I Love Feminism And I Want A Tiny Waist

I wish I could tell you I started going to the gym for the health of my heart, or to enhance my quality of sleep. I WISH I could say something like "I had demons to fight" and you'd think I was really mysterious or something. However, no. I started because I want the teeniest tiniest waist you've ever seen. Like, as in you can't see me when I turn to the side or think I'm some kind of optical illusion. I'd be doomscrolling on Tiktok for hours being bombarded with the most curvaceous bodacious bodies I'd ever seen and decided I wanted one too. In 1999, Cathie Jung, aged 62, was awarded the record for the smallest waist on a living person. She still holds this award today at the age off 86. Standing at 5'8, she has a waist measuring just 21 inches, uncorseted. Well, I hope she's had fun with it, because I'm coming for her title. 

With this aim in mind, I’ve been going to JD Gym in Manchester city centre about four times a week. One of my favourite things about it is a huge sign plastered across the whole back wall, behind the treadmills. ‘FITNESS JUST GOT SERIOUS’, it reads. But it reads like ‘FITNESS         JUST        GOT            SERIOUS’ because there is so much space between each word. It's in such an aggressive, capital letter font that it just has to be read in a macho, batman-esque voice. The thing is, it's the most unserious place. Allow me to expand.

To pick one's nose (idiomatic): To insert a finger or other object into one's nostril to remove obstructions, especially dried mucus. This lad is going for it. His head jerked sideways, ninety degrees. Inquisitive expression: eyes upwards, brow raised, mouth open. He’s scaling his face, mining his snout like a 40 tonne JCB, wrist rotating slowly as he digs deep. I’m intensely dishing him evils from the treadmill directly opposite, ten yards away. That’s when his eyes meet mine. I grimace further. This goes on for some time. I feel like we're in a Western film, having a face off. I hear The Good, The Bad and The Ugly theme song playing in my head. Doo doo doo wah wah wahhh. He continues to unearth, extract, uproot, gaze unwavering. Doo doo dooo wah wah waahhh. My frown gets deeper, melodramatic. Doo doo doo wah wah wah wah. He removes his hand, splutters loudly, and proudly, grabs the handle of the chest press, triumphant, undefeated by my savage glare. I think about doffing my imaginary hat to this dauntless bogey sheriff as I saunter off the treadmill. As grossed out as I am, I respect the boldness. Though, now I feel overwhelmingly aware of the lime green light that JD Gym glows with.

Opposite the treadmills, they have TVs suspended from the air. It does make me feel slightly like a donkey with a carrot dangled in front of it (keep stepping fatty, focus on the telly) but it is brilliant because they always play daytime TV game shows. If I’m lucky, I’ll get there for 11am when they play Catchphrase - objectively the best one. Stephen Mulhern is like a gazelle, gracefully, swiftly navigating the balance between obvious and unhelpful clues. “Say what you see,” he smirks. And I do.

“Computer.” 

“Cat.”

“Cat computer!” 

“Typing.”

“Nails computer.”

“Hands sore hands sore working hands computer-”

“Ahh, working your hands to the bone, ‘course.”

A personal trainer standing next to an exercise bike in front of me turns around to throw me what you’d expect to be a sympathetic, encouraging look, but was actually a rather aggravated one. “I would've got that in the end I reckon,” I smile at him, aiming to diffuse the tension.

If I had to choose what to write on the back wall of this gym, it wouldn't be FITNESS JUST GOT SERIOUS, it would be a Megan Thee Stallion lyric. I’m not sure which one yet, but something really quite vulgar, probably. I love listening to Megan in the gym, the fast beats and girly lyrics really keep me motivated. I love when I’m about to get literally crushed by the leg press but then I hear those two sweet piano chords and, “I’m that biiiitch, been that bitch STILL that bitch, will forever be that bitch,” because suddenly I’m like “God, yeah I am! Cheers Meg!” and I keep going. You don’t need pre-workout for optimised performance in the gym, you just need Megan Thee Stallion’s discography. Love her.

Even though I came here to get super duper snatched, I have actually found a love for this bizarre place for other reasons. Yes, I still want my cartoon character waistline obviously, but the main reasons for continuing to come to the gym have changed. Right, don’t throw me in with the fitness-finance-Andrew-Tate-dick-riding-bros for this because I’m not like them but I’ve actually really got into lifting weights. I’m addicted to the sense of accomplishment, independence and productivity. Of getting stronger and stronger. It's a privilege that I am able to move my body every day and it reminds me of this. To be physically empowered is such an unmatched feeling to experience, especially as a woman.

