Students revamp women’s gym spaces

By Megan Krok Staff Writer

When she began her freshman year at the University, Aanya Bhatia wanted to start regularly going to the gym. However, she noticed a lack of women in the space, making the experience intimidating.

Now, as a sophomore in LAS, Bhatia and Aneli Unzueta, senior in ACES, have co-founded the Girl Gains chapter at Illinois, working to change the male-dominated gym culture.

Girl Gains is a national organization that promotes female weight lifting and provides women resources and community throughout their fitness journeys, according to the Girl Gains website. Its chapters organize group workouts and host workshops about overall health and wellness.

fitness and nutritional information they gave her were all based on the male body.

“I did feel a lack of confidence,” Bhatia said. “I noticed all the people (at the gym) were males and it was really intimidating.”

One day, Bhatia was scrolling on TikTok when she saw a video about Girl Gains.

“This is something UIUC needs to have,” she said.

She said she knew a lot of her female friends had the exact same issues of lacking a sense of female support.

Bhatia continued to see more about Girl Gains online and decided to join an informational Zoom call by the organization. On this call, she met Unzueta.

“On the Zoom call I was like, ‘This is such an amazing community,’” Bhatia said. “‘I have never seen anything like this in my entire life.’”

Like Bhatia, Unzueta also felt intimidated by her experience at

“Personally, as a woman of color, I felt out of place in the gym,” Unzueta said. “It was intimidating to work out in a male-dominated place.”

After meeting on that call, the pair decided to go forward and start a Girl Gains chapter at Illinois.

“I wanted to create a home where women of all backgrounds feel safe and empowered in the gym on campus,” Unzueta said.

The pair decided to send out an interest form. Unzueta was able to recruit girls through her sorority and Bhatia through Illini Powerlifting, which she was a member of.

Bhatia said there was a lot of interest and they had about 30-40 women who interviewed to be a part of the Girl Gains executive board. Now, Girls Gains at Illinois has over 300 members.

Bhatia said that this organization has had large positive impacts for her, both mentally and emotionally.

“I felt a huge increase in confidence knowing that there are people who are like me, like girls, obviously, that are just there for continuous support,” she said.

Girl Gains,” Bhatia said. “I wanted to be that for other girls who are starting to get on their journeys.”

Unzueta hopes Girl Gains can continue to “empower women to feel strong and beautiful in a judgmentfree community.”

The co-founders are confident that their chapter will continue growing

Although there are hundreds of girls currently a part of Girl Gains, Bhatia said there are still so many that don’t know about the organization yet. Looking to the future, Bhatia hopes that the group can continue to grow the confidence of girls in the gym.

“When I started off, I wish I had and supporting its members.

“I feel very proud to graduate knowing Girl Gains is going to flourish and impact many members in the future,” Bhatia said.