2/22/98 (lead)
    The mere mention of all-female health clubs or all-girl algebra classes seems to afflict certain persons with vertigo. ``AIyeeeeh . . . a slippery slope'' they cry, prophesying that the least accommodation to the genuine differences between men and women will erase a century of progress toward legal and social equality. 
     Pragmatically speaking, that's absurd. Most adults are perfectly capable of distinguishing between a sauna and a boardroom, and can understand why they might reasonably be governed by different laws. 
     The contested terrain in the war between the sexes is not a steep mountainside, but an irregular plain, marked by numerous rock-solid constitutional outcroppings defensible against any assault by patriarchal reactionaries _ if any such remain. It is not necessary to fight to the death to ensure that every pebble remains firmly co-ed. 
     The pebble currently being fought over is a Massachusetts health club called Healthworks, which opened in 1996 for women only. Shortly thereafter it was sued by James J. Foster, a lawyer who lived in the neighborhood. 
     Foster said that the state's public-accommodation law required the club to admit men, and in December a Massachusetts Superior Court agreed with him. 
     The state legislature, inundated with indignant phone calls, quickly passed an amendment to its anti-discrimination law authorizing single-sex fitness facilities, provided they receive no government funds, and acting Governor Paul Cellucci signed it Feb. 6. 
     No slippery wet floors there. Support for a narrow exclusion to the law doesn't imply support for a broad exclusion, let alone outright repeal. 
     Nonetheless the Massachusets chapter of the National Organization for Women is considering a legal challenge. 
     Though the existence of all-female clubs benefits women, chapter President Crystal Garrity concedes, ``we have to give it up because discrimination is wrong.'' 
     That's a curious willingness to sacrifice the well-being of individual women to an abstract principle. Some two million women, nationwide, exercise at all-female facilities; not enough to threaten the dominance of co-ed clubs, but more than enough to indicate the desire for privacy in this activity is more than an infrequent aberration. 
     There's no comparable consumer demand for all-female restaurants, or hotels, or airplanes, hence no slippery slope. 
     But there is a countervailing abstract principle, little honored in recent years: the constitutional right of free association, which includes the right not to associate. Freedom of association has been severely, and sometimes justifiably, circumscribed by developing civil-rights law, but it shouldn't be completely abandoned. The government must have a constitutionally compelling reason to curtail individual rights, and there is no such compelling reason why someone who wants a co-ed exercise experience should be able to deny others access to a single-sex facility. 
     Good jobs are so consequential, however, that providing equal access is a compelling reason to prohibit workplace discrimination. The lever women used to pry open male-only golf clubs and civic organizations was that business was done in those places. Given the disproportionate power of men and women in the workplace, women's exclusion affected their jobs and careers. 
     If that should begin to happen, either to women or to men, as a result of the growth of single-sex exercise facilities, armies will arise to join Garrity in her opposition. But there's no need to do real harm now in order to avoid hypothetical harm in the future. 
     Like the gym, the classroom should offer a single-sex option for the small number who want or need it. The loss of VMI and the Citadel diminished higher education in America. The women's colleges survive, for the time being, but it seems you me you cannot argue convincingly that women have the right to a single-sex education, but not men. 
     One solution is to deny the opportunity to everyone. Experimental programs offering the option of separate math and science classes for adolescent boys and girls can expect lawsuits, even though the evidence is that they sharply increase the proportion of girls choosing scientific careers, supposedly a desirable aim. Likewise, the women's colleges have an outstanding record of producing female scientists and executives, so some women clearly benefit.  
     No one argues that all women are too frail to compete in the classroom with men _ in fact, most of the evidence is that it's men who have trouble keeping up. It's absurd to deny women or men the chance to flourish because of purely hypothetical worries that co-education (or exercise) might disappear.