Clara Ann Bagnoli ’28
Design Editor
This past Sunday, I was at Tiernan Field House (TFH), so excited for leg day at my historically women’s college. I was quickly deterred. As I climbed up the stairs to the weight room, I noticed a particularly hairy leg in the middle of a deadlift. To my dismay, it was not a connected-to-the-earth girlie, but instead a man.
To be clear, I have no problem accommodating the poor male Mudders escaping the concrete cell that is Linde Activities Center and don’t want to trudge through Claremont McKenna to use the facilities at Roberts Pavilion. I’ve had a few practices at Linde and even that made me yearn for the non-fluorescent lighting of princess lan- TFH.
But solo Harvey Mudd College students are not where my grievances lie. I am specifically peeved when Scrippies invite their boyfriends, situationships, gay best friends, etc., to TFH when there are other gyms that are easily accessible for them. Not only accessible, but objectively better.
Pomona College’s Center for Athletics, Recreation, and Wellness and CMC’s Roberts have more than double the squat racks, triple the number of machines, and high ceilings to boot. Did I mention they are about five times the square footage of TFH?
And thank goodness the other colleges’ athletic facilities have all that space, because these men take up so much space by just existing. If there are two of them in the TFH free weights room, I physically cannot reach the weight rack because Bigfoot decided that he also wants to do lateral raises.
Now you’re probably thinking: what about Scripps only hours? Me too. What about Scripps only hours?! I swear they do not exist. Yes, there are times at TFH when it’s only a few other Scrippsies and me. But I go to the gym at many different times of the day and the busy times are usually when these plus ones attend.
For Scrippsies, I propose this Sunday morning date for you and boo: if your man goes to CMC or HMC, the two of you can hold hands on the walk through Seal Court, stop for a Matcha Cha Cha at the Motley Coffeehouse, and then make your way to Roberts Pavilion. Your boyfriend can still be babygirl at Scripps, which we all know that‘s what those boys crave, but you also get a three-floored, $52.8 million sports facility. If your man attends Pomona or Pitzer College, modify it to an athletics complex slightly smaller than Roberts, but still four times bigger than TFH and even more expensive ($57 million). So much money was spent on these naturally co-ed buildings, but, sure, you have to go to Tiernan …
And they aren’t just taking up space. They hog the heavier weights. Take this past Sunday, for example: I just wanted to do my bicep curls, but loverboy clasped both of the 25-lb weights in his fists, doing chest flys.
Now, as a gender studies major, let me connect this to feminism. In the current online climate of low-impact, body-weight-only pilates and yoga classes, a lack of access to weightlifting is more than just an inconvenience while attempting to exercise. It risks enforcing the idea that women are not strong and should only use exercise as a vehicle for thinness.
More than ever, women are flocking to the gym to launch their lifting era. Yet, at the same time, rhetoric on TikTok and other social media platforms tells girls and women to engage with exercise like pilates since smaller weights, as per TikTok, will “naturally tone you […] and you will eat a lot less since you are expending less energy.”
That quote was the first of many videos that appeared when I searched ‘pilates > lifting.’ Centering weight loss in conversations about exercise erases the validity of exercise’s other benefits. This is not to say pilates or other low-impact workouts are non-beneficial or harmful. I do pilates all the time. But pilates is not making me stronger — weightlifting is.
If getting stronger is not a woman’s goal, that’s fine. Still, if a Scrippsie’s goal is to get stronger and a man is using her (my) weights at her (my) HWC, then there is a problem.
Some would say that sharing would solve this issue, and sure, maybe. But you know who I like sharing my weights with? The students who go to the same school as me.
Photo Courtesy of Clara Ann Bagnoli ’28
