Going to the gym can be intimidating. Madeleine Dawson ’24 and Maya Mesh ’24 are acutely aware of this, which is why they decided to found FemFit, a new fitness group for non-male identifying students on campus that aims to reduce feelings of intimidation by providing set times for its members to work out together and learn from each other.

Dawson and Mesh both transferred to the University for the 2022–23 academic year and met in August during New Student Orientation. Finding themselves fast friends, the pair began discussing their relationships with fitness in both individual and team contexts over their high school and college years.

“We were talking about fitness and going to the gym, and our respective journeys,” Dawson said. “Working out by yourself versus being on a sports team is very different in that, when you’re on a team, it’s easy to be motivated. You have scheduled times [and] you know what the workouts are gonna be. [When] you’re not on a team anymore, you still wanna work out and achieve your fitness goals, [but] you don’t have that community.”

The idea to found the club was born of a desire to connect with other students—especially other non-male identifying students—who may not necessarily have an existing community through a sports team but still want to work out. FemFit held its first meeting in the Andersen Fitness Center on Feb. 16, 2023, at 5 p.m. The meeting, which was attended by around a dozen people, served as an introduction to the goals and structure of the new club.

“I also think that gym culture, especially with weight-lifting, is very male-dominated.” Dawson said. “For example, when you go to the gym, just in my experience in general, when you see the rack bars, they’re all dudes. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but it’s just not super inviting. I think it can just seem intimidating.”

Mesh added that one of her reasons for wanting to bring such a fitness club to campus is to spread the positivity and self-love that she has discovered over the course of her own fitness journey since the start of the pandemic.

“I never [participated in] a sport, but the pandemic gave me the opportunity to come to fitness and movement in a really positive way,” Mesh said. “Before, I hadn’t really thought of health in terms of just making yourself feel good and being an act of love. Since I’ve had my own fitness journey, I really wanted to be able to connect with other women in the gym and have a safe space where we can all talk about our respective struggles, find strength in numbers, and [come together with] other people who are interested in the shared goal of having a positive [fitness] space. 

Initially, Dawson and Mesh hoped to be able to reserve the gym for their club for a few hours a week in order to create the safest-feeling possible space for members. However, Wesleyan’s policy requires the fitness center to be open for all students during all open hours, including during official training hours for various school sports teams. This led the pair to set their club hours during times of the week when gym attendance is usually low. They settled on Sundays from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

“If you go to the gym around 5 p.m., it’s impossible to use any of the equipment [because] there are two or three [athletic] teams in there,” Dawson said. “There are lines for each station. During the first week [on campus], I went at [that time]. Big mistake. Never doing that again because I wanted to go on the treadmill, and I was just standing there for like 15 minutes thinking, ‘I’m never gonna get along here.’”

For FemFit’s first few meetings, Dawson intends to teach interested attendees about various techniques for lifting weights and hopes to clear up some misconceptions about weight-lifting as a practice. 

“I’ve heard from my peers that [they] don’t want to get super built [through weightlifting],” Dawson said. “That’s just a misconception…it’s just gonna make you toned and feel stronger and more confident.”

However, Mesh emphasized that the club is also open to students who are interested in other types of workouts. She and Dawson aim to foster a community of non-male identifying students who support each other in the gym, making the space feel more open and welcoming for everyone. 

“We had only had one session last week, and already I’ve seen people who [came] to the club at the gym and they [seemed] happy to see me, [and] I was super happy to see them…and to see them using a squatting technique [that was shared at the first meeting],” Mesh said. “We can help each other and give [each other] little nuggets of information that end up adding [up] to really important and impactful things.”

Posters for FemFit that Mesh and Dawson hung around campus sparked the interest of several non-male identifying students, some of whom shared their concerns about making fitness spaces on campus more comfortable for all students.

“I’ve often remarked to my friends that it would be great if the gym had a time oriented towards women and non-men, just because gyms and athletics have historically been male dominated spaces,” Erin Byrne ’24 wrote in a message to The Argus. “It can be intimidating to go and try something you don’t feel confident in, especially when you feel insecure in the environment. Taking time to help non-men become confident in the gym space is a great way to encourage people who don’t consider themselves gym-goers to use the resources at the athletics center.”

Claire Edwards ’24 also noted that the presence of athletic teams can affect the level of comfort other students feel when using the gym.

“On campus, it almost feels like there’s a monopoly that certain teams and athletes have over the gym space,” Edwards wrote in an email to The Argus. “In my gym at home, it feels like there is much less of a hierarchy, and I’ve experienced less slamming of weights at home…. I think a club such as FemFit could help people feel more comfortable going to the gym, especially when weightlifting. I think overall gym etiquette could be better, but I think this is more of an overall issue in gym culture than simply an issue at Wesleyan.”

Mesh and Dawson hope to help students who join the club to foster healthy relationships with exercise and movement and use exercise as a tool for self-care.

“I want this club to be a place where everyone can feel like they can have a positive relationship with movement,” Mesh said. “[I’m] now at a place in [my] life where [I] feel like movement is love, and it’s just such a good feeling. I hope that we can teach everybody. [Exercise] is not punishment. It’s not because you hate yourself, it’s because you love yourself and move because it feels good. You are perfect as you are and you can have this space to just feel good.”

Dawson added that she hopes to build a community through FemFit where students will support, motivate, and hold one another accountable.

“Coming to college, there was no community of people who [shared] my fitness goals,” Dawson said. “I often found myself thinking, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll go to the gym tomorrow. It’s okay. I’m kind of tired today. I’m not as motivated.’ I want this club to have a positive impact on people in that way where they feel excited to go [to the gym] all together. [It’s] always the best feeling [to] see progress and have a community of people there who are cheering you on.”

Sulan Bailey can be reached at sabailey@wesleyan.edu.