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Muslim women fight to exercise away from men - Muslimah - 04-21-2006
http://news.ibn.net/newsframe.asp?url=http...en.asp?url=mwfo
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Dearborn residents Ammerah Saidi, 23, right, and Arrwa Mogalli, 28, were drawn to the Fitness USA chain because of its women-only days. (DAVID P. GILKEY/Detroit Free Press)
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• SEPARATION OF THE SEXES: Modesty is at core of the issue
When Arrwa Mogalli agreed to plunk down $1,465 for a lifetime membership with the Fitness USA chain of gyms, she did so after being promised that its Lincoln Park facility would be open only to women on certain days.
As a devout Muslim, Mogalli firmly believes her religion frowns on her working out where she could see men -- and men could see her -- moving and dressed in a manner that might seem immodest.
So when the Lincoln Park gym decided this month to open up part of the center to both sexes every day, the 28-year-old Dearborn resident and other area Muslims felt cheated. So far, about 200 Muslim women with Fitness USA memberships have signed a petition asking the chain to return to gender-specific days for the entire gym or to put up a divider so men and women can't see each other while working out.
Fitness USA officials met with one of the women and a Muslim advocate this week at their corporate office in West Bloomfield and said they are working on a response to the women's concerns. But they also noted that their written contracts say nothing about gender.
The women's concerns reflect the ways many Muslims in metro Detroit are trying to blend their American lifestyles with Islamic traditions. In recent years, for example, Dearborn Public Schools has offered gender-segregated gym and swimming classes. The move came after a growing number of Muslim parents expressed concerns about their children attending physical education classes with the opposite sex, school officials said.
In the case of Fitness USA and other private gyms, some Muslim women say it's cumbersome to exercise wearing Islamic headscarves and clothes covering their bodies, as required under some interpretations of Islam. That's why they want the option of separate workout spaces.
"In Islam, there are codes of modesty for both genders," Ammerah Saidi, 23, of Dearborn, a lifetime member of Fitness USA who is upset over its recent change, said this week. "When you're working out, you're not dressed modestly, and you're bending in provocative ways, so you can't be working out with the opposite gender."
Though Islam is guiding their concerns, Saidi and other Muslims stress that people of other faiths, including Christians and Orthodox Jews, share similar concerns. Moreover, with the Islamic population growing, Muslims argue it makes good business sense for local companies to accommodate their faith.
Like other local Muslim women, Saidi said she joined Fitness USA last year because managers repeatedly made verbal promises that there would be gender-specific workout days at some of the facilities.
At the Dearborn location, it's women-only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Lincoln Park, the days for women are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. There also are women-only days on alternate Sundays at the Westland location, thus allowing members to exercise apart from men almost every day.
That's what drew both Saidi and Mogalli to Fitness USA.
"It really caught my attention," Mogalli said of the gender separation. "That was my No. 1 motivating factor to join." She also bought a membership for her mother.
But this month, Fitness USA opened a new cardio section in Lincoln Park with plasma televisions, the latest workout equipment and tanning salons, and offered it to both genders on all days. Since that part of the gym can easily be seen from existing workout areas, the gender-specific days are meaningless, the women said. A similar problem arose in the Westland location, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Now, the women can't get out of their contracts because they are lifetime agreements, meaning that Fitness USA deducts a certain amount from their credit cards until they reach the total amount of the contract -- $1,465 in Mogalli's case.
"I felt like all the money I just spent ... has gone to waste," she said.
Mogalli has been collecting signatures from members on a petition to try to get the center to change the policy. She first contacted the manager of the Lincoln Park center and then spoke with Jodi Berry, administrative director for Fitness USA. Mogalli said they urged her to go to the Dearborn gym, but that facility is overcrowded, which is why an increasing number of women were going to Lincoln Park.
On Tuesday, Saidi and Walid met with Berry and company Vice President James Hoppin.
Berry said this week that they are reviewing the concerns.
Walid and the women hope to reach an amicable resolution. They would like to have the entire gym only for women on certain days, as before. Or, the gym could put up a divider, blocking the cardio section from the old section. If that can't happen, the women say they want refunds.
"We don't want to punish them," Walid said of Fitness USA. "We just want to make matters right."
Contact NIRAJ WARIKOO at 248-351-2998 or nwarikoo@freepress.com.