It is a problem, it is real and you should care. Do women really feel they can go anywhere in the SERF without sideways glances or intimidation? I recently set out to discover what other women at the University of Wisconsin think about the athletic facilities on campus.
The SERF’s website includes a mission statement, “The SERF was built in 1983 to serve the 3,900 students living in campus high-rise dormitories across the street. In June 2003, the three-story addition was completed and opened for use.”
It is important to consider that although the SERF was built to serve the students in the surrounding dorms, including Ogg, Sellery and Witte, the area on the southeast side of campus has recently experienced a boom in real-estate construction. There are now four apartment complexes on University Avenue, and another two are to be built in the coming years. While the SERF was clearly timely in its renovation to accommodate the increase in the number of incoming freshmen who would be living in the nearby dorms, it seems to have underestimated the number of students who live elsewhere but are still within walking distance of the gym.
Although the SERF may have state-of-the-art machines, are there really enough of them? For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on the two most used parts of the SERF: the cardio center and the weight room.
Many of the women I interviewed voiced the same complaint: when they want to work out in the cardio center, they normally have to wait for a machine. Despite the 30-minute time limit on the machines, many athletes cover the clocks to hide the fact that they have overstayed their allowed time.
The most popular machines, the women say, are always filled no matter what the time of day, and you almost always have to hang out and wait to jump on a machine when it opens up. The sign-up sheets are helpful — they guarantee you’ll get a machine eventually — but it can be frustrating to try to fit in a workout between classes only to find that you have to spend most of your time waiting to get on a machine, or that you have to give up entirely. It seems clear that the problem with the SERF cardio facility is not the quality, but rather the quantity, and the way some people abuse the rules.
The weight room has its own set of problems. Women repeatedly reported avoiding the weight room entirely because they are intimidated by the men working out. One said that she felt she couldn’t go in the weight room because she didn’t know exactly which machines she would use and how to use them. She wasn’t sure she could get help, and just wasn’t willing to face the looks and possible laughter had she tried to use the weights.
Most of the women agreed that they are always a minority in the weight room and, because they don’t lift as much as the men, they feel self-conscious being in the same room with them. Perhaps future renovations of the SERF should not only expand the cardio center but also provide women with their own facilities for weight training. If it turns out that the women’s weight facilities are underutilized, the men can be our guests.
These women are not whining, not complaining, but merely speaking the truth they experience every time they want to work out. They are not spoiled or ungrateful; they are speaking up for themselves and their fellow students, in hopes that somebody will listen.
Emily Friedman ([email protected]) is a sophomore intending to major in Journalism.
