About every 1-in-4 Americans went to the gym in 2019. That’s more than 82 million gym goers right there. And while everyone has their fair share of 'gymtimidation' at the beginning, women are often forced to grin and bear through it on a regular basis because of the uncomfortable stares from their male counterparts — something that is clearly evident by the statistics that show nearly 71% of women are harassed at the gym on a daily basis, which make two-in-three change their routine or switch gyms entirely.
When TikToker Stephanie Lim, a 22-year-old nursing student from California, experienced the unwanted attention firsthand — she could hardly believe something like this could happen to her. In a now-viral video with over 2.6 million views, Stephanie captures the emotional distress of being sexually objectified in a place that should be a safe haven for everyone despite a person's appearance, age or gender.
A video of Stephanie Lim, a 22-year-old nursing student from California, went viral on TikTok after she shared her firsthand experience of being sexually harassed at the gym
Image credits: vniel
Image credits: vniel
"I hadn’t lost motivation because I was bored, or feeling lazy or insecure about my progress – I had just become exhausted with the uncomfortable feeling of entering a gym filled with potential harassment," writes Grazia's women's health and fitness editor Georgia Aspinall about her own exhausting relationship with male-dominated gyms.
The sad truth is, this is how millions of women feel about going to the gym. And while the talk about sexual harassment at these fine establishments has been bubbling for a while — especially since Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator made flashy headlines after dropping on Netflix in 2019 — data-rich surveys and concerned gym staff members won't solve the larger problem alone. Although they sure can help bring it to light.
In order to understand just how big of a problem sexual harassment at the gym is, Bored Panda has reached out to the Sport England organization which launched the award-winning 'This Girl Can' campaign aimed to increase physical activity among women in the UK.
In the data provided by Sport England's senior press officer Jamie Harding, which breaks down the campaign's most recent research "on the issues of harassment towards women in sport", 13% of all participants reported having fears of being sexually harassed or intimidated within the confines of the gym. This, in itself, is a significant improvement, compared to the data by FitRated's study published in 2019. However, until this number drops to zero, there's work to do.
Before being warned about the 'peeping Tom', Stephanie was doing her regular pre-workout routine of admiring her gym wear
Which changed to a sweatshirt as soon as she found out about the ongoing situation
Image credits: vniel
Here's the video that caught the attention of 2.6 million TikTok users
People couldn't believe this is still happening in 2022 and admired the way Stephanie and the gym's staff handled the predator
