I agree - to me, this is like the non-verbal form of mansplaining. If someone is going to the gym then I think it's safe to assume that, unless they actually ask for help, that they're looking to do stuff themselves.
Of course if someone is very visibly struggling or clearly doesn't know what they're doing then it's fine to politely offer some help/guidance. However, unless you genuinely believe that they're about to have a very serious accident or something like that, just respect their response.
I don't think most guys realise just how big the discrepancy between the way that men and women are treated in this regard though. At the gym, I'm almost never approached unless someone is asking for my help with something, but my girlfriend regularly gets approached at the exact same gym though - there's obviously more to this than standard gym etiquette.
For a lot of guys, things that women consider condescending and demeaning are things that guys just sort of subconsciously do. From a young age, boys are told by their moms and grandparents to come help lift heavy things, bring in groceries, move the couch, set up chairs for company, bring the heavy stuff in from the car, so a lot of men will just sort of have the urge to do that as a second nature. They don’t do it with the intention of being condescending, their brain just goes “hee Hoo girl is standing next to heavy things engage help mode like grandma said”
Part of dismantling the patriarchy will have to be learning how to recognize intent, in the same way men have to learn to understand how their intentions can be misread in different contexts.
That is one thing, but one (now retired) colleague of mine got basically into shouting match with our female colleague (we are all electricians) when she politely asked him not to open car doors for her. And constantly commented about how we shouldn’t let her bring her bag with her tools and we should take it for her and that she shouldn’t be doing this job at all because females are fragile and so on. Nothing in our specific workplace is heavier than a child, which he expected her to have in a few years.
I feel that gym is generally no talk zone, unless asked for help.
But me personally, I was tought since I was little kid (and sometimes grandma still tells me something like this fully into adulthood) that you should help especially elderly and woman. And this was religiously forces unto me, with saying please and thank you.
And since I know how many people today can't express themselfs, I agree that it is possible just wrong way to apply those lessons. No malice intended. Just misjudging the situation.
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u/TheWhomItConcerns 6d ago
I agree - to me, this is like the non-verbal form of mansplaining. If someone is going to the gym then I think it's safe to assume that, unless they actually ask for help, that they're looking to do stuff themselves.
Of course if someone is very visibly struggling or clearly doesn't know what they're doing then it's fine to politely offer some help/guidance. However, unless you genuinely believe that they're about to have a very serious accident or something like that, just respect their response.
I don't think most guys realise just how big the discrepancy between the way that men and women are treated in this regard though. At the gym, I'm almost never approached unless someone is asking for my help with something, but my girlfriend regularly gets approached at the exact same gym though - there's obviously more to this than standard gym etiquette.