curves, a creepy article you should read

[keryx]

Also in the Bitch this month is an interesting semi-article [let's call it an articlet, shall we?] about the guy behind Curves gym that made me all shivery. Gary Heavin seems to think that God wants him to save fat women from death. And he's apparently a big financial supporter of anti-choice causes like abstinence-only sex education (doesn't work! much like dieting!) and those eerie crisis pregnancy centers.

If you go to Curves, you should read the Bitch articlet and maybe do a bit of your own research. I mean, I know some of my money gets used in ways I don't like, but he unsettles me. In a bad way.

The articlet brought up for me some of the issues I have with the way fitness is sold to women. And I can't help but thinking, if we go to Curves, aren't we also encouraging people to sell us fitness as weightloss? To think that a woman can "find herself" by finding a smaller size or repeating the same exercises over and over again (that's another thing that has bugged me about Curves vs. regular gym, that progression and greater strength are very much de-emphasized)? But more on that later.

Comments

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I am 100% with you on the regular gyms's general suckage for me personally. But the Bitch thing made me think, where Curves is concerned, that the overall business is selling this very narrow definition of feminine power. An individual Curves franchise may be empowering, but they're as a company still selling weightloss as the path to self-actualization. If I buy from one empowering franchise, I am still basically sending money to Weight Watchers or Dr. Phil. I am supporting the weightloss industry, and I will not do that. They are evil, evil liars. [Er, yeah, if you can't tell, this is definitely one of my personal hot buttons.]

There are other women-only gyms (Victory Lady, I think, is a chain like this) that are more truly girl-powerful and don't hawk weightloss. I feel better about those.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of Victory Lady. Is it just in Richmond?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, apparently it is. I didn't realize that until I looked it up. But I'm guessing there's something similar in most major areas.