Morgan Markley
Equinox Staff
By college, the fear of cooties has mostly diminished. But when entering the Spaulding Gymnasium on the Keene State College campus, one may wonder if this juvenile fear still exists due to a separation of men and women while working out.
The gym on the KSC campus is where students go to get fit, but it is also a place where students may not feel comfortable. The gym is split up with the weight room downstairs and the cardio equipment and track upstairs. Upon entering the gym on any given day, one might observe the upstairs attracts the women and the weight room downstairs houses the men. There are many reasons as to why the men and women are not mixing in the workout environment
Senior Andrea Neri, the facility supervisor at the Spaulding Gym, said she definitely noticed a separation of males and females in the gym.
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“When we do rounds and we count how many people are in each section of the gym, you definitely see the female population is upstairs and the male population downstairs,” Neri said.
On Tuesday night in the gym the male population downstairs was at 87 percent, with 14 men downstairs and two women. The female population upstairs was at 95 percent, with 19 women upstairs and two men.
On Thursday afternoon the male population downstairs was at 100 percent, with ten men and no women present according to numbers polled during that time.
Freshman Emel Saat said she thinks that going downstairs is intimidating.
“I was thinking of going [downstairs] a couple of times,” she said. Saat said she hasn’t made the trip downstairs to workout yet, but she said that she thinks women would feel more comfortable going downstairs if there were more women already there.
Fellow freshman, Allison Walton, said she’s not surprised about the separation, “Girls run more and guys want to do weights, but some girls want to do weights,” she explained.
She said that the girls who do want to go downstairs to workout might feel uncomfortable because, “It’s all guys and you don’t know if you’re doing it right…everyone watches everyone here.”
Junior Malcolm Cheney said the separation has everything to do with workout preferences.
Cheney said, “I think for the most part being all the weight equipment being down here. It’s pretty normal because I think guys are more interested in building muscle tone, getting that beach body going, do that by working out, lifting weights, and I think girls are conscious about weight and stuff.”
Alyssa Tyukody, a freshman, echoed Cheney and said she thinks the downstairs is more designed for a man’s workout routine.
She said, “The bottom’s more like the bodybuilding and more arms and strength so that’s why most of them [men] are down there, and I know that a lot of the girls come up here to do cardio and running.”
Tyukody continued, “One time I went down there to do legs and I just felt like everyone was staring, but I mean it would be a lot better if…I know we’re accepted but it feels like we’re not accepted to go down there.”
Neri said KSC women might be nervous to workout in front of men because of how they look.
“A lot of girls are intimidated by going downstairs…I think it’s honestly because they want to look good to guys, they’re self-conscious about their body, they’re just afraid.”
For the women who do not feel comfortable going downstairs the gym has added more workout equipment upstairs according to Neri. Neri said, “The machines that they’ve moved upstairs…I think they’re the leg machines,” she said.
Neri continued, “a lot of the girls said that they liked that but they liked how it was separated from the weight room, from the guys, so I think they like the separation so that they feel like no one is watching them, no pressure.”
Cheney said that even though the women may feel intimidated to work out downstairs they shouldn’t be.
“I think it’s more intimidating if you’re a guy and not fit to come down here, but I can see why girls would be intimidated,” Cheney said.
Cheney also said that he is not intimidated to go upstairs and that he goes there every time he goes to the gym.
Freshman Devin Sanford said he has noticed the separation, but it doesn’t bother him.
“I don’t know why there aren’t more guys upstairs and more girls downstairs,” he said. Sanford continued and said that he does go upstairs to workout and has no problem doing so.
Neri anticipated never seeing an even number of men and women working out on both floors together.
Neri said of the downstairs, “That’s their [men’s] territory, that’s their domain. I don’t think they want girls down there, I feel like it’s their stress reliever, they would feel the girls are taking up their territory, their machines.” Neri also said that she does go downstairs to workout sometimes and feels comfortable.
She concluded, “I think maybe the solution would be if they had more machines upstairs, more weight room machines upstairs I think that they would eventually feel more comfortable going downstairs.”
Morgan Markley can be contacted at
mmarkley@keene-equinox.com