WHAT A LOAD OF BALLS! Sharon Jacobsen
When it comes to the US Masters, one thing’s certain – whoever dons the Green Jacket this year won’t be a woman!
What women will be doing is a fair amount of shouting whilst bearing gripe-sloganed banners in order to let the world know they’re unhappy that a private club has the audacity to make its own decisions about membership. Women simply aren’t welcome at the ‘Augusta National’, the prestigious golf club that’s home to the annual Masters event.
Martha Burk, Chairwoman (or should that be chairperson?) of the ‘National Council of Women’s Organizations’ is calling for investors to sell their stock in companies who hold memberships at Augusta!
I’ve no problem understanding what they’re asking, I do, however, have trouble understand quite why anybody would want to dump their shares over something as trivial as membership to a golf club! Is the club exploiting somebody, perhaps? Are they producing a dangerous product that’s being marketed as healthy? No, they’re doing nothing of the kind.
What they’re doing is simply insisting that their members have a place – a sanctuary some might say – where men can get away from women and just enjoy being men. What’s so wrong with that?
Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for equality and will be eternally grateful for the work the suffragettes did to improve the position of women. We’ve come a long way, honey, and we ain’t going back!
My point in the debate is that although men and women are of equal worth, we are not and never will be the same. And I’m not just talking about our roles in the procreation process, either!
Men cuss a lot. Not all of them, but a lot of them. Men also feel they need to act in a certain way when women a present: pull out chairs, hold doors open and generally be a gentleman. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
What’s wrong with men having a place where they can get together for a round of golf and relax in the knowledge that nobody is going to fuss if they drop the odd expletive or forget to allow somebody else to go through the door ahead of them? Don’t they have rights, too?
I wonder which WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS Martha Burk represents? How can there possibly be organizations specifically for women? I also wonder whether ‘The General Federation Of Women’s Clubs’, which is represented by Ms Burk’s organization, is open to male members? Or even any of the clubs that they again represent? If the Augusta National has decided that its membership is open to men only then so be it.
Please, let’s stop this puerile bickering and pack away the ill judged belief that we as women have a right to membership of any chosen club or organization. Let’s just accept that as equal as we are, men need their space and so, ladies, do we.
