The other day, when I was at the gym, I accidentally caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the blank TV screen on the treadmill. What I saw was, well, a bit terrifying. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail that was anything but smooth. Right on top of my head were two giant bumps of hair that made me look like a baby dragon. “Ugh,” I thought, “why can’t my hair be slick and smooth like that girl over there on the bike? Why does it have to frizz all over the place, with fly-aways sticking sweatily to the back of my neck?” Of course, I immediately realized that the only person whose fault that my hair is like this is my own. I’m way too impatient and uncoordinated to fix my hair into a perfectly smooth ponytail. But upon gaining this bit of self knowledge, I next wondered, why do I care? I mean, I’m going to the gym to work out, not to look cute. If I go to a coffeeshop or class, I want to look cute. Okay, that’s not true. When it comes to class, I care more about getting there than I do about how I look once I get there. But if I am going to…say, a party or to a restaurant, then I will put effort into my appearance. But the gym? Why on earth would I care about how my hair looks at the gym?
Probably because in so many magazines and websites, I’m constantly being told how I should make my hair look when I go to the gym. And I’m not just talking about BuzzFeed and Pinterest — both of which have forums explaining how a person can improve their appearance while working out. Publications that go beyond the internet like InStyle and Seventeen magazine also contain these terrible lists. And the suggestions, at least for people like me who don’t really have the time to go to the gym but go anyway, are absurd. Braiding your hair in some cool, convoluted thing on top of your hair? Sure, it says out of your face, but I can barely put my hair in two regular braids on the side of my head. Smoothing down fly-aways with hairspray? I certainly don’t own hairspray. One description even had something about straightening gel. I don’t even know what that is. What happened to just going to the gym to work out?
Okay, but InStyle and Seventeen are beauty magazines. They focus on beauty and appearance. Fine. Maybe I’m just angry because I get touchy when people try to tell me how to look or what to wear. For example, no matter how often I am told I wear too much plaid, I will continue wearing plaid because I like plaid and it is comfortable. But beyond that, why are all these lists geared towards women? I’ve never seen lists with tips for men on how they should look when they go to the gym. In my opinion, maybe someone should write one, and possibly include a tip about not wearing such short shorts. Just kidding. Wear what you want, I don’t really care. The point is, its normal for women to receive suggestions on their appearance while working out, but not men. That, in turn, harks back to the whole idea that a woman’s appearance is of utmost importance, which, as we all know, decreases her value as a human and makes her into more of an object. And that’s not cool. I’m not an object. Don’t objectify me.
Even in sports stores, this lie that women are, or should be, beautiful while exercising persists. In Sports Authority, my favorite place to go for running clothes, there are these huge pictures of women running down beautiful mountain trails looking calm and blissful. Now, I don’t run much in the mountains, but I’ve done a bit of hiking, and I’m pretty sure their faces wouldn’t look, well, serene, while running up a mountain. I mean, if they’re in like insanely good shape, probably, but I know that after I run seven miles on a flat surface, I certainly don’t look calm, and neither does anyone I know. In other words, these posters are simply lying. And, going back to the idea of the double standard, the posters always show women looking calm and happy, while the ones of men show them sweating and snarling at the camera. I definitely look like the latter while working out because, well, running can be pretty painful.
All I’m saying is, what happened to working out simply being working out? Can’t we all agree that there’s really no such thing as looking beautiful — at least in the magazine sense of the word — while trying to get a good bit of exercise in? So, if you see me at the gym, and my hair is all over the place, sorry. I lost my bottle of straightening gel.
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