Site Presented By
Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Curves gym, with its no-stress workout for exercise-averse women, is the fastest-growing franchise in the U.S. But revelations that its founder gives millions of dollars to antiabortion groups has its customers divided over just what a "female-friendly" business is.
May 19, 2004 | If you live near a Curves health club (and with 7,500 of them dotting the U.S., Canada, Europe and Mexico, trust us, you do), you may have barely noticed its unprepossessing exterior. Each location in the chain of women's gyms takes up only 1,000 to 1,800 square feet on a given sidewalk or strip mall, and is adorned with a violet-and-white awning bearing a Barbie-style scripted logo that makes the place look like a hair-scrunchie kiosk from 1986. But Curves' spare exteriors, and the minimalist fitness programming that goes on inside, have helped the chain become the country's fastest-growing franchise. It boasts nearly 3 million members, and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest fitness center franchise. Curves locations are so ubiquitous that they seem to act as antimatter counterparts to business brethren like McDonald's and Starbucks, popping up on every corner to suck that extra fat right back.
But these days, the women's gym first franchised in 1995 by Waco, Texas, fitness entrepreneur and born-again Christian Gary Heavin is not just doing battle with the saturated-fat-mongers across the parking lot. The past month has seen a whirlwind of confusing press about how much -- if any -- of Curves' profits Heavin gives to anti-abortion groups, and what kind of anti-abortion groups. The storm has left Heavin, franchise owners, gym members and the media locked in a battle that illustrates the confusing powers of the press, the Internet, and political and religious conviction. What seems clear is that Heavin is a committed foe of abortion who has contributed his own money to health agencies that discourage terminating pregnancies; he even blasted a local chapter of the Girl Scouts in print for its associations with Planned Parenthood. But Texas Planned Parenthood leaders have praised some of the health centers Heavin funds, and some feminists continue to defend Curves as one of the most pro-woman health and business ventures in the country. The fracas, which has included imprecise reporting and a scattershot boycott, prompts the question: What does it mean for a business to be good for women?
Until a month ago, Curves felt like one of the most female-friendly businesses around. The Curves program (three 30-minute sessions a week; no more, no less) is created specifically for big women, middle-aged women, elderly women, women who haven't exercised in years -- women who haven't exactly felt the love in expensive gyms that offer kickboxing and Yogilates classes. The 30-minute circuit involves a series of stations and combines a cardiovascular workout with hydraulic weight-training, designed to grow with a body's capabilities. The gyms are designed for women, too: There are no mirrors, patrons are encouraged to come with friends, and machines are arranged in one down-to-earth circle. Membership prices vary from $29 to $59 a month, depending on location. Until this year, the proliferation of Curves has been entirely due to word-of-mouth business; the company had no national ad campaign.
The chain has drawn hopeful small-business owners -- most of them women. The price to purchase a location is under $30,000, and an additional monthly royalty fee hovers around $400, plus approximately $200 a month for international advertising. Rents tend to be manageable because of Curves' minimal square-footage requirements. With branches everywhere, from New York and Los Angeles to North Pole, Alaska, the chain is supposed to top out at the end of 2004 with 9,000 locations. All in all, Curves' history had read like a business chapter from "Our Bodies, Our Selves."
Until April 20, when San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll published a brief item alleging that 49-year-old Heavin "is a heavy contributor to several organizations allied with Operation Save America, the rather more muscular successor to Operation Rescue, the anti-choice group." Carroll's piece also mentioned an interview with Heavin in Christianity Today, and implied that in it, the fitness guru had boasted about giving away "10 percent of Curves' profits" to anti-choice groups.
A week later, Chronicle columnist Ruth Rosen wrote a longer follow-up to Carroll's piece. In it, she extolled Curves' seemingly feminist virtues, and then identified Heavin as a former deadbeat dad who last year gave "at least $5 million of his profits to some of the most militant anti-abortion groups in the country." Again referencing an interview in Christianity Today, Rosen wrote of Heavin's pride in his anti-abortion activism. She pointed out that half of the $10 million (which she called "10 percent of their company's gross revenues") the Heavins doled out to charity last year went to "three Texas organizations to fund 'pregnancy crisis centers' supported by Operation Save America -- the same organization that blamed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on God's retribution for abortions." Rosen also interviewed several Curves members who had quit the gym because of Heavin's reported donations. "Here, then, is a feminist dilemma," concluded Rosen. "What to do? Your decision. There are alternatives, including just plain walking."
It was a sharper battle cry than Carroll's, and no sooner had both pieces been published than they were burning their way across the blogosphere with the speed of the Paris Hilton sex tape, hopping from in box to in box and being referenced in gender and fitness chat rooms. "Here's a guy making money off women, and he's donating money to undermine women's rights. I am so not ever going to set foot in one of those places," wrote Gaiagurl in a comment that summed up many of the Web exchanges on the subject. Ten years ago, I had probably already scarfed my weight in Domino's pizza when someone hazily mentioned to me, in my sophomore year of college, that the company's owner was a vocal and wealthy supporter of anti-abortion groups. The story, which was true and inspired a Domino's boycott by the National Organization for Women, had been passed by word of mouth for years. Now, it only takes minutes to make sure that every wired, politically conscious consumer knows where not to spend their money.
Except that in this case, some of the information may not have been accurate.