I think Tiktok is bad for women. It's so good in the sense that it shows us cat videos but it also just calls you fat, ugly, and a bad feminist every time you open it. There’s been discourse on Tiktok lately that women shouldn’t lift weights, people have been spouting all sorts of crap like “It makes you look bulky,” and “It's not a feminine thing to do.” This has led to the birth of the ‘Feminine Workout’. People have been posting videos of Pilates under this name, or workouts with very light weights and slow movements instead. Now, there is nothing wrong with this type of workout at all - people should be able to exercise however they like. The problem is the label of ‘feminine’. To deter women from weightlifting because it's apparently ‘unfeminine’ is bizarre to me. Weightlifting requires resilience and strength which is synonymous with and inseparable from femininity. However, it's not surprising to me considering what I know of the trends in commentaries on female empowerment. It seems things women do get celebrated until they’re ‘too much’, until they have ‘too much power’. For example, women in the workplace are becoming more celebrated now, but are still frowned upon when they gain ‘too much power’. Men feel emasculated and sexist, right-wing ideology gets re-popularised, just like we are seeing now on Tiktok (cheers Andrew Tate). There is an obsession with keeping women small. Whenever they become more empowered, the culture changes to push them back. It penetrates into all aspects of life. Here it has penetrated fitness culture with weightlifting. “The women are feeling strong and empowered?? Quick!! Make up something to make them feel insecure!!”

And it's crazy how it gets into your head. The comments on the Tiktoks promoting ‘feminine workouts’ are full of girls saying they are going to start doing them instead of weightlifting; they feel that they got “too muscley” and look “undesirable” now. But it seems this insecurity didn't exist before they were told it should, before this narrative gained traction. I don't align with the ideology that women shouldn't lift weights one bit, but I still second guessed myself for a minute there. It's hard to dissociate from the many different narratives that we, as women, are fed. Tiktok loves to give you a dozen in the space of sixty seconds. Here’s a few highlights of things I’ve genuinely heard people say on Tiktok:

“You need to get baby botox at twenty if you don't want to age like milk and be worthless at thirty.”

“Wearing makeup makes you a slave to the patriarchy, if you wear it you can’t be a feminist.”

“Lifting heavy weights is not feminine. You are giving off too much masculine energy when lifting.”

It’s extremely unhelpful, especially as I think the nature of existing as a western woman in the 21st century means you have a lot of inner conflict anyway. For example, I love to do my makeup because I love the act of doing it. I find it meditative, and my mood is lifted when I look pretty. But part of my brain says, “Yes and why is your mood lifted when you look nice? Because you have an internalised male gaze, an idea of physical appearance as value and live in a patriarchy.” I’ll be in the gym working so hard for my Shakira waist, feeling strong and empowered, and then wonder, if the world was different, would I care about my physical appearance at all? I am grateful that I have this conversation running in my mind, it's important to be aware, but sometimes it is depressing, so I don’t really want it to be extremified by Tiktok 24/7 too. The problem is, it's so addictive because it occasionally shows you a Ryan Gosling meme.

Sunday is my favourite day to go to the gym because it's quieter than weekdays. I usually choose to exercise in the studio because it's not overcrowded. It's a room with one mirror wall, grey laminate flooring and a very intense aircon. It's a nice crowd that goes on a Sunday, I recognise some of the faces. A sweet elderly man that always wears a grey tracksuit walks around with a personal trainer. He kind of reminds me of Charles Westmoreland from Prison Break. I like to imagine he was involved in a big bank robbery when he was younger. Two girls about my age, early twenties, with dark curly hair and big smiles always go. It's nice to see them laughing together, the sight of their friendship always makes me happy. My favourite staff member is also usually there on a Sunday. Unfortunately, I don't know his name and feel it's too late now to ask. He's a small Eastern European guy with a huge grin and wide brown eyes. He asks everyone how they are upon arrival, and usually has a funny story about his toddler-aged son to charm you with too.

I’ve just finished a set of Romanian deadlifts with a new personal best weight. Cheers Meg for that one. I start pouting in the studio mirror and doing a miniscule dance, because I’m all giddied up on endorphins. I notice in the mirror a girl is looking straight at me. I feel a little embarrassed and quickly avert eye contact. I decide it's best to pretend to yawn and my face morphs into a strange open-mouthed expression. I actually now just look like a french mime artist or something. I look back at the girl in the mirror and she's laughing and pouts back when I catch her gaze. We laugh it off together.

I sit on my black foam mat on the floor to have a rest before my next set, feeling my heart beat fast in my chest. Looking into the mirror, I become aware of all the women in this room, headphones on, lifting as heavy as they can. Most of them are my age so I’m pretty sure they've seen the discourse that I have on Tiktok. I think of how, as women, we have so many differing ideologies flooding our heads. We are given so many conflicting messages on the nature of our worth, what we should or should not do, say or should not say. And how exhausting it is. But here we all are, in this gym, getting strong, being physically empowered. Despite what our reasoning for it is, we’re here exuding power and resilience. And that's the important thing.

Christ, I think. Isn’t it mad that life is so much more peaceful when you just get off bloody Tiktok. I press my finger over Tiktok’s little music note icon on the home screen of my phone, press ‘remove app’ and watch it shrivel and disappear.

Written 07/05