Kathie Lingle's Work-Life Blog

Sexism Begins at Home – Mine, for Starters
PART ONE

July 21, 2008 — During all the debate about the influence of sexism on the national political scene, I was harboring a complacent notion that this is a distant malady, something nasty that afflicts other people in other places.

So imagine my shock when assaulted by a front page headline in the New York Times recently that reads, Nice Spot to Eat After Golf, but Women Are Barred. Alas, the establishment in question is not in a land far, far away. It is as close as the Phoenix Country Club, approximately 25 miles from my home. 

To make matters worse, some male denizens of said Club are engaging in the most obnoxious kind of frat house behavior – emailing nasty-grams, harassing players on the fairway, defacing lockers, even urinating on a club member’s pecan tree. WHAT?!! Dogs do that, don’t they, to mark their territory? So do occasional homeless people in Manhattan; I’ve witnessed this behavior with my own eyes.   

But we’re talking here about wealthy, powerful men, leaders of industry, conducting power lunches that clinch business deals we read about in the paper. All of this misogyny is directed at women who happen to be members of the same club, paying the same tens of thousands of dollars in annual fees, along with a few men who have dared to defend the forbidden rights of these women.  

The bone of contention is the Club’s policy that prohibits women from entering the men’s grill room, “a center of power dining in Phoenix.” So, after playing a round of golf with their husbands or sons, women are not allowed to eat lunch with them, but are exiled to a separate, smaller, far less well-appointed room with no bar, a hot plate and some card tables. A club spokesperson explains that a current remodeling project will create an upgraded but still separate grill room for women. Separate but equal would seem to be the intent. Haven’t we heard this philosophy somewhere before in American history?

What has provoked the recent spate of bad behavior is the temerity of a member to file a complaint with the civil rights division of the Arizona Attorney General’s office, arguing that the Club isn’t quite as privately self-sustaining as it claims, since it receives revenue from non-members via speeches, tournaments, Rotary Club and other civic group meetings. To make matters more interesting, the AG’s office has agreed with the member, issuing an advisory legal opinion that the Club needs to comply with Arizona antidiscrimination laws. So a few powerful and angry men are resorting to what in other contexts might be characterized as racist or even terrorist tactics, obviously concerned that their exclusionary, sexist way of life might be seriously threatened for the first time in over 100 years.

So, this is not the end of the story, with everyone living happily ever after. Private golf clubs across the country engage in this and even more stringent discriminatory practices against women, such as prohibiting women from membership altogether (Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia), limiting women’s access to the most desirable tee times, and exclusion from trophy ceremonies after tournaments.

Historically, they have also discriminated against blacks and Jews, which is yet one more factor that makes Tiger Woods such a riveting character. Some years ago, my father-in-law, an avid golfer, sponsored the first Jew for membership in one of the two Cincinnati country clubs he belonged to. He and I used to debate the pros and cons of changing the system from within (his preference), versus agitating for change as a conscientious objector (my stance) who refuses on principle to support any institution that engages in discriminatory practices.   

From a work-life perspective, I perceive an even darker side to this privately protected misogyny phenomenon. I’ll discuss my concern in Part Two of this entry.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of WorldatWork and its affiliate, Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP).