1. Gender and fitness

2. Introduction
The question I wanted to work on was “How often do people, specifically genders, clean up gym equipment after use?”
I’ve come to realize the differences between the concepts that may be found in medical sociology. A good example would be the comparison of male and female bodies, how quickly do they lose weight and fat compared to each other (Brace-Govan, J. 2004). In this study, women were shown to have more problems losing weight than men. The reason for this might be because men have a higher metabolism than women, so men are more likely to be at gyms than women.
Further research by Banerjee and Lintern (2000) decided to take surveys on which genders feel more judged at gyms. Women in the end were found to be more judged and might be due to sexual reasons. Seeing as women are more sexualized especially in gyms and beaches, it may be the reason for why they may feel the need to clean equipment after use than men because they feel they are more watched.

3. Literature Review/reasons for gender stereotyping?
There is some underlying belief in society that males seem more superior in the workforce and they make more money and wages than women. The reason for this? Employers might believe that if a woman falls in love, gets married, has kids, etc. they will eventually be more tied up to responsibilities at home rather than their workplace, so their wages and work time decrease (David 2001).
“The popular notion of glass ceiling effects implies that gender (or other) disadvantages are stronger at the top of the hierarchy than at lower levels and that these disadvantages become worse later in a person’s career.” (David 2001)
Most researchers that observe and survey males and females come up with the conclusion that often times males are more rough, aggressive, tendency to want more power and control while females are more soft, outgoing, and more nurturing (Hoffman 1998).
Schmitt (2003) mentioned in an article that men may be more dismissing or give off a sense of cold attitude towards others than women. Does this affect their behavior to clean or put in more effort to take care of things though?

4. Methods/procedures
For this observational study, I gathered some basic materials before heading off to the fitness center. This included a notebook to record data, writing utensils, an ID (just in case) with a letter for research purposes signed by authorized people. The gyms I went through to gather data were as ordered: The UNF Fitness Center, the YMCA, and LA fitness center.
Casual sporting attire for the purpose of looking like those in my surroundings, this is a requirement.
In the following 4 weeks and long hours I’d pick one treadmill, put in on the slowest speed (usually 2-4 speed) for walking, and observe my surroundings and those in them. I’ve watched a mixture of men and women for several hours use one or two equipment and either leave or clean the equipment before leaving. A total of 55 women and 45 men were observed.
. I’d take note of how long they use it for, and if they clean it after use or if they just leave and forget to clean the machines. The best system for these notes seemed to be a bar graph or table chart. This made note taking a lot simpler than just numbers.

5. Results
As far as the methods, my results definitely came out stronger than I expected. I hypothesized that women would clean the equipment more than men. This hypothesis was actually not only correct, but the evidence was very strong. There were much more women than men that cleaned the equipment more often than not, but the numbers were like a landslide.
Out of the 100 people I’ve observed, only 22 men cleaned the equipment after use, meanwhile 46 women recalled to clean up the gym equipment. The numbers were rather astounding given women took over the men’s number by over half. Out of 100 people though only 68 recalled to clean up the equipment, 32 people did not clean the equipment at all.

6. Conclusions/discussion
The results show strong evidence that women clean up gym equipment more often than men by over half the amount of men. Out of the 100 people I’ve observed, 46 women cleaned up while only 22 men recalled to clean up.
To recap, one of the first few discussions involved the glass ceiling effect, the notion that there is some underlying bias against women in the workforce which leads to less wages and same amount of work as men (David 2001). This might be also due to some division in the household, women being the ones to handle tasks like cooking or cleaning, men being the ones to work (Blair 2015).
Strong evidence in my observational study points out this may not be the proper case seeing as women can handle the same amount of responsibility or even more. The nature vs nurture topic does fit well into this research because this goes hand in hand to whether or not women truly are meant genetically to be “household workers” or what society deemed them to be decades ago (Hoffman 1998).
Some limitations however that came up in my research was this is not very accurate representation of all races/gender identities/population. The reason for this is because the gyms and fitness centers I’ve studied don’t have a various amount of people. This would mean that not everyone was included and so it may be inaccurate. A wider study can however be taken place if it were to be fixed or redone to show more evidence of the articles I’ve pointed out.

7. References
Brace-Govan, J. (2004). Weighty matters: Control of women’s access to physical strength. The Sociological Review, 52, 503–531.
Banerjee, R., & Lintern, V. (2000). Boys will be boys: The effect of social evaluation concerns on gender-typing. Social Development, 9, 397–408.
Hoffman, J. J.. (1998). Are Women Really More Ethical Than Men? Maybe It Depends On The Situation. Journal of Managerial Issues, 10(1), 60–73
Schmitt, D. P. (2003), Are men universally more dismissing than women? Gender differences in romantic attachment across 62 cultural regions. Personal Relationships, 10: 307–331. doi:  /