Fitness Instructor’s Viral Blog Post on Harassment: ‘I Deserve to Be Treated Like a Human’

By day, Erin Bailey is the global social media manager for the digital health product company Withings; by night, she is a group fitness instructor in Boston and offers online personal training to women nationwide. But last week, Bailey took her commitment to all things wellness one step further when she published a blog post entitled “What Do We Deserve?”

In the article, Bailey describes just a few casual harassment interactions she’s faced over a few days, partaking in mundane activities such as running outside and going to the gym, doing laundry and shopping for her favorite ice cream at a convenience store. And over and over again, Bailey notes that she found herself subjected to comments by men that communicated a sense of entitlement over her body.

“Don’t ask me what I was wearing,” Bailey writes. “That isn’t the question.”

Bailey asserts that while men may think they deserve, by simply existing, full command over women’s bodies, women deserve something else altogether.

Within 24 hours, more than 370,000 people had read Bailey’s post. Clearly, she had struck a chord.

People keep asking Bailey what incited her to tell her story. “So many things like this were happening over and over again to me,” she tells Yahoo Beauty. “And I would share them with my roommate and she would always react with her own stories. And then with the three instances of girls being killed on runs, it was about realizing that it could have been me. All these girls had so many things in common with me. It was such a scary thought. Because yes, these were tragic accidents, but what did these women do to deserve this? And the only take away I was hearing from other people was, ‘Well don’t run outside anymore.’”

Clearly that didn’t cut it for Bailey. Because of course she’s still going to run outside. “I was upset that people were telling me not to do something I love that is important to me,” she says, adding that what angers her even more is that this is a cultural norm and hers isn’t an isolated experience. Bailey points to the larger cultural and social issues that affect the way men are taught to act and think and be as a reason for this widespread problem. “This is how someone is raised and the person they are. The challenge is how do we change people’s minds to want to change the person who they are?” she asks.

Well, apparently with viral blog posts like hers. Male friends were quick to comment with stories that their sisters, wives, and daughters had shared with them about the kind of everyday harassment they face for simply living in public as a woman. A lot of responses were from men who were total strangers offering apologies on behalf of their gender.

“I’m like, ‘You didn’t insult me. Don’t apologize to me. If you insulted someone else, apologize to them.’ That’s nice. I appreciate the sentiment — but it’s beside the point,” Bailey says. “The people writing me aren’t the people who need to apologize. A friend of mine said she thinks some men are apologizing to me as if it were confession — that they can apologize to me, and be absolved of their sins. But what I want is for people to think about and focus on how to change the culture.”

And Bailey’s doing her part not just with her words but in her work as well. “As a fitness professional, you always need to have an open and empowering attitude. You should always make everyone feel awesome — awesome for showing up, awesome for wanting to work for themselves, awesome for wanting to empower themselves. We can make women feel like they deserve to go out and be better and be empowered and strong,” she emphasizes.

This is why, Bailey notes, with her online personal training, she makes a point to work only with female clients — and focuses on encouraging women to engage in fitness activities as a means of proving to themselves and to the world that no one deserves their bodies but them.

“The second women make a point to better themselves, to step foot in a gym, to go to a fitness class, they are taking control back of their bodies,” she says. “Whether you want to be better, faster, stronger, whatever, you are saying, ‘This is my body and I am harnessing whatever potential it has and I want to better myself mentally, physically and emotionally.’ Because fitness isn’t about trying to change how you look, but changing who you are.” She adds, “I want women to feel confident in their own skin because if you feel confident in your own skin, you feel confident in life. So many people are intimidated by fitness and are scared to take that first step, but the second you get that confidence and mental strength to pursue it, that’s how you keep pushing yourself forward — not just in the gym, but in life.”

You can follow Erin Bailey for fitness and wellness tips on Instagram at @ebailey_fitness