“I was sweat-shamed at the gym and it needs to stop.”

Image via Bridesmaids/ Apatow Productions. 

I recently attended a hot yoga class with a new teacher and as I walked past her to leave the room at the end of class she said, “You did really well, Elizabeth”.

While I was humbly thanking her and simultaneously singing ‘nailed it’ in my head, she quickly followed up with “but you were perspiring heavily.” This was accompanied by a worried look on her face, as if I had had a stroke in the middle of class.

RELATED: Working up a sweat could be the secret to living longer.

From what I could see, there three things wrong with this exchange:

1. Who uses the word perspiring in everyday conversation?

2. How did she learn my name so quickly, there were 20 students and one teacher and I didn’t even bother to catch hers.

3. Um, did I or did I not just do a HOT yoga class?

For anyone that isn’t familiar with this form of torture, it is an hour’s worth of exercise (more strenuous than it looks) in a 40 degree room with 19 other people.

Needless to say, I mumbled something about it being hereditary and quickly backed out of the building completely embarrassed.

RELATED: Search CrossFitters have invented “sweat angels”. A way to show how hard they work out.

The thing is; the only reason I started doing hot yoga in the first place was because I used to come out of a normal yoga class and be the only one sweating. At least in hot yoga I thought I would blend in.

Now, I don’t walk around finding it hard to open door handles, slipping off chairs or continually wiping my palms down the front of my pants but if the weather is above 30 degrees or I do more than a causal walking pace, I do get a bit damp under the arms.

Are woman not allowed to sweat anymore? Were we ever? While men are idolised and salivated over in every spritzed photograph, I have never seen an advertisement with women jogging where at any point she is even the slightest bit shiny. (Post continues after gallery.)

Come to think of it, I have never seen any female instafitness guru or flogger (fitness blogger) actually break a sweat in any of their pictures or videos.

I get the logic – the fitter you are, the less you sweat. Unfortunately for me, despite doing four or five exercise classes a week and having had periods of my life where I regularly ran 10kms, I still get as soggy today as I did the first time I did either of these activities.

RELATED: Why do I sweat so much and how can I stop it?

Isn’t the whole idea of exercise to get the heart rate up, generate heat and thus naturally sweat? Every research article you read will tote the many benefits of sweating including it being a great detoxifier, a natural immune booster, it leaves skin radiant and helps burn fat and yet nary a bead graces the bodies of Ashy Bines, Michelle Bridges or Jillian Michaels.

It is so taboo that it can only be shown on TV as a device to illustrate how hard childbirth is.

To some extent I think my case is hereditary. I live on the Gold Coast and I remember watching my mum single handily driving to work while using her free hand to hold the seatbelt off her chest in the hopes of stopping a wet pageant sash forming on her work shirt which, I might add, is no mean feat in a manual car.

But I can honestly say I am not the only one of my friends who swivels in front of a rotating fan after a spray tan in summer trying to stop drip marks down the cleavage.

RELATED: Your sweaty gym face is having a fashion moment.

In this day and age and with so few taboos left, surely society can get on board with women sweating.

In the meantime, I guess I will continue to tell people that I don’t sweat… I glisten.