Sweating with the Enemy

[pegkerr]

Here is an interesting article from the Boston Globe on the question some have struggled with over the question of whether Curves should be boycotted because the founder donates money to anti-abortion causes.

If getting fit also means enriching a millionaire who donates to antiabortion groups, why is Curves sweeping across New England with the force of a blizzard? Thousands of Massachusetts women are facing the question of health versus choice. How will they reconcile the personal with the political?

I'm not interested in starting a flame war about abortion in this journal, heaven knows (really, please don't post your rants pro or against about the subject here; I'm still recovering from the last kerfluffle over gay marriage. Don't make me resort to the delete key). But I'm thinking instead about the larger issue, in general, of how we choose to spend our consumer dollars can have an unlooked-for political impact. The article points out that NOW considered whether to start a boycott against Curves but decided that in the end, it would hurt franchise owners (many women who were just getting into business for themselves) rather than Heavin. I remember the Domino's controversy; I read a story about one hapless Domino's franchise owner who went broke because of the boycott; he was pro-choice himself, and he wondered, I'm just trying to sell pizza. How is driving me out of business helping choice causes?

I note from the article that some Curvers are solving the dilemma by increasing their prochoice contributions; see reference to the website curversforchoice.com. This seems to be at least a partial solution. The article also points out that unlike in the case of Dominos, where you could simply choose another pizza brand, there really isn't any business providing an alternative to the type of niche Curves fills.

My mom uses Curves. I've always exercised on my own, using videos and DVDs.

In a related story, I see the Southern Baptists announced they are ending the Disney boycott.

Comments

[aome.livejournal.com]

My father somehow knew which completely unrelated brands were actually owned by Reynolds or some other tobacco-producing giant, and he would boycott them until they were sold off to a non-tobacco parent company. So, for a while, suddenly we couldn't eat at KFC, or buy Mrs Smith's frozen pies, or what have you. He believed that strongly in his anti-smoking cause. I still don't know how he found these things out. But good point about finding another way to support your cause while not crushing potentially-uninvolved franchise owners.

Enlighten me: how is Curves different from other gyms? I know they focus on 30-min workouts for women, but that can be done elsewhere, can't it?

Apologies for spamming your LJ today. :)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

The Curves spots I've seen have been different from other gyms for a number of reasons - and some of my itemizing is simply repeating what you've already said, but with a different emphasis. This is /my/ analysis, and I state up front that I'm extrapolating from a lot of thought and little data:

- They're exclusively for women.

- Unlike most of the other all-women options, like Healthworks, they're very affordable.

- They can exist in very small places, and involve modest amounts of equipment, so that they're very easy for people to start up a new branch of - that means instead of two big ones in a metro area, you have dozens of small ones. That means the customer can just about always find one conveniently located, and the owner (of the particular branch) can be someone who doesn't have a lot of capital to start with.

- They give an exact, known time for the work-out. This makes it much less intimidating, because the customer can easily figure out when in the day they consistently have half an hour to spend, as opposed to the nebulous, gaseous (expands to fill however much room its given) "work out" in a gym that provides less structure/instruction.

- Because they're small, local, for women, and easily built into a routine, they quickly establish a base of customers who know each other, for whom going becomes a social as well as athletic occasion. And everyone there is doing exactly the same thing.

- They strongly emphasize weight loss and generalized, mild conditioning. There is not the slightest hint of athleticisim or body-building. This tallies well with the very common perception that mainstream women are scared of becoming /too/ athletic or muscular, and would actively prefer exercise that will give them health benefits and weight loss without making them into jocks - that is, without significantly changing their pre-existing self-image. I, personally, have an ideological problem with this. It is not at all what I would /want/ women to want. However, it does in fact match up well with my observation of the desires of many of my female coworkers, and also the adolescent girls I've worked with and talked with. It's by no means (and /I/ happen to say 'Thank goodness' about this) universal, but it is very, very common. I saw similar trends in Miriam Nelson's admirable work on strength training - the repeated reassurance that it was possible to do these work-outs without developing huge muscles or becoming /athletes/. (I, personally, would love to have big muscles, and revel in strong, athletic, capable--oops, my biases are showing in that conflation--/muscular/ girls and women. But I appear not to be mainstream in this.)