There’s a ‘Curves’ exercise club opening nearby where I work – it’s so close I could walk there and exercise over my lunch hour. In other words, it would be the perfect place for me, convenience-wise.
Should I make a stink about this facility being a women-only club and try to get a membership?
‘Curves’ is a national (U.S.) organization that’s made someone very rich – franchises are opeing up everywhere it seems.
And is it fair to compare this to the Augusta country club situation? That male-only club is hosting the Master’s golf tournement next year and NOW has its panties in a bunch over this, and wants the club to admit women.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, eh?
If you feel victimised by this you can campaign publicly against it, and hope either to get the policy changed or the law changed through the force of public opinion.
Free speech is just as protected as free association.
But it isn’t NOW, its the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO). NOW has its panties in a bunch over things like equal pay for equal work, affirmative action, welfare reform, abortion rights, gay and lesbian equality. They’ve issued statements in support of the NCWO and Martha Burk, but they aren’t directly involved in this issue.
Can’t speak for your local franchise, but at ours they said, if a man wanted to join, they wouldn’t be thrilled, but they wouldn’t stop him.
But, have you ever been in a Curves? It’s more like an aerobics class than a workout. You go twice around a circuit in a half an hour and change machines every 30 seconds. It takes almost exactly 30 minutes. Woe be onto you if you want to go faster or slower, that’s not the way it’s done. There is no locker room, you chnage in the bathroom and if you sweat you shower at home.
But if you really want to come work out with me, while “It’s Rainin’ Men” blares in the background…
The point of curves is that women can go in all unkempt and funky like, jiggling like a big 'ol bowl of Jello and exercise at their most funkified levels in a room where the air is laden with bad breath and the acrid funk of a room full of sweaty 30 to 50 something flabby, overweight females… and that they can do all this without being concerned about primping for a potential patriarchial presence.
I posted this in Great Debates because my OP raises, I think, issues such as what legal leeway do private businesses have to discriminate? How much leeway should they have?
To wit, I open a resaturant. For argument’s sake, let’s call it Denny’s. I refuse to serve food to blacks (or I serve it to them v-e-r-y slowly. Is that my right?
Of course, I chose Denny’s because they have been (rightly) sued more than once for doing just that.
So why is what Denny’s did wrong, but what Curves has adoptd as a corporate policy O.K.?
Yes, most restaurants, bars, retail stores, etc. have a notice posted such as “Management reserves the right to refuse service to any client” or some such, but there are legal limits to that management right. Especially if management exercises that right in a pattern of discrimination against a particular group.
P.S. I was unaware of the nature of the 30-minute Curves workout routine (thanks astro). Sounds like I really DON’T want to join it. I was, however, aware of the fact that the raison d’etre of Curves is to allow women the freedom to exercise in an enviroment where they are allowed to ‘glow’ without feeling self-conscious about it.
Authoritarians make arbitrary distinctions between so-called public facilities and private ones. They discriminatorily prohibit discriminatory prohibitions in public facilities.
In my experience, the general free-world attitude is that the only group capable of discrimination is men. More particularly, white men. Discrimination against men, such as the Curves policy, is called “Affirmative Action” and is an acceptable means of protecting and responding to the oppressive, discriminatory behaviour of every single man in the history of the world, including you. Your challenge will only label you as a jerk who is trying to destroy the few advances that oppressed peoples have gained in the last century. Pardon my abrasive, over-the-top manner of making my point.
(Heaving giant chip off his shoulder,) I think places like Curves are a great idea. Don’t try to get in. Too many people have worked too hard to earn the right to create places where they can go to enjoy themselves and feel comfortable with their surroundings and their fellow people. Getting in just to prove a point is a bad idea. Find the nearest Y and go there instead.
I hasten to add that in Shallow Hal, which is quite possibly the greates movie of this millennium (so far), Hal was shown working out at an exercise club called “The Arboretum for women”.
You could also throw in the public institution crap… I can’t remember what the ruling was, but there was that whole thing with the Boy Scouts of America supporting the troop that booted out a gay Troop Leader or something?
What would the difference be between an organization like the BSA (for which you have to pay for membership, I think) and a pay-to-use facility (or class, or whatever) like this?
On a separate tangent, as a woman, I think that if a male tried to join a women-only exercise club/facility like the one you speak of, I would be more inclined to think that they’re there to check out boobies, as opposed to actually exercise (not you, of course :P).
Not to be sexist or anything, mind you; but you have to wonder what a male would be doing trying to get into a specifically female-oriented place like that, especially since I think most males would be uncomfortable joining one (from being the lone male, because other men might think him unmanly, whatever.).
I was, however, aware of the fact that the raison d’etre of Curves is to allow women the freedom to exercise in an enviroment where they are allowed to ‘glow’ without feeling self-conscious about it.