There are women who work out, and there are women who don't eat.

I started lifting weights my senior year in high school. Women's lifting was, in fact, the first gym class I ever enjoyed—ever. Before that, I always hated and dreaded gym. I've never been good at running, or any sport that requires a ball. I like to swim, and I'm good at it, but that's not a gym class. Gym class was one of the low points of my life throughout middle school and high school—the part of my week that was all about inability, embarrassment, and humiliation.

Women's lifting was different. Our instructor was a cheerful, matter-of-fact, five-foot-one blonde who started each class by chasing all the football players and wrestlers out of the weight room so her girls wouldn't feel intimidated. I have a cherished memory of this tiny woman driving a gaggle of huge protesting guys through the door as though she were chasing chickens. She was always very clear that the class was safe space. That this was a sport everyone could learn to do and could get good at. And she was right. We could. I did. I loved it. There was no one laughing—just me doing my thing—and it felt good. And not only that, I did get good at it. I'd never been good at a sport. Except maybe swimming. Certainly I'd never been good at a gym class. "Empowering" is the word, for sure.

I continued lifting throughout college. The premise of this article actually occurred to me then, one day when I was waiting for someone to finish with a machine I wanted. I got to thinking about the difference between the women I saw at the gym, and some of the women I knew from other walks of life. About the different ways people approach health and weight control—mostly weight control.

Some people exercise, you see, and some people don't eat. One is an active manner of managing your life, and one is passive. With some exceptions, the people who don't eat are women. A guy wanting to lose weight will pass on dessert and/or go for a run. Matter-of-factly. It is unusual to see a guy restricting caloric intake to the point where there is no way he is getting anywhere close to sufficient nutrition. Guys just don't do that.

Girls do. It's a girl kind of thing to do. Not a woman kind of thing to do, a girl kind of thing to do. And why do girls do this? The answer may seem obvious, but it's worth stating again. Girls do this to be thin. Not "not-fat," not "healthy," not "fit." "Thin," as in "under the average weight for their height and bone structure."

Put that way, it gets you wondering, doesn't it? Averages are averages for a reason, after all. Put that way, it doesn't really sound like such a good thing to do.

And the way it's done makes me crazy. More than once during my college career, I would watch as a girl hanging out in a common room stood up, then suddenly swayed. "Oops," she would say, putting out her hand to be steadied. The nearest guy would steady her. "You okay?" he would ask. And "Yes," she would say, tilting her head to one side with a smile and a "silly-me" kind of look. "I'm just a little lightheaded. I guess I forgot to eat today!" The guy would smile, with sympathy and with the understanding that these silly girls did silly things like that. "That's no good!" he would say. "You should take better care of yourself." "Yeah, I guess," she would say, still with the same smile, and half the time, the scene would end with her boyfriend or good male friend taking her off to eat somewhere—taking care of her.

The scene has many variations and many taglines—among them, "Yeah, I keep getting sick this winter—I guess I just don't eat enough" and "Oh, I'm used to muscle cramps—I don't eat enough protein." Of all of them, "I forgot to eat" is the one I find the most annoying. As some funny e-mail forward put it, "I've forgotten my keys, my phone number, and my mother's maiden name, but I've never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat."

Note that I am not talking about skipping a meal because you aren't hungry. Or being too busy to take a lunch break, and grabbing a bagel later. Or being really engrossed in some activity, and looking up to find that hours have passed and you missed a meal. Most people do this occasionally. I am talking about routinely ignoring hunger to the point where you can't tell if you are hungry or not, and routinely skipping meals to the point where eating is something you only do sometimes.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, let me state that depriving yourself of nutrition is not a good thing to do. Not only does it ultimately defeat weight-loss by slowing the metabolism—and how long do you think you can maintain less than your proper weight, anyway?—but lack of nutrition can lead to frequent illness and to anemia. Long term, it can lead to osteoporosis. Smoking to kill your appetite—another form of girly not-eating—can lead to cancer and emphysema. And osteoporosis. And heart disease. All of these things lead to weakness.

And yet this weakness is considered normal for girls, and even attractive. Certainly "okay." Can you imagine some guy explaining to his friends that he's lightheaded because he forgot to eat? But it's something that those silly girls do all the time.

You've all heard of foot-binding, right? Do you know how the process actually worked? When the girl was between three and six years old, all toes except the first were bent under the foot or broken, and the foot was bound tightly to keep it from growing. From then on, the toes would grow into the sole of the foot, destroying the arch and often causing infection and gangrene. In some cases, the toes fell off because blood could no longer reach them. The resulting three-inch feet identified women of the gentility, and incidentally made it impossible for them to walk unassisted or to stand for more than a few minutes. They were therefore unable to leave their homes, and were obviously completely dependent on their male relatives. As they grew older, they experienced a variety of debilitating conditions of the legs and back. Ick, right?

And do you know why Victorian ladies fainted at the sight of a mouse (or any other drop of a hat)? The corsets they wore restricted their ability to draw a breath, so that anything that startled them enough to make them gasp, made them faint. Ridiculous, isn't it? And demeaning.

And aren't we glad we've stopped this? Women don't wear corsets, or bind their daughters' feet, or (in this culture) wear burqas. There's still the high heels problem, granted, but we're working on that. Society no longer produces weakness in its women by the clothing it dresses them in. We're moving away from equating beauty and weakness. Good for us.

And so what do we do at liberal arts colleges? "Oops, silly me, I forgot to eat! You'd better help me walk to the dining hall, 'cause I'm too silly to take care of myself!" Free from most of the strictures that produce weakness, we produce it in ourselves—and that is okay and that is attractive? What in hell is the matter with us?

Are we so afraid of taking up space?

Once that question occurred to me, I started wondering about the difference between women who lift and girls who don't eat. My unscientific, subjective observation suggests that women who don't eat are women who are passive in other ways as well. They move hesitantly, glancing up sideways and speaking in little-girl voices. They are women who tend to think of themselves as angels in the home or as coy office-girls—old-fashioned views of women, as the delicacy=beauty idea is old-fashioned. They do little to unbalance the air around them.

Am I over-generalizing? Yes. Is there merit in the observation anyway? Yes.

Women who lift are women strong enough to, for example, carry furniture up the stairs by themselves. Who are resistant to strains and injury from doing so, but who also know themselves well enough to know when to put the piece of furniture down before they get hurt. Who are counted when others are tallying up who's available to move furniture. Who don't even think of themselves as tomboys, because these are just things that women do. And who need food to fuel the doing of all these things.

Let me do some evangelizing from the soapbox. Strength is beautiful. Confidence is beautiful. Exercise feels good.

It's the kind of bumper sticker I'd like to put on my car. "Real Women Lift Weights." Real women take up space. Real women disturb the universe.