Back in the 80s I did a lot of aerobics on campus, because it was a cheap, efficient way to keep fit for jujitsu and, well, okay, hot girls.

I had no idea until I read this essay in the New York Times that I was part of a failed feminist dance moment.

Revolutions don’t always happen in the streets. In the early 1980s, a seismic shift took place in strip-mall storefronts that smelled of sweat and Enjoli. Pulsing to the beat of Donna Summer and glistening with spandex, these fluorescent-lit rooms vibrated with the energy of career women and housewives bouncing in unison.

Aerobics was liberation. It offered a way for millions of women to feel proud of what their bodies could do, not just how they looked.