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Flash forward. The year is 2004 and the Augusta Country Club,
the traditional and symbolic American home of golf’s
Masters Tournament, has come full circle, abandoned its archaic
and Neanderthal ways, and finally introduced its first female
member to the nation. Amidst much pomp and fanfare, the honorable
and quite fashionable Mrs. Fill-in-the-Blank must shield her
eyes from the all the flashbulbs as she tees off at the first
hole. She chuckles, amused as her tee shot carries a bit to
the left, but a nice drive nonetheless. She completes eighteen
holes with a more than respectable 87 – everyone knows
it’s a tough course. Even Hootie Johnson himself, the
embattled leader of the Cro-Magnon horde, is there at the
final green to congratulate her and shake her hand, cameras
blazing all the while. The days events are reported on every
imaginable television program, from SportsCenter to
the Tonight Show, the local news to 20/20.
It’s a benchmark for every woman who ever burned a bra
or got paid less for doing the same job as a man. We all go
to bed peacefully in the knowledge that justice has been served,
and we feel free to dream that tomorrow will be an even better
day.
Now back to reality, let’s take a look at what is
really happening here. What in all honesty does Martha Burk
hope to achieve with her vigilant crusade by asking Tiger
to boycott the tournament (and, incidentally, forego his chance
to set a record by winning it three years in a row) because
Augusta doesn’t allow female members? Will battered
wives and girlfriends be allowed to play a few rounds at one
of the country’s premiere golf resorts? Will single,
teenaged mothers suffering with AIDS or breast cancer hobnob
with society’s elite on the fringe of the twelfth hole?
Are there not more noble and necessary endeavors
out there for Mrs. Burk to focus all this vibrant energy upon?
Ultimately, if Martha Burk has her way and accomplishes her
righteous task of seeing the first female member at Augusta,
only two people will benefit; the proud and socially accessible
figurehead woman whose name will one day be the answer to
a question on Trivial Pursuit, and the wildly egotistical
Martha Burk herself.
Her efforts here are wasted on the symbolism of what such
change could accomplish. Symbolism in today’s fifteen
seconds worth of news time before the next bigger and better
story comes up is pointless. Action is necessary, but the
focus should be more essential. What good is mankind served
when a woman who already eats caviar daily gets to add her
name to a list of notable CEO’s and Captains of Industry
whose monikers already adorn the Augusta membership scroll?
Has Mrs. Burk created a better world for the daughters of
America to grow up in should she achieve the ultimate prize
of her mission? She would say yes – what a surprise.
The truth of the matter is that this story, once done, would
disappear more quickly than my chance of ever wearing the
green jacket. So much time lost on something so truly pointless,
when so much of that time and effort could have been spent
on making a real difference to women who actually need support
and hope.
I have trouble understanding why Martha Burk is at such
odds with Hootie Johnson and his Country Club. Let’s
get one thing straight – there is a huge difference
between race and gender discrimination. There are many accepted
institutions where the difference in gender is the driving
force behind the organization's identity. The Boys and Girls
Scouts of America, Sigma Chi for the guys and Delta Gamma
for the girls, or a number of other gender-differentiated
groups where sex is not an issue. The hypocrisy is actually
rather frightening. Burk’s organization itself, the
National Council of Women’s Organizations,
is the ultimate in sexist. The name itself says it all.
Could I join? If I follow her logic here, then I should be
able to convince a young, male college student, to fight for
his right to join a sorority (I’m actually shocked no
smart young kid has tried this before – think of the
sleepovers!). Women even have two television networks, Lifetime
and Oxygen, dedicated exclusively to women’s
programming. But strangely, men don’t seem to mind all
that much. As a matter of fact, there are no clauses in the
rulebooks of men’s major sports that state women are
not allowed. I am convinced that if a woman were good enough
to play in the NBA or in the NFL, she would. It is only the
women’s leagues, such as the WNBA or WUSA, that are
gender specific, obliterating any man’s chances of ever
playing for the Sparks. And once again, I don’t hear
or see any men complaining about it.
From a male perspective, it just seems like today’s
woman is out to prove that she can do everything that a man
has already shown he can do – head a large
corporation, put on the gloves and box or play tackle football,
even want to become frontline Marines in heavy combat. Men
know that women are more than capable leaders. Men know that
women are incredibly intelligent and insightful, instinctual
even (practically bordering on supernatural in some). Men
may scoff a little bit when women claim to be physically equal,
but we’ll never see eye to eye on that. But where’s
the challenge in simply doing what men have always done? It
almost seems like an affirmation that men, pigs that we all
are – at least if you watch enough Lifetime - must not
have been doing everything all that badly (which most feminists
would boldly claim), if so many women are just doing their
best to imitate our lead, or follow in our clumsy footsteps.
It’s time for women to stop duplicating and try some
more innovating. My suggestion to Martha Burk – instead
of putting so much pointless and misguided effort into getting
a woman admitted as a member at male dominated Augusta Country
Club, try organizing a group of powerful, wealthy and influential
women together to design and build an amazing golf course
of your own. Then leave the membership open only to women.
That’ll learn us Cretans. (Although I’m not sure
what it’ll do to help those single teenage mothers…)
December 2002
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