By placing miniature women throughout the gym, this project asks gym-goers to direct their attention away from their own bodies and towards tiny feminine figures. This opportunity for attention redirection, in a masculinized space, calls viewers to consider the ways in which their lack of awareness and occupation of space may impact the experiences of others, particularly women and gender-expansive folks.

 

Men, specifically those embodying traditional forms of masculinity, enter fitness spaces with a particular body, identity, and power relation that allows them to have a certain level of epistemic arrogance. In other words, their comfort in the space leads them to overestimate their understanding of the space’s culture and their impact on those within it (Almassi, 2022), particularly in this masculinized space, their impact on women and gender-expansive folks. This project aims to plant seeds of mindfulness that may prompt reflection on the deep proliferation of androcentrism in gyms and how the resulting beliefs and performances position those performing femininity or alternative masculinity as mere guests in the space.

 

The stories included in this work come from my master’s work exploring binary gender performances in a Canadian university fitness centre. Data were collected through six months of participant observations and focus groups and were analyzed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021), pulling from the work of Butler (1990, 1993), Foucault (1975/1977), and Bartky (1988).  

 

Due to a publication embargo, the corresponding thesis is not publicly available. If you wish to access further information on this project, please contact Elise Melanson at melansoe@uregina.ca.