Stanford U. Implements Women-Only Exercise Hours; Male Student Sues And Gets Men-Only Exercise Hours

lostapwbm · 2018-02-27T11:27:26+00:00

The newly launched women-focused athletic training sessions offered by Arrillaga Outdoor Education Recreation Center (AOERC) have sparked a debate over whether they discriminate on the basis of gender.

After reading about the “women’s-only” sessions in The Daily last week, Adam Behrendt ’19 filed a Title IX complaint to the U.S. Department of Education and a gender discrimination complaint to California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which enforces the Unruh Act prohibiting arbitrary discrimination on the basis of gender. Behrendt also filed an Act of Intolerance report through Stanford’s Student Affairs office.

Following Behrendt’s reports, Stanford added weight-lifting sessions focused on men’s exercise, offering the same number of hours per week as the women’s sessions and in the same studio. Behrendt said he does not plan to rescind the complaints in the aftermath of Stanford’s policy change.

“Am I hurt from women’s-only anything? Probably not,” Behrendt said. “Does it sort of bother me that it sort of undermines the gender equity push? Yeah.”

After reading about the women’s-focused training hours in The Daily last week, Behrendt contacted Jennifer Sexton, director of fitness and wellness programs and one of the creators of the women’s hours, to voice his concern that the hours perpetuate gender stereotypes.

In an email response to Behrendt, Sexton clarified that the original intention for the women-focused training hours was to create a place where all women, including trans women, felt comfortable, and were not specifically created for beginning lifters as many of the women participants are advanced.

Behrendt argued that the exclusion of men from the training hours was discriminatory, pointing out that the reasons women mentioned in the survey – religion, privacy and pressure – did not solely apply to women.

“I think you are still missing the point,” Behrendt wrote in response to Sexton. “Excluding men from a gym in order to make women more comfortable … potentially violates state and federal law.” Behrendt also explained that he was interested in Stanford’s approach to anti-discrimination law.

“I’m not concerned with the impact of two hours or four hours a week at a gym,” Behrendt said. “I’m concerned with understanding how the University applies anti-discrimination laws to itself, and whether they’ll be honest about that.”

JackBond1234 · 2018-02-27T13:45:26+00:00

Behrendt said. “I think it’s a bit hypocritical for the University to say, ‘Hey, we don’t discriminate on the basis of gender,’ and then to say, ‘Oh well, except for when we do.’ That’s not consistent.” Welcome to college education 2018 edition. Shots out of control. At least this dude was able to turn that shot around on them.

theessentialnexus · 2018-02-27T14:55:12+00:00

Bravo - and note all the things he did to make this happen:

title IX complaint @ US dept of education
discrimination complaint @ state dept of employment and housing
”intolerance report” @ student affairs
direct communication @ person who started the women-only hrs

Mmmbeerisu · 2018-02-27T12:07:50+00:00

seperate but equal... interesting concept. I feel like it's been tried somewhere before. we'll have to go back and see how that turned out.

Arakin · 2018-02-27T18:28:04+00:00

Women: fight for equality and then fight against it.

2018-02-27T17:16:41+00:00

A hero!!

Why don’t the so called SJW support men’s rights? Because of myths like the patriarchy which gets used to blame men on their short comings instead of creating programs to aid men who are struggling. Men make only ~ 40% of college students, yet we don’t get much activism or support for programs to aid them.

kartu3 · 2018-02-27T13:43:43+00:00

Well, progress?

BlueOrange22 · 2018-02-27T18:36:01+00:00

Good. These types of things need to confronted and not just passively accepted- it's not about whether it's a "big deal" or not, it's about not allowing what is discrimination and different standards to be implied as OK. It's not ok for a university to just decide that a rule that presents a different and disfavorable standard for one gender is now what students must abide by. Radical SJW feminism has gotten as far as it has because of people's reluctance to call it out publicly and engage in confrontation. That can't happen- sociopaths and manipulators never stop, there is no "enough" for them.

soulless_ape · 2018-02-27T16:47:54+00:00

They want equality by being devisive? makes perfect sense /s

ZimbaZumba · 2018-02-27T21:15:36+00:00

When is the womens only lounge at Berkeley Law school (Boalt College) going to be shut down. Definitely Title IX complaint material.

DavidByron2 · 2018-02-27T23:30:13+00:00

An open and shut case of breaking the law and I hope the complainant goes all the way with it. However I'd like to look at the so-called "defense" the university offered.

In a written statement to The Daily following the release of the initial article, University spokesperson E.J. Miranda said that the women’s-focused hours were originally instituted as a response to a survey conducted by Stanford Recreation, through which many women and trans women reported that they were not comfortable lifting weights in Stanford’s athletic facilities. According to the survey, this discomfort stemmed from a lack of privacy, pressure to hurry and religious reasons, among other factors.

Bullshit. Why was the solution to this desire for privacy the removal of all MEN then? It is clear that they started these sessions because they got complaints that were incredibly sexist and basically said that ALL MEN are perverts and deviants and the school should protect women from ALL MEN. So the basis of this action was already incredibly sexist and itself constitutes a breach of the law.

Is this how the university thinks of men? As predators? As sexual deviants? As criminals? That's a huge hostile environment right there. And that's revealed by their EXCUSE. They felt this was an EXCUSE. "Men are all shit so we wanted to help the women avoid them. So we weren't being sexist."

The KKK would have a less discriminatory attitude I bet.

The women’s training hours began Jan. 29 and are held twice a week in a studio that is usually reserved for personal training and has never had open fitness hours. Miranda clarified that no equipment in the studio was taken from any other Stanford athletic or recreation facility.

These are people who take a microscope out when it's time to see discrimination against women but their attitude when it comes to men is "No big deal! nobody hurt, right?". This university has professionals who are fully aware of the law and manipulate it to hurt men every chance they can get, and they are pretending that they don't know full well what they did was totally illegal? This is not some average joe with a business who didn't know about the law. This school will have full time professionals deal solely with this shit.

Kuramo · 2018-02-28T01:00:14+00:00

That's the way we should act guys. Let's be honest, whining on a sub is useless, but taking action isn't so at all

cknight18 · 2018-02-27T22:57:25+00:00

Just seems like such an inconvenience just for the sake of a few people being uncomfortable.

mwobuddy · 2018-02-27T23:46:20+00:00

This made me laugh out loud.

NolanHarlow · 2018-02-28T03:26:24+00:00

'It's unfortunate that in an effort to addressed the concerns of all members of our community, we were called out on a policy that discriminated against certain members of our community.'

Spoopsnloops · 2018-02-28T06:44:11+00:00

Equality isn't this thing that can only be given to a single demographic and deprive another of it. It means equal.

2018-02-28T22:01:46+00:00

Nice to see men fighting for men’s rights. This movement has changed so much in 10 years. Love you guys

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2018-02-28T12:51:49+00:00

They should also offer men the option of paying less since they'll have fewer hours each day to use the gym.

Title	Stanford U. Implements Women-Only Exercise Hours; Male Student Sues And Gets Men-Only Exercise Hours
Author	lostapwbm
Upvotes	464
Comments	41
Date	February 27, 2018 11:21 AM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/80lpnk/stanford_u_implements_womenonly_exercise_hours/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/stanford-u-implements-women-only-exercise-hours.1179238 https://theredarchive.com/post/1179238

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