Women Share Scary Gym Stories After Shane Gillis’ ‘SNL’ Joke

When comedian Nina Kern watched Shane Gillis’ viral “Saturday Night Live” monologue — the one where he said women at the gym “dress like whores now” — she rolled her eyes. The joke was offensive, sure, but what made it worse was that it seemed uninspired and more angry than anything else.

“Shane Gillis had the opportunity to make his opinion funny, and he chose to be offensive and just ramble. It gave energy to the open mic,” said Kern, who lives in Chicago.

Minutes into his monologue, Gillis, a comedian and star of the Netflix series “Tires,” made his highly scrutinized remarks on “SNL.”

“Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe it,” he said. “Did you see it? I saw it. The shorts? Did you see the shorts? They’re neon colored, like artificial bait.”

“And the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look, you’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look, because they’re filming. I’m in the background of about 10 TikToks right now,” Gillis said.

Kern told HuffPost she couldn’t believe “SNL” allowed it to air. Was no one reading the play, she wondered?

“As women’s rights are challenged every day, the Cornell rape case makes headlines, and today a cartoon comes on public television calling women whores because of the way they are dressed, I feel defeated,” she said.

Kern is also shocked to see how many people – mostly men – have rallied behind Gillis.

“If Gillis is criticized, even in jest, women are called sensitive and told we are overreacting,” she said. “As women we are held to impossible standards and I think as a collective group we are tired. »

Women are also tired of the insulting looks they receive from men at the gym when they wear leggings, bike shorts or sports bras – activewear that is often much more practical for working out than an oversized shirt. Too much fabric can be restrictive; just ask any man wearing quad-exposure short shorts and a tank top with armholes so huge they reveal his nipples. (Some of these scantily clad men are even content creators who film themselves for TikTok, but don’t tell Gillis.)

Abby Murphy, a radio host based in Tampa, Florida, has attended mostly women-only fitness classes for the past few years, but before that, she had many uncomfortable experiences with men at the gym.

Murphy recalled a class where she wore a sports bra that she had worn countless times before and noticed the man next to her repeatedly staring at her as she bent over to do a deadlift.

“My first thought, in classic older daughter fashion, was, ‘Ugh, I shouldn’t have worn that sports bra,’ not ‘Why is this man looking at my chest?'” she told HuffPost.

“Even though I had never felt embarrassed before, somehow I had managed to make his behavior my problem. Like I was the one who needed to do something differently,” she said.

When Murphy posted a tongue-in-cheek video about donning his “bitch outfit” — a wrestling doublet — for the gym on TikTok after the “SNL” monologue, Gillis’ male fans came out in droves. “Relax, it’s a joke,” one said. More daring commenters pointed out that she was, in fact, dressed for the role.

“What a lie he told,” one person remarked.

“Apparently a lot of men in my comments can’t understand how I can wear something tight just because I like it, not because I’m looking for attention from men,” Murphy said.

For Miranda, a podcast host in London, it’s easier to wear a hoodie when she wants to work out in peace. She said she often sees guys trying to show off or “using the gym as a hunting ground.”

Some men use mirrors to try to hide their gaze, but it’s pretty obvious, Miranda said. “I’ve even seen men walk up to the training station I’m at and engage in conversation, asking questions they clearly know the answer to.”

It’s not just “creepy guys” who feel free to make remarks about women’s bodies and their exercise routines, said Ell, a fitness model who lives on Australia’s Gold Coast.

A few years ago, Ell said she befriended a man at the gym who had young daughters and was friendly. On one occasion, however, she caught him making fun of her with another man, so she confronted them.

“My ‘friend’ awkwardly went back and forth about not wanting to admit to their conversation. He ended up telling me that they were talking about how I had lost a significant amount of my gluteal muscles since he last saw me,” she said.

“I was 22 years old. He was 45. I cried in the bathroom,” she remembers.

While going to the gym, Ell said she dresses for “literally everyone except men.”

“Most importantly, I dress for myself and sometimes for my best friends at the gym when we color coordinate,” she said. “The more obnoxiously shiny my outfit and the shorter the shorts, the happier I am and, more importantly, physically comfortable to work out in.”

As for Gillis’ jokes, she said, she proudly spent six years building her body and doesn’t “need a comedian trying to downplay it for a cheap gag.”

Kern, the aforementioned comedian, doesn’t dress like a “gym bad guy.” (Though she doesn’t judge those who do it.) She said she prefers leggings or biker shorts and a large T-shirt.

“I like to wear big shirts because I have big breasts and I feel embarrassed at the gym if they stick out…mainly because I know it will attract attention,” she said.

Once, while wearing a V-neck sports top to work out, she ran into someone she knew. The two chatted briefly, and she thought nothing of it; the guy was someone she had never felt uncomfortable around and had always liked.

“Then he slid into my DM a few days later and commented on how good I looked on top,” she said. “It made me uncomfortable because I wasn’t trying to be perceived in a sexual way at the gym. I just wanted to work out and go home, especially because I was working out again after developing a chronic illness.”

Julia Young, a fitness and lifestyle designer in Los Angeles, said Gillis’ joke suggests that women can’t just show up and work out without talking to men. “But we can, and we do it every day.”

“I only dress for myself. If it’s hot and I’m doing cardio, wear shorts and a sports bra, because I’m about to sweat through everything,” she said. “On leg day, I want to be able to see my shape. I dress for training and how I want to feel, not for an audience.”

Most of the time she just wants to train in peace, and usually she succeeds. But every woman who works out regularly has stories, she says, before sharing hers.

“Imagine this: I’m in the middle position, my headphones on, my hoodie all zipped up, clearly in my own world — and a guy still walks up to ‘correct’ my form and then asks me for my number,” she said.

After that, Young stopped to get groceries on her way home, still in her gym clothes, which led to another unsolicited conversation with a man there.

“I’m standing in the produce aisle, just trying to choose avocados — and a stranger decides this is an invitation to comment on my body. I’m not at the gym anymore. I’m buying avocados,” she said. “Outfit is always treated as an invitation, but what I wear has never been what decides how I am treated.”

Young hopes comments like Gillis’s — and off-putting comments received while working out — won’t discourage women from going to the gym, which can be intimidating enough.

Research published in PLOS One last year highlighted the complex relationship between women’s body image and their experiences at the gym, revealing that feeling judged or “exposed” around men can influence women’s exercise choices or even cause them to avoid the gym altogether.

Young also discussed the timing of Gillis’ joke; The fact that the monologue aired while the Cornell case was making headlines made the joke even clumsier.

“We’re asking to be safe and respected, and the response has been a line about what we wear,” she said.

Murphy, the radio host whose comments section was flooded with angry Gillis fans, said she would never suggest that you can’t make jokes about what women wear to the gym. Of course you can.

But she thinks good comedy takes an observation, even if it’s uncomfortable or one that people disagree with, and finds a way to make it funny.

“Because if the whole punchline is just calling women whores, you didn’t really tell me a joke. You just told me what you think about women.”