No, sir, it’s not a problem that I’ve hired ‘too many’ women’.

Photo by Corinne Kutz on Unsplash

I’m on a bit of a female empowerment high right now. I had a conversation with a college professor not too long ago when he visited me at work. He had a look around the gym and noticed that there were a lot of women employed at my company EPIC Fitness + Lifestyle. He said, “You know, you’ve got a little bit of a ratio problem. You need to appeal to some men to come and get hired here.” So I said, “I really don’t think that’s a problem, in fact, I’m embracing it and I’m very proud of it.” He just looked at me and I said, “ … Do you really want to discuss this?”

How many women feel comfortable in traditional training facilities? Whether it’s coaching a professional team or if it’s in the weight room or any other space that does not occupy juice detoxes or yoga. I would say zero. Zero of them are comfortable. Some of them are extremely ambitious and have this I-give-no-fu#ks attitude. They do their best and want to change the face of our industry but it is not for someone who doesn’t want a challenge, I can tell you that. It’s a long, hard road.

To have an establishment where athletic training is the focus is empowering. We’re not doing the traditional “female things”. Like yoga for example — it’s not what we’re leading with. We’re also not leading with sex. We’re also not leading with beauty. We’re not exposing our trainers’ six packs — although they have them. We’re really trying to make sure that we’re honouring women the way they need to be honoured. I could talk all day long about what I’ve faced in this industry. Myself, having been a female trainer for a number of sports teams but that’s a whole other topic (and one day I’ll get to it ;) ).

But let’s get one thing straight, masculine and feminine are more about energy than anything else. Testosterone gives you more of a characteristically “male” energy which have typically been described as ambition and strength while estrogen and progesterone are going to give you “the opposites” of that in those extremes. What we’ve been comfortable with in the past as a culture, has been the extremes of masculinity and the extremes of femininity. We like them operating separately … but welcome to 2017. Revolution has come up yet again, some of us are speaking up and demanding a change in perspective.

We’ve had some amazing pioneers of women’s rights from Joan of Arc to Coco Chanel who went against the grain and designed an androgynous revolution, a WHOLE PERSON revolution, where women could occupy a masculine strength and still be honoured as women (and men could display the parts of themselves that are ‘feminine’ and be honoured as men).

Now, we’re seeing more men embracing femininity. (And we all have these “feminine” traits, by the way, from that estrogen and progesterone side of ourselves, we can’t deny that.) These traits show up as more caring behaviours, more generous, more emotionally intuitive. This is great and it’s wonderfully to see it happening.

But, in the fitness space? Oh fu#king hell, we move like molasses! By the way, this is also a problem for men. We see this when men announce, in professional sports, that they’re gay. It’s still not ‘okay’, or accepted as if their sexual orientation will lessen their game, as if their more feminine traits is a disadvantage in sport. And when we have a woman at the helm of a sports team or organization, we watch her soul get drained because she can’t actually be. She can’t demonstrate any side of herself that is caring or generous or feminine or nurturing. So, we have a long way to go in the fitness space. Women need to have more options available to them other than being a spin instructor, a yoga instructor or to start a juice company.

And when women do step into the light of their own power, when they are empowered and they feel they can be a WHOLE person demonstrating all sides of themselves at all times, why do we call them butch? We assume their sexual orientation and call them a lesbian. This is unacceptable. We need to wake up.

In 2017 we don’t say those things to them, this rhetoric is outdated and is moving us backwards. Just because we’re threatened by their power, threatened by their strength, threatened by the fact that they’ve thrown off our stereotype. They’re beautiful AND strong AND genuine AND caring AND tough AND ambitious. Why are we’re so surprised by that?

So, all that to say, to that college professor: No, honey bunny. I don’t have a ratio problem. The industry has a ratio problem. I’m really fine being an incubator for women’s talent in the athletic space. And I can’t wait to see how these women turn out in their lives. I can’t wait for 15 years from now to see what they’re doing — I can’t wait to see what they’re doing next month!

On my side of things, being a female CEO, there’s all this rhetoric of, “It must be hard to find a partner because you’re so strong.” “It’s so hard for a man to want to stand next to you.” That is such BS. When you say that to a woman who values love and partnership you’re giving her two choices. 1) Well, guess she’ll have to step down as CEO and play small so she can be in love or 2) she can just resign to the fact that she’s going to be a spinster her entire life and never find “the one” … be careful what you say, guys. It’s very powerful.

Embrace the idea that people can be confusing to you, it’s okay. People are multifaceted, they can be lots of different things. They can throw you off. It’s about getting to know the person, the soul within, that’s the most important part.

And these ideas of being comfortable with women occupying only female traits and men occupying only male traits? Dude. F#cking get over it. Move along. The revolution is here. The movement is here. People are complex and we need to get really comfortable with that idea. It’s the same with YOU. Do you think that you have just one identity? You’re only a mother or you’re only a CEO or you’re only a career woman or you’re only _______. If you are doing that, you need to stop. You need to stop and you need to start embracing all aspects of yourself so you can be a whole person.

This means when you are at your fullest you will actually contradict yourself. All the time. You’ll be ambitious but that doesn’t mean you don’t value your day-to-day life. You’ll be a good leader but that doesn’t mean you’re not a good friend. You’ll be generous but you’ll also withhold. You’ll be funny but you’ll also be focused. You can be both sides of those things!

But if we have these traits that are undeveloped, if we just don’t develop our nurturing side, we just don’t develop our ambitious side, we just don’t develop our leadership skills, or we don’t develop our generosity because we feel like we have to fit into this stereotype? Then we are not full people.

The world is in need of full people that embrace contradiction, that go against the traditional model and breed a whole new levelled-up human race.

Are you with me?

)

I believe that if every human lives authentically, there will be no need for suffering. My mission ---> www.epicfitnessottawa.com and www.catalystconferences.ca

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