In Boston, James Foster sued Healthworks, a female-only health club, claiming that the state's antidiscrimination law requires the club to accommodate him. As a result, Massachusetts is now considering a law that would create an exception to the state's "public accommodations" law for health clubs. Proponents of female-only health clubs claim subtle harassment by men leads them to feel comfortable only when working out in the company of other women. But fearing a concomitant effort to reinstitute male-only facilities of all kinds, the National Organization for Women has come out against the bill, and is aiding Mr. Foster in his efforts to work out at the female gym.

State Senator Linda J. Melconian proposed an alternative amendment that sought to enact regulations so women can exercise in separate rooms from men, or exercise at different times. But, as the Boston Globe reports, men in other states have successfully sued health clubs that set off areas exclusively for women without at least offering men a discount in the absence of a corresponding male-only section. A Los Angeles man successfully won a class action settlement against Bally's for its refusal to abolish rooms with such signs as "Women's Workout Area," "Women's Only," and "Women Preferred." As the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination wrestles with this thorny issue, the Bally Club in Cambridge has retained its section marked for women even though its stated policy is to admit entry to any man who asks.

[Ed.: Enticed by a deal involving several months of free membership, I set up an appointment a few years ago to look at the Bally's in Cambridge. They wound up alienating me considerably by keeping me waiting while they looked around for someone to escort me through the facility. In the meantime I was to fill out a detailed questionnaire for their records and sign in as a guest. Both forms contained a special field for "race," which on the sign-in form was a long column of inscrutable abbreviations that previous guests had filled in as W, W, W, B, W, W, L, N, W, B, X, Q, W, W, etc. The club solicited the racial information as an attempt to comply with an earlier lawsuit alleging racial discrimination. It took just one look at the steroid-infused hulks working out behind the full-length glass partition that separated the waiting room from the main floor to understand the genesis of the lawsuit. To a man, they were all Nazis.]

†