Orienting the Body in Space: A Feminist Autoethnography of (Re)Negotiating Identity in the Gym

Gyms are complex cultural environments in which legitimacy is communicated through visible cues of experience shaping how bodies are interpreted and made legible within the space. Drawing on Ahmed’s concept of orientation, this paper approaches the gym as a space organized along cultural lines that shape how bodies move, where they position themselves, and which bodies are recognized as legitimate. Through autoethnography, I explore how I enter, navigate, and (re)orient myself within a new gym environment as an experienced strength athlete. Grounded in feminist phenomenology, the analysis traces how legitimacy and belonging are negotiated through everyday spatial practices. While dominant cultural narratives frame aging women as increasingly out of place, strength sport cultures can reorient age as a marker of experience and authority. These spaces offer alternative cultural logics in which aging femininity is actively (re)negotiated as a site of competence, visibility, and embodied authority.