After reading a news article about an Edmonton woman who
after running for 2 hours on a treadmill wearing a sports bra and no shirt, was
approached by gym staff and told that walking around in a sports bra was “unacceptable,”
I was fired up to write a response.
I’ve had this experience myself – the first time was at a YMCA
in Tucson, Arizona. I was running a hard
treadmill session and a staff member approached me and told me I had to either
cover up or I could not be in the gym as it was a “family friendly facility.” I was flabbergasted, humiliated, shocked. I
had to stop mid-session, get off the treadmill and go back to the change room
to grab a shirt. My face turned beet red – what had I done wrong? Why was running in a sports bra deemed threatening
to families?
The second time I had this experience was in Victoria,
British Columbia. I was even more
shocked. The very first thing that
sprung to my mind was: “But this is CANADA!” As a proud Canadian woman, this was my first
experience of being told that what I was wearing was “wrong.” My head swirled with emotions and questions and through that
jumble scorched a red-hot indignation: Why
am I being told it is inappropriate and wrong to wear only a sports bra? Why am I being made to feel that exposing my
midriff is “inappropriate” and “wrong?”
More importantly, why is having an exposed midriff so
threatening?
Here are my thoughts…
Most of the sports bra only debate falls into four
predictable responses:
- Men have to wear shirts, so women should wear shirts.
- Worst case scenarios and hygienic reasons.
- Women who wear sports bras are flaunting their goods so-to-speak and want to be looked at, ogled, approached.
- Wearing only a sports bra is inappropriate, not family-friendly and somehow “unsafe.”
Men have to wear shirts, so women
should wear shirts.
The difficulty with this tit-for-tat comparison is it can go
on forever without resolution spiraling into ever more ludicrous comparisons until
the focus becomes on who is winning with the latest example instead of addressing
what is so fundamentally wrong with a woman wearing a sports bra.
When a man takes off his shirt at the gym he is typically not
wearing a sports bra underneath. Implying that a man’s bare torso is the equivalent
as a woman wearing a sports bra is erroneous.
More along the lines of this, we’ve all seen men at the gym with tiny
tank tops exposing their nipples. Applying this same logic to women, why can’t
women wear skimpy tank tops without sports bras and expose their nipples
too? Is that considered safe and unthreatening?
Worst-case scenarios and hygienic
reasons
Somehow if women are allowed to wear sports bras only at the
gym, the floodgates to indecency will be opened for men as well. I don’t really know what is implied here, but
the image that springs to mind is masses of sweaty flesh, dripping perspiration
all over the floor and overexposure of hairy backs and bellies.
Women who wear sports bras are
flaunting their goods so-to-speak and want to be looked at, ogled, approached.
Is it ok to look at a woman because she is only wearing a
sports bra at the gym? This is a ridiculous
question. Of course, it is “ok” to look
at anyone. We look at people everyday as
we shop for groceries, walk down the sidewalk.
What this question really implies is that a woman wearing a sports
bra is inviting more than cursory attention – in fact she deserves any
attention she gets.
Wearing a sports bra in the gym is
inappropriate, not family-friendly and somehow “unsafe.”
This idea that a woman’s bare midriff is threatening to the
gym environment speaks directly to how old, entrenched ideas about woman’s behaviour
still exist. Why is wearing a sports bra sans shirt “inappropriate?” This implies some offense has been given –
who is offended and why is this offense granted more weight than the woman
wearing the sports bra?
The family-friendly adjective is tossed about quite
frequently as well: What is it about a
sports-bra clad woman that threatens children and families? Of what are they in danger?
How is a woman wearing a sports bra at the gym “unsafe?” Is she the cause of danger or the target of
danger? There is no good answer for the
latter question. Are we as a society
still saying that violence against women comes down to what the woman was
wearing?
In Conclusion
The common denominator in all of this are those dark sexual innuendos
that no one will come right out and say, but everyone inherently recognizes: wearing
only a sports bra is indecent, the woman wants attention, therefore any attention
good or bad she receives is deserved.
This kind of reasoning is more reflective of the person
doing the judging than of any threat posed by a sports bra clad woman.
These discussions inevitably circle back to the K.I.S.S.
principle: Put on a shirt, you warm up.
Take off a shirt, you cool down.
