But Wendy McElroy fails to grasp the gander-goose principle:
An ideological conflict underlies the attempt by either sex to force open the doors of ‘exclusive’ businesses: individual rights versus egalitarianism. Under individual rights, every human being has control over the peaceful use of his or her own body and property. Under egalitarianism, access to and use of property is equally distributed across society, with or without the consent of owners.
I come down on the side of individual rights.
In terms of Body Central, I don’t believe any man or woman has a legal ‘right’ to exercise on someone else’s private property. I do not believe anyone has a moral obligation to provide another person with exercise. Freedom of association means that individuals, including property owners, have a right to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ at their own front door.
Unfortunately, an emotional element also underlies the conflict.
Some men applaud the turn-around as an opportunity to give feminists a taste of their own medicine. In doing so, they adopt the very principles they allegedly decry: egalitarianism, the legal imposition of gender policy, the use of collective ‘gender-think.’ In short, they become feminists.
Body Central may become not only a test case but also a trial of conscience.
Women who believe in egalitarianism will either apply that principle to men or be confronted by their own hypocrisy. Men who believe feminism’s door-busting has been wrong will have to decide whether they value revenge more highly than justice.
While I c0mpletely agree with McElroy on the larger point – private enterprise should be free to discriminate against anyone for any reason – the idea that men who use the law to give women a taste of their own feminist medicine are doing so for merely emotional reasons and have “become feminists” is deeply stupid.
Since women were the only ones pushing for these anti-freedom of association laws, it is only through eliminating their ability to have their cake and eat it too that the right of freedom of association will be restored. I suspect McElroy is being mildly disingenuous here, as there’s no reason to believe that allowing women’s businesses to violate the freedom of association will restore it for men.