Augusta National, Women, and Social Norms

NOTE: Augusta admitted its first female members, Darla Moore and Condoleeza Rice, in August 2012.  Virginia Rometty was not invited to join.

A pretty big golf tournament kicked off this morning in Augusta, Georgia, at the course Bobby Jones built.  This is one of the most prestigious major tournaments for professional players at perhaps the single most exclusive private golf club in the world. The club has no membership application process, and the only way to join is by invitation.  Until 1990, Augusta had never invited a black person, and did so then only after the three organizations that govern professional golf said it would no longer permit clubs which discriminate to host tournaments.  This was a pretty big deal, and the bid deal today is that the club still has no female members.

This could change very soon.  This very tradition-oriented club has one that will force a decision on admitting women: it has always offered membership to the incumbent CEO of International Business Machines.  IBM recently promoted a woman, Virginia Rometty, to that position.  Augusta will now have to admit a female member or break this long-standing tradition, exposing the club as worried at least as much about the gender of its members as their positions in the corporate world or place in society. Continue reading →

Since a hacker destroyed the old version of the site, I’ve been putting together a new version.  I plan to import as much content as I can from the old and hope to reconstruct something that will hold readers’ interest.  Expect a few posts over the holidays and an attempt to begin posting regularly on 1 January 2014.