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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Is it worth it to quit Curves gym in protest over the owner's donations to anti-abortion organizations? Readers -- many of them Curves members -- debate.
May 24, 2004 | [Read "Curve Ball," by Rebecca Traister.]
I have been a member of two different Curves gyms for two years. I was aware that the founder was a fundamentalist Christian, and that the hours were limited based on some kind vision of women "spending more time with their families." At the first Curves I belonged to, the owner was apolitical and I never had the feeling there was any agenda. At the second Curves they played Christian music; I spoke to the owner about her musical choices and did notice a reduction in the Christian songs.
In April I traveled to D.C. for the March for Women's Lives and came back highly motivated to speak out in my Bible Belt community about women's issues and our need to vote against Bush. Surprisingly, I found many of the women receptive to my ideas and I was actually encouraged.
To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure I want to quit the gym. It's affordable, it's convenient and makes me feel good. I am troubled by the founder's beliefs but am comforted by the response of the local Planned Parenthood. For now, I plan to keep my membership at Curves and keep talking to the clientele about issues relevant to women and working people.
-- Rose Curl Eckstein
I understand that many women are dismayed and feel that they need to leave Curves as a matter of conscience. I have a slightly different perspective. I am a pro-choice activist, I work for a leading organization in the fight for reproductive freedom and I am a Curves member. While giving up a Curves membership may feel like an empowering thing to do, ultimately it is a symbolic gesture. It does nothing to secure reproductive freedoms.
If women are truly concerned by attacks on women's rights -- and they absolutely should be -- then they need to mobilize, educate themselves on the issues, get active politically, and donate to pro-choice organizations. The essence of Curves, despite Mr. Heavin's personal beliefs and actions, is about creating healthy, strong women. This is a great opportunity for these women to draw on their Curves communities and decry the war on women in a substantive way.
Curves members should make a statement, but it is a false assumption to believe that leaving Curves lessens the danger to a woman's right to choose.
-- Kimberly Smith
It is articles like this that tear my insides out. I was the only "young communist" in my high school (this during the Reagan years). I have been tear-gassed at WTO protests. I got garbage pelted at me during antiwar protests by pro-Bush folks. I shouldn't have to prove my "lefty" credentials, but I always feel like I have to when I try to point out that being against abortion does not mean you are "anti-choice" any more than saying you are "pro-choice" makes you for abortion. Suddenly, all my Democratic voting history goes out the window, and I, a woman, am told that I am "anti-woman" for even suggesting that pro-life people aren't all clinic-bombing nutcases.
This whole article is just as scary and knee-jerk as the Bushies can be. I resist the notion that women can't be feminists and think that abortion is a downright bad and a harmful decision. I am not for government intervention, but I don't see one thing wrong with donating to crisis pregnancy centers that promote adoption.
-- Tiffany Lach
I've never considered myself a radical feminist, but I still would not join Curves. Whether or not the organizations Heavin supports picket outside of clinics, it still matters that they deny or simply ignore an option that they could extend for poor, pregnant women. Unwanted pregnancies often can confine women to cycles of poverty and abuse. Women were not truly emancipated until they were able to control their fertility, and anti-choice activists seek only to deny that control. To add to that, abortion is another place where the Christian spiritual intrudes on the secular. Not every religion sees abortion as "sinful," so why should we have to follow this particular Catholic edict? Patronizing organizations that support such beliefs only re-establishes the notion that one religion can enforce its will on everyone. I feel sorry for the women that bought into the franchise only to have it fail because the CEO has no respect for the individual beliefs, choices or rights of women, but such things will not change until women stand up and refuse to put up with it. A treadmill doesn't care who runs on it.
-- Stefani Gunther
