Enduring no more

Kong Meiying, 36, opened a women-only gym in Tianjin's Binhai New Area in 2020, at a time when the concept of women-only businesses was still relatively uncommon.

As a former coach at a gym where 95 percent of her clients were women, Kong noticed the unique challenges women often faced in mixed-gender gyms: many of them felt self-conscious wearing form-fitting workout attire due to the gaze and comments from men and often limited themselves to cardio exercises as a result.

At Kong's gym, women can focus on strength training without worrying about being stared at. The gym also implements thoughtful measures, such as extending monthly memberships by seven days to accommodate women's menstrual cycles.

"I want to provide a supportive and fair fitness space for women, where they can enjoy their workouts and feel comfortable in their gym attire," Kong explained.

When Kong first proposed the idea of a women-only gym, many of her family and friends were skeptical about its success. However, her professionalism quickly earned the trust of her clients.

By 2022, with the support of a loyal customer base, Kong opened a second gym in downtown Tianjin, which soon gained popularity as well.

Fixing it myself

Li Xiaoxiao, a 33-year-old from Chengdu, Sichuan province, is addressing the everyday challenges faced by women.

In April, she launched a social media account called "Qiangji Women Workers", through which she offers free tool rentals to women in Chengdu.

Li designed the platform's logo with a creative twist, using the numbers 3 and 8 to symbolize International Women's Day. Together, the numbers form the Chinese character qiang, meaning "strength", echoing the name "Qiangji".

However, Li soon realized that access to tools alone wasn't enough — women also needed the skills to use them.

In July, she organized a 10-day repair training program exclusively for women. The course, which combined theory and hands-on practice, quickly filled to capacity, with half of the participants traveling from outside Chengdu to attend.

Li later expanded her initiative by recruiting some of her certified trainees to establish a women's repair team, breaking into a field traditionally dominated by men.

Reflecting on her experience, Li noticed that women are often stereotyped as patient and good communicators — traits that can become limiting.

"I don't want women's strengths to turn into social constraints on their career development," she said. "If a female repair worker isn't as patient, would people be less tolerant of her than they would be of a male worker? That's not fair."