On a Friday afternoon in January, a modest all-ages crowd gathers upstairs at the Athletic Centre.
All around them, solitary fitness enthusiasts work out in dignified silence. But this newly arrived group is boisterous — in fact, it’s downright childlike. Some members play giant tic-tac-toe, while others hurl beanbags into a cornhole board. One joyous quartet tries their hand at basketball free throws; another whips dodgeballs back and forth. Is someone blowing bubbles?
Welcome to Elementary School Gym Day — a delightful example of the recreational fare on offer at U of T’s Feminist Sports Club.
The club was started last year by S. Trimble, assistant professor, teaching stream at the Women & Gender Studies Institute in the Faculty of Arts & Science. It arose from a course she teaches called Playing, Sports, Cultures, which looks at the world of sports through a feminist and social justice lens.
“As I was designing the course, I thought: we need to have something that involves movement,” Trimble says. “I couldn’t teach this course in a lecture hall only. So I started by offering students the chance — completely optional, of course — to come to the gym and play dodgeball with me.”
The first outings attracted about ten undergraduates, then word of mouth spread. Soon, graduate students and faculty were also joining the club’s three-per-term eclectic outings, which involve all manner of physical activity and have attracted up to 25 participants at a time.
Feminist Sports Club is not just about developing a healthy body, but a healthier relationship to your body.
“Typically in the fall we’ll do a hike, which is a nice way to introduce new grad students to our program,” Trimble says. “Last year we did line dancing, and a boxing workshop. This year we tried skating, and that was really fun. We did a weightlifting class too. And we also had a pickup basketball game on a rainy day in front of New College, where they have some hoops on the street.”
The club’s aim is to get participants moving their bodies in an atmosphere that’s fun, inclusive and congenial to people of all skill levels. “I was never a very sporty person myself,” says Trimble, adding that many of their students don’t think of themselves in that way either.
“Feminist Sports Club is not just about developing a healthy body, but a healthier relationship to your body,” says Aarzoo Singh, an assistant professor of Women & Gender Studies at the University of Winnipeg who recently completed her PhD at U of T. “If you grew up as a woman, or gender queer, or different in any way, the fitness world can be a tough place. A lot of people have contentious relationships with movement, their bodies and sports, specifically.”
PhD student Enis Demirer has been an enthusiastic supporter of the club since last year. “It started with hiking — I’ve done that a couple of times. And dodgeball.”
Dodgeball is, of course, a sport fraught with bad memories for many former elementary school pupils. “The whole idea is to get everyone playing together, and having fun in a way they didn’t before,” says Demirer.
Trimble says that dodgeball has always been an easy sport for physical education teachers, since it has few rules and only one piece of equipment. “But a lot of my students have negative memories of playing sports, and a lot of those memories are attached to dodgeball. So I thought: let’s reclaim it!”
The dodgeballs used in Feminist Sports Club are soft and colourful, nothing like the red rubber cannonballs many of us remember. “The only rule of feminist dodgeball,” Trimble says wryly, “is that it has to be glasses-friendly.”
It’s not only dodgeball that Feminist Sports Club is reclaiming — it’s the love of physical activity in general, specifically team sports.
And it’s not just the physical activity. It’s about the connection, the community. It’s having people give you a high five at the end — no matter how well you did.
“After a game, one of my colleagues noted that dodgeball was always supposed to be fun,” Trimble continues. “But for many of us it wasn’t. So the idea is, what can we do to recapture that?
“Because playing games is fun: moving your body in different ways and trying new things is energizing. But the older we get — and depending who you are in the world — there are more and more constraints and pressures that push people out.”
This is why, on Elementary School Gym Day, Trimble made sure to put young children’s activities into the mix: not just things like basketball, but Duck Duck Goose and the unfurling of a colourful parachute as well. “The idea was, let’s go back to a moment when sports felt less high-stakes, and remind everyone what it was like just to play.”
As a former student, Singh applauds Trimble’s establishment of Feminist Sports Club as a place where students and teachers can learn together. “Play is incorporated into the pedagogy,” she says. “Which breaks the boundary between you and your professor.” Trimble emphasizes the club’s collaborative, non-hierarchical aspect, recognizing the efforts of PhD student Sam Sanchinel and Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream Angie Fazekas in helping to coordinate its activities.
Finally, for students dealing with myriad pressures in their lives, Feminist Sports Club is a place where they can take a break, learn new skills and find community.
Says Trimble: “I have definitely had multiple experiences where students show up for an event, and I can see that they’re having a hard time. But by the end, they’re smiling and joking with their friends. I have no illusions that this lasts more than 15 or 20 minutes, but I think it’s meaningful.
“And it’s not just the physical activity. It’s about the connection, the community. It’s having people give you a high five at the end — no matter how well you did.”