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April 20, 2004

Curvy Christianity

Liz showed me an article about Curves for Women. You've all heard about them, they are everywhere apparently. This is a good article, in my opinion, about a man who has turned his life around and is going for what he believes is right in life, without trying to take apart the lives of others. Some things from the article:

  • 1 in every 4 health clubs in the country is a Curves for Women, and another 1,400 are under construction;
  • After being thrown in jail for being a deadbeat dad, Gary Heavin, founder, realized that he had lost everything: his first marriage, custody of his two children, his livelihood, even his freedom.
  • In 2003, the couple gave away $10 million—10 percent of their company's gross revenues and 80 percent of Gary's net income—to charities.
  • In 2003 alone, clients donated 4.25 million pounds of groceries for local food banks.
These are all good works. I see this as a success story. This guy hit rock bottom and decided to make a change. He calls it, "finding God" or something like that. Cynics might perceive this as him putting his life in the hands of something external to him, and therefore not taking responsibility of his own life, but I would say that this is clearly not the case. I will assume that he took care of the child that he couldn't pay for before although I realize that the article makes no mention of this. So if he finds God and is able to turn his life around, good for him, and good for those that benefit. (I think that Liz should write a piece on those that turn their lives around after rejecting God. I think that might be interesting.) I am concerned with the apparent shoddy equipment and lack of trained personnel (I think).

But being the person I am, I can't be satisfied with this, because the fact is, I can't go to this club if I want to, because of my gender. Not because of any other reason such as having a medical problem, or anything like that. It's because I am a guy. This goes against some of my principles. A whole movement was created because people were tired of being treated differently due to their race. Another one was created for those whose gender was unfairly used to bar them from entry. And yet another was made for those who have different sexualities than the majority. And what did we learn from these things? Not that discrimination is wrong, surely.

Yet I can completely understand why it is necessary for these women. Regular fitness centres are very much "like nightclubs, catering to the sculpted bodies of affluent 17- to 32-year-old fitness buffs." If I were a middle-aged unathletic woman, there's no way I would set foot in these places. I would go to a supportive place where I could work at my own pace and be myself, and Curves seems to work for millions of women.

What I do not believe, though, is that women are the only group that needs to exclude others from its walls to feel comfortable. I see no reason why there shouldn't be other groups that do the same things. Ethnic groups let in people who are not of that ethnic group. The "outsiders" simply follow the rules of that group and everyone is happy. No one is threatened.

We already have discrimination in private groups anyway. Country clubs are for the rich and rich only. Rich usually means white, doesn't it? In any case, I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be men's only health clubs, or social clubs. Or black-only church groups. Perhaps it should be left up to the community to decide whether or not they want peaceful whites-only clubs, though. Any of these groups should be fine as long as they demonstrate that they do not promote hatred or violence.

But there's the rub, isn't it? This is very hard to prove in some cases, I would think. Imagine a convenience store where blacks and women pay more, or can't work there, or can't even enter. That might piss me off. And of course I see no useful social purpose in such a place, not like with Curves. But perhaps that is the true price of freedom, allowing the offensive to be offensive. Maybe we as free people do not adequately pay for it. Some say that freedom is not free and therefore we must fight and die. I think that paying for freedom should be done by allowing everyone to have it. It's a lot tougher than it sounds.

Posted by JonasParker at April 20, 2004 11:17 AM

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Comments

There are country clubs for those of limited means. They don't have the same amenities, of course, because no one can afford them. The difference is that they weren't made to be exclusionary. It's for people who want more, and can afford to pay for more. As for turning one's life around after rejecting God, you don't hear about it because people just do it. There's no one to glorify for the changes, except yourself and most people are reluctant to do that.

Posted by: Elizabeth at April 20, 2004 1:55 PM

I'm kind of jumping into this one late, but I do have a few cents to add.

I completely understand the idea of people creating groups, clubs, etc. made up of other people like them (women, fat people, blacks, men, homosexuals, Japanese, etc.). Traditionally, society has not been very accepting of people who are "different" from the mainstream.

With that in mind, you might ask, "But how are (White) Men different from the mainstream and why should they need their own club?" That debate raged on for several years around the Augusta golf club in Georgia who would let women play as guests on their course, but would not allow them to be members in their own right (only as auxiliary members if their husbands were members).

Nobody seems to have a problem with minority or special interest groups having exclusive clubs where they can feel accepted and not be judged. I believe that this is our #1 desire as humans - to be accepted for who we are, not to be judged by others for the choices we make (or those that are made for us) and that there are other people out there who know how we feel because they are in the same situation we are. Positive examples of this are all the 12-Step groups, Cancer survivor groups (interestingly, these are often segregated by type of cancer), ethnic groups, etc.

For the most part, these groups' missions are for people to be able to come together to share experiences or to get their message out to the world.

Where I think we start to cross a line is when those groups are formed or their raison d'etre is more to exclude others who are not like them from participating than it being about coming together to celebrate the uniqueness of the group's members (or to support each otehr through the trauma of past/current injustices done to them).

But then comes the tricky part. Who has the right to determine which groups can be exclusive and which ones cannot? Where should that line be drawn? Or should it be drawn at all?

One solution, as a female-centric sex shop in Toronto does, is to label itself as a shop for women and then have one night a week where admittance is for women only so that they can shop in an environment they might be more comfortable in. I remember back in University we had an evening screening of the film, Not A Love Story, which is a documentary about the porn industry. They billed it as a "female only" screening and there were several men (one of them very vocal) who truly resented being excluded from the screening. I can't recall whether there was also a co-ed screening. Perhaps that would have been a solution.

But in the end, how else are special interest groups (and to some degree we are ALL part of SOME special interest group) going to raise awareness about their issues if they exclude people who aren't like them from participating?

Posted by: La at May 12, 2004 3:28 PM