of the guys who leer and bother them. This means that they, as consumers, don’t get what they pay for either. And arguably the deadweight loss for men is more than compensated for with the increase in social welfare for women. Arguably, this is the Pareto maximum of gym membership.
But there’s no winning here, really. Because if you charge women more, then they’re paying more for a shittier experience overall. If you don’t, then you’re charging men for a service that they cannot use. And here’s where my consumer rights advocacy and my women’s rights advocacy intersect and hate one another. Saturday 6:25pm
Why not simply offer the same number of hours per year as male-only gym time, and ensure that neither men nor women are paying for the hours they aren’t able to use?
Doesn’t that solve both issues? Saturday 6:28pm
Arguably, women still get reduced utility during ALL mixed gender hours, while men have no period of reduced utility either during mixed gender hours or men-only hours. You could argue that, from a maximization of social welfare and minimization of deadweight loss perspective, men-only hours mean further maximization of male benefit overall. The argument is that women are the minimized group here.
It’s not easy to fix this, and I think this is a band-aid at best. But I’m not so sure how much outrage I feel about it now that I think about it further from an economic perspective. Saturday 6:31pm
They should go women-only. Saturday 6:13pm
Or, you know, just have equivalent male-only gym hours as well, and ensure neither gender is paying for hours they are not allowed to use with their membership. Saturday 6:24pm
better yet, just refund his membership fee and tell him to find another gym. Saturday 6:26pm
You don’t what it’s like to be a man unless you’re a man. Ditto Woman. I don’t think men can appreciate that actually (i’m sorry) but they are intimidating.
Idea:
Take one, small, straight man. Put him in a room of sexually active, much bigger & stronger than him, gay men. Alone. Get him to wiggle his ass in the air and get sweaty, and see how comfortable he is. Would the men do anything to him? 99.9% chances are no. Are they even attracted to him? not likely, being all sweaty and all. However, the point is not how bad the men are, it’s, how comfortable would that one guy be? Would he feel threatened? Hell yes. Welcome to the world of being a woman. That’s why you find us so annoying. Saturday 6:26pm
Thank you. This is perfect. This story is bringing out alllll the crybabies. Saturday 7:29pm
Not quite equivalent. Here’s how we can make his experience more closely resemble that of a woman:
Is the society he lives in dominated by beefy gay guys? It should be.
Has he been told his entire life that he’ll never be pretty or pleasant enough for beefy gay guys unless be follows this fad diet or buys this product? He should have been.
Has he ever been raped by a beefy gay guy? If we’re going for equivalency, there’s a 1 in 3 chance he has.
Does he personally know more than one fellow slightly built heterosexual man who has been raped by a beefy gay guy (or a group of beefy gay guys)? Again, not wishing rape on anyone, but for equivalence’s sake he absolutely should.
Is he frequently harrassed in public by beefy gay guys? Possibly daily? He should be.
Does he see his physical environment in terms of places he’s more or less likely to be raped by beefy gay guys? He needs to.
Etc, etc, till I fucking puke. The experience of men in patriarchal society is so goddamned privileged compared to women’s that it makes me want to scream. And I’m a dude! It’s not hard to grasp. The guy in the article (and other assholes like him) has to have women in his life. Is it that difficult to ask them about their lives and actually listen? Yesterday 12:29am
I think something’s missing from this article – from the original source and the gym website, there are only women’s only sessions – like women’s yoga, or an hour a few days a week for women’s swim. It doesn’t look like men are ever prohibited from coming in the gym, using the general cardio & weight equipment, or going to other classes – which is how it originally sounded to me.
This would be like me suing my gym for not letting me into a class for pregnant women or teenagers even though I’m paying my own dues and there are analogous classes that I could take. It also doesn’t look like there are classes for men only, but I would bet that there’s no demand for it (and if he wants them, he should be asking for them, not taking the women’s classes away).
http://www.better.org.uk/areas/camden/c…
(Click on the “By Gender” tab under “Weekly Programme”) Saturday 7:26pm
I live near Camden and know my local council run gym (this is run with the council) has 3 or 4 hours a week where the pool is women only. This is because of our Orthodox Jewish and Muslim communities needing a way for women to be able to use these facilities without men around, as it’s not ok for men other than their husbands to look at them in any state of nearly undress. I know Camden also has a large Muslim community this is probably aimed at. So in reality instead of women getting 100% of the time to his 95% the women at these session get 5% of the time to use the facilities.
