Fitness Clubs Answer Call For Women-Only Workouts

Foster’s Daily Democrat:

Over the past four years that she has owned the Club for Women in north Phoenix, JoAnn Mullooly has noticed an increasing number of Muslim and Orthodox Jewish clients who want to work out among women exclusively in order to preserve modesty.

“I’ve definitely seen an increase,” she says, attributing it to word of mouth in the community. “And we try to be conscious of it.”

She estimates that 10 percent of the 1,700 members are Muslim and 10 percent are Orthodox Jewish. Some work out fully veiled, and some change into modest workout clothes. There are no statistics that chart the number of Muslim or Orthodox Jewish women clients at fitness centers, but this population’s eagerness to work out away from men seems clear:

In 2006, Fitness USA agreed to place a divider and frosted glass in its Lincoln Park, Mich., gym to ensure gender separation. The move came after 200 Muslim members of Fitness USA signed a petition saying that the company reneged on a promise to maintain gender separation at that facility.

Last year, Harvard University agreed to set aside women-only hours at one of its fitness centers for students after Muslim women pleaded their case. Carry on reading this post.

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