By Megan Burks
Women-only Swim Makes The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post and U-T San Diego ran commentary on the flap over my article on women-only swim hours at the Copley Family YMCA this week. Professors Avi Spiegel and Adina Batnitzky coauthored the piece, saying the story only garnered harsh reactions because the women who attend the classes are Muslim.
| Americans tend to be sympathetic to economic explanations for a lack of physical activity (say, people can’t afford gym memberships or don’t have the time to exercise because of their busy work schedule). But we have a harder time grappling with cultural norms that might prevent exercise.
The East African community requesting this class is a community with high rates of hypertension and diabetes. Shouldn’t we be celebrating their efforts to actively improve their health through exercise? Research among Muslims in the Arab world (conducted by Adina Batnitzky) has shown that women have higher rates of obesity than men precisely because they rarely have culturally appropriate spaces for exercise. And when such places do exist, they are reserved largely for the upper class. |
City Heights Hope, a group of East African women, asked the YMCA to offer the classes because their faith doesn’t allow them to swim in front of men and because other exercise venues are limited in City Heights. The story quickly stirred debate among supporters, who see the classes as a public health intervention, and critics, who consider the classes discriminatory and oppressive.
After more than 200 comments, the online moderator shut down comments on the story for the first time in KPBS history. But the debate didn’t end there. Follow-ups on KPBS Midday Edition and Evening Edition brought new voices to the discussion, including Batnitzky’s. The debate picked up again in comments on the follow-up.
On July 16, Roger Hedgecock aired KPBS footage of the class on UT-TV. According to Scott Lewis of Voice of San Diego and Doug Porter of San Diego Free Press, Hedgecock mischaracterized the class as Muslim-only. I haven’t been able to track down an archived version of the show.
The Huffington Post article brings the story to a national level, which isn’t unprecedented. Women-only swim programs at George Washington University and Harvard University have gained national attention. Several anti-Islamism blogs offer full lists of organizations offering programs to accommodate Muslim women.
Despite the backlash, the Copley YMCA maintains the classes are legal and socially responsible.
Find more religion stories on The Huffington Post @HuffPostRelig.
Early Community Garden Alleviated I-15 Blight
This week, San Diego Free Press columnist Anna Daniels took us back to 1991, when City Heights residents planted a sprawling community garden in the footprint of Interstate 15.
At the time, CalTrans had razed more than 1,100 homes in preparation for extending the freeway. It would be five years before construction could actually begin, so the residents started planting.
| You could say that there is a community garden in City Heights because people traveling from Canada to Mexico on Interstate 15 don’t want to slow down to 45 miles an hour for eight city blocks through an old inner city community. Ditto for people traveling in the opposite direction. This garden was created in August of 1991 by a bulldozer and it will probably be destroyed in 1996 by a bulldozer. We exist between the demolition and an enormous ditch.
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| In many ways the trauma of being severed by Interstate 15—Daniels calls the freeway a “brown scar”—that mobilized the community we write about today. It brought residents together to assess their needs and then demand that those needs be met. It was the origin of movements that still rally residents together. Through the upset, community members were able to put new parks and transit stops on the agenda.
Dismantling the community allowed residents to assemble a stronger one. Daniels puts it this way:
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| Community gardens are where the power of nature meets the power of people. Community gardens grow relationships. They grow community as much as they grow vegetables and fruit.
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