Grow a Pair (of Ovaries)

There’s a lot of testosterone at my gym.

I mean, of course there is.

And you know, good. Testosterone helps people lift heavy objects. If I got trapped under my vehicle, I’d want the first person to happen upon the scene to be somebody with a healthy level of testosterone.

But there’s a line between strong man testosterone and douche bag testosterone, and it’s oft-crossed at my gym.

Part of it’s just dumb. There’s this dude. Eastern European. Rides a motorcycle. He’s medium-sized, not a beefcake. And when the board says we’re going to do medicine ball squat-cleans in the WOD, and the coach says, “Grab a ball,” this guy cups his right testicle and grins.

Shit like that.

But a lot of it shoots right past asinine and straight to misogynist.

The guys are constantly calling each other pussies…I guess I just think you shouldn’t be allowed to call somebody a pussy unless you have one.

Another coach posted something he thought was funny on Facebook. A friend of his had been asked why he didn’t use a squat pad (a cushion between the bar and your shoulders), and this friend said, “I don’t use a squat pad for the same reason I don’t need a gynecologist.”

Haha! You make joke! You funny man!

My response to him: I was looking at the board the other day, and [a female coach] can dead-lift nearly 300 pounds. Isn’t it time we stopped making pussy jokes?

He deleted the post.