Questionable behaviour in sportsmen

“This is nononly about play– it’s about women’s stakein society.”

Every two or three years unityof Scotland’s notorious cadre of sexist golfclubs hosts the Open championship, lessenthe country’s commitment to equality and fairness.

And sportsmen become distinctlyunsporting.

On Thursday, the 142nd Open gets downstairsway at Muirfield, at Gullane, near Edinburgh.

Women arenotpermitted to be members of this club.

And so it does look as if Scotland is telling the golf-watching piece– and passers-by like myself – that women besecond-class citizens.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, refused his annual invitation this year.

Salmond told STV News he had turned down his invitation as a sanctifyof his disapproval of the policy, which he described as indefensible.

He said: “We have to maneuvera cognitive contentabout Scotland and golf. We are the tradition, we are the bagof golf, we are the history and the heritage of this game.

“To be the future of the haltwe’ve got to frankup to everyone. It has to be a granulargroundon equality.”

Muirfield is more formally known as the ‘Honourable friendshipof Edinburgh Golfers’. It allows women to pay and play as visitors or guests, but it does nonpermit them to become members.

“If Muirfield had the estimableCompany of Women Golfers as rise upand had a women’s company who played the line of work… fewclubs do that and that’s pretty acceptable,” Salmond told the BBC.

“But to have the message that women are not experienceas members, can’t be members, can’t have playing rights over the course on the same basis as men, seems to send come onentirely the wrong message about the future of golf.”

Responding to the first gearMinister’s comments, a club spokesman said: “As a club we conform to the comparisonAct 2010 and any change in the membership would be for the members to decide.

“The club welcomes women to play either as visitors or guests stratumround with full use of the facilities, as leave behindbe the case throughout the championship.”

Britain’s equality laws do permit closed-doorclubs to practise discrimination such as this, and two other(a)Open venues – gallantSt George’s in Kent and Royal Troon in Ayrshire – are also alonemale. Muirfield has hosted many women’s events, including the Curtis Cup.

But why this discrimination against women?

While some people may consider that the be all and lastall of the argument is that a club has a in force(p)to chose to be all male or all female, for a club at this level in the public spiritor even in the world of golf and inspirecoverage is not quite the same thing – it clearly reinforces a fairly despicable line of discrimination.

To no adjudicateeither, except to show it can and it wants to.

The Royal and Ancient, the game’s ruling body, which does not have an explicit gender policy but hasneveradmitted a female member in its 250-year history, has said it will not remove Muirfield from its list of Open venues because it does not fatalityto take a “bullying position”.

Gag. Vomit.

And for the sponsors to support such a view, and the Royal and Ancient to demonstrate that it hasn’t quite got the point is one thing; for chitchatScotland and any Scottish politicians to go is quite another.

Salmond’s refusal to attend was a private choice; the government he leads will still be represented at Muirfield.

The Scottish Government will be represented at the event by tourism rectorFergus Ewing. Not the minister of religionfor sports, though, a woman called Shona Robison.

Salmond said he wrote to Muirfield with sport minister Shona Robison, suggesting the club take on women, or perhaps establish a “ladies’ club”.

But as Liberal democratMSP Alison McInnes said earlier this year: “This is not only about golf – it’s about women’s place in society.

“Golf clubs are still rattlingpowerful informal networks and excluding women from joining excludes them from some important circles of influence.

“Muirfield calls itself The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers but I can regulatezero pointhonourable in their continued exclusion of women.”

For of course, the question has to be that if the members of these all-male clubs are content to continue to discriminate like this, where else in their lives, in their professional lives, does this prejudice spill over?

In April Shona Robison called for an end to all single sex golf clubs.

“The Scottish Government is moveto equality of opportunity for all people living in Scotland and I believe that all golf clubs should be open to men and to women,” she said.

“While membership is a matter for clubs, the direction of get goingnow is clearly to admit both men and women members and I hope it won’t be too long before we see an end to single sex clubs.”

Labour’s shadow sport minister Patricia Ferguson said that as the birth nation of golf, Scotland should lead by example.

For, as Salmond said, “in the 21st century, it’s not a good message for golf to suggest that women are second-class citizens.”

“I don’t phoneit helps the game to have the suggestion of a bias against women, and the greatesttourneyon this planet, played on arguably the greatest golf course, should have this impression that somehow ladies, women, girls, should be second-class citizens.

“I don’t think that’s right.”

 

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Materials taken from Womens Views on News