Also there are Women only gym sessions but it’s important to note that his membership covers all gyms in the Borough and at any point there is a women’s only class on there is another fitness centre open for all. So he could just get a fucking bus. Saturday 9:12pm
So in addition to being a MRA whiny baby, he “forgets” to mention that this policy is centered around the gym being a good neighbor and offering space for women whose religious beliefs preclude them from working out in a mixed-gender space. Nice. Saturday 11:52pm
“How dare women have nice things (or any things)?! It makes me sad in the no-no place when that happens, and we all know that’s disappointing to the gay men at my gym who stare in wonder at my junk.”
Is this gif working for people? Saturday 6:57pm
Yes! Uncle Joe (and your comment) for the win! I find I have to refresh a couple of times to get pictures and gifs to appear correctly. Saturday 7:17pm
I looked up the website of this gym to see just when the women only hours are. Unless this man is a swimming fanatic, he only loses 90 minutes of gym access per week. The other hours are all for the pool only.
I wish the gym near me had women only swim times. To get from the locker room to the pool you have to walk past the old men sitting in the hot tub. I swam a few times but was constantly uncomfortable and being stared at so I stopped. I miss swimming. Saturday 8:13pm
This is your problem though, not theirs. You are uncomfortable with being stared at. Did these men verbally or physically harass you? If so, then you should have reported them to the people that work there. The solution is not to have women only whatevers. Yesterday 12:08am
You are obviously a dude. How do you report leering? Nothing gets done unless there’s actually something being said. Yesterday 7:36am
He is suing a Council gym, meaning firstly he is getting his sessions subsidised by the Council and secondly he is suing fucking tax payers for this bullshit. I’d also say that Camden has a large Muslim and Orthodox Jewish communities, both of whom do not allow women to be uncovered in front of men, so their sports centres have women only gym and swimming hours so they can exercise without fear of being seen by men. Saturday 6:24pm
He’s a journalist? Jesus. I thought this was just one of those everyman type stories the Mail loves to run. Wish he’d fuck off back under the bridge whence he came. Saturday 9:00pm
by journalist read “MRA idiot who writes for the Mail”. The comments are hilarious because all the worst ranked are so fucking sensible calling him an idiot and all the best are MRA nonsense. Saturday 9:03pm
The only thing that speaks for itself is that he has to resort to a TV show to justify his perception of reality. Sex and the City. Really. Yesterday 6:39am
Nope, not buying it. In most local pools we have family swim hours, free swim hours, lap swimming hours, and elderly swim time – or some combination of this where half the pool is roped off for one group or another. This is not because we hate children, but because if we made the pool a complete free-for-all nobody would have any fun — the kids would bug the lapswimmers, the lapswimmers would splash the elderly, and so on. In a practical attempt to create the best experience for everybody, gyms have times when different people/activities are allowed in and times when they aren’t.
I don’t personally work out at a gym, but by many, many accounts I’ve heard the gym can be a hotbed of ogling and harassment. The business doesn’t want to be put in a position where they’re policing individual behaviour of there members, so they create a FEW days a year where women who have a significant problem with this can work out. Women who pay gym membership fees have the right to use he gym too, not to be driven away by harassment. And the management can get itself into hot water by trying to police peoples’ behaviour.
If those days are particularly important to the dudes to work out on, then they can take that into account and not buy a membership. The gym is probably counting on the increase in shy-woman business offsetting the business lost by any men that feel that way.
I don’t know if it’s the best solution to the problem, but it’s the gym’s prerogative. If he had that information when he got the membership, he didn’t have to decide to buy the membership. He probably only bought the damn membership in the first place so he could have his big whiny MRA tantrum about it. Saturday 11:50pm
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