{"id":796,"date":"2017-09-19T10:38:34","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T14:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/?p=796"},"modified":"2017-09-19T11:21:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-19T15:21:30","slug":"golfing-with-the-ladies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/2017\/09\/19\/golfing-with-the-ladies\/","title":{"rendered":"Golfing with the Ladies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
As shown on these scorecards, women are continually reminded that they are “ladies” in the sport of golf. (Photo by Jane Stangl)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I am golfer, and people often ask, \u201csince when?,\u201d or \u201cfor how long?\u201d I can\u2019t answer that accurately, and my response is generally, \u201csince my aunt took me out on early summer mornings when I was a youngster.\u201d Seven years old? Maybe nine or ten\u2014I\u2019m not sure. But I do recall my Red Ball Jets being thoroughly saturated by the morning dew. My aunt loved to play, and I loved it too. The etiquette, she reminded me often, was what really mattered. Little did I realize back then just how much that etiquette, especially as it relates to being a \u201clady,\u201d would speak to my place in the larger world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On the cover of Sara Ahmed\u2019s new book, Living a Feminist Life<\/a><\/em> (2017), bell hooks is quoted as stating, \u201c[e]veryone should read this\u2026.\u201d And while this piece is not a book review, nor an epistle on the merits of feminism, Ahmed\u2019s work offers us additional insight to what lies at the core of gender and the game of golf.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll get back to Ahmed\u2019s work shortly, but in the interim you\u2014the reader\u2014will have to engage a passion of a game I hope to play for a lifetime. Golf, a symbol of elitism and arguably one of the culture\u2019s most racist, sexist and classist of sports still garners wide-spread social appeal<\/a>. A major sport in terms of socioeconomic impact, the classical sociological thinker Thorstein Veblen would likely find it a fitting example of his notion of \u201cconspicuous consumption\u201d\u2014the idea that (golf as a form of) leisure marks one\u2019s social status. As a critic of capitalism, Veblen would likely ally this leisurely practice with the notion of waste.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Margaret Abbott, one of golf’s first “ladies.” (Photo from Wikipedia<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Still, in golf\u2019s wasteland lie a trove of stories as the history of the game supports a rich body of literature. Yet when reading deeply through that history, the stories yield little on women in comparison to men. As a woman who has played since childhood when my sexed body mattered less, I have ensconced myself into its field of play, and it is from that vantage point that I want to describe, rather re-describe its everydayness\u2014from the greeting at the pro shop, to the labeling on the card, to playing the \u201cforward\u201d tees. Golf, in all of its pretense and associated vogue, could use some diversity training, and a retreat through a feminist lens might help.<\/p>\n

Here, I would like to draw attention to the gendered assumptions, the judgments embedded in the games\u2019 social constitution. Out of this vocabulary is the game\u2019s need for the \u201cladies.\u201d The more culturally sensitive or perhaps astute (read: classed) venues, may offer the equivalent \u201cgentlemen\u201d and perhaps \u201cseniors\u201d or \u201cjuniors\u201d, but more often than not, the golfing literature and venues writ large prefer the designation of women as \u201cladies.\u201d So embedded in the rhetoric of golf is the term that it constitutes nothing less than institutionalized sexism. \u201cLadies\u201d who golf are simply not\u2014nor arguably are they intended to be\u2014the social equivalent of the men who play.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately upon entering a golfing venue\u2014we, Simone de Beauvoir\u2019s \u201csecond sex\u201d<\/a>\u2014are identified accordingly with the greeting, \u201cGood morning, ladies!\u201d The scorecard\u2014a necessary accouterment to play, bills a woman\u2019s standing in similar ways. Generally, men are assumed to play the white tees and \u201cladies\u201d the red tees. To rationalize the seeming respect shown to women who play golf by affirming their \u201clady-ness,\u201d is to cater to the point. An interpreted overly sensitive (a.k.a., feminist) response to this disruption expresses the problem of labels. Pointing to such labels is to call consciousness to the game\u2019s unreflexive expectations and outcomes. Even when peers upon approaching the green suggest in golf\u2019s most affirming hopes, just a \u201cchip and a putt, ladies,\u201d my gut moves to unrest.<\/p>\n

The media\u2019s commentary on golf is no less absent the vernacular. Consider a recent NBC commentary at Kingsbarns Golf Links of Scotland, host to the 2017 Ricoh Women\u2019s (thank you) British Open. On discussing the old links style of course, the female commentator described it as a \u201cmodern links\u201d while the male commentator added that, \u201cthe guy who designed the course the ladies<\/em> played \u2026 the men<\/em> played \u2026 last week \u2026.\u201d [sic.] Emphasis mine.<\/p>\n

It is here that Ahmad\u2019s work aptly applies to golf\u2019s everydayness. \u201cThrough feminism,\u201d she writes, \u201cyou make sense of wrongs; you realize that you are not in the wrong. But when you speak of something as being wrong, you end up being in the wrong all over again. The sensation of being wronged can thus end up magnified: you feel wronged by being perceived as in the wrong just for pointing out something is wrong. It\u2019s frustrating\u201d (p. 38).<\/p>\n

Golf can be frustrating enough without the every-hole-reminder of my lady-ness\u2014the unreflective point that I am not quite enough for this game, that I don\u2019t fully belong to the club. To this end, I am happy to accept Ahmad\u2019s notion that I am\u2014by virtue of this simple narrative\u2014a feminist killjoy. I have leapt into the socially unconscious golfer\u2019s mind and stepped on their buzz. I am fully aware that it is preferred of those speaking on oppressions (as seemingly minor as this) that we ignore such matters (and they will go away). While those more privileged and uninterested in hearing the label\u2014benefit by taking no notice. But in an effort to understand such underlying meanings, paying attention matters.<\/p>\n

In spite of my vantage point, I find the game pleasurable, pleasing, enjoyable, delightful really. My pleasure. The term pleasure itself appeals to the \u201cladies\u201d as by definition such women are cast to please, to give pleasure, to be approved (of). But it is the natural elements of the humanly constituted landscape offering pastoral images that I prefer\u2014the shadows, sunsets, dew, wildlife, water. The sounds. And nowhere as a woman can I find acres of space\u2014often to myself\u2014as I might on a golf course. In the game and its settings, I find a turn toward beauty.<\/p>\n

Still, when its sexist, racist and pretentious inklings enter its environs, my pleasure retreats. My joy has been killed. Call me overly sensitive, call me wrong\u2014but please don\u2019t call me a \u201clady.\u201d It\u2019s endless really. Just look and listen carefully, that\u2019s all it takes, and then maybe another other can help make it go away. Or just maybe, we could wo-\u201cman up\u201d and take it even one step further.<\/p>\n

Jane Stangl<\/a>, Ph.D. is a sociologist of sport and currently serves as the dean of the first year class at Smith College in Northampton, MA. She is an avid golfer and a professional instructor of the game working with JBC Golf, Inc. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am golfer, and people often ask, \u201csince when?,\u201d or \u201cfor how long?\u201d I can\u2019t answer that accurately, and my response is generally, \u201csince my aunt took me out on early summer mornings when I was a youngster.\u201d Seven years old? Maybe nine or ten\u2014I\u2019m not sure. But I do recall my Red Ball Jets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2075,"featured_media":797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Golfing with the \"ladies\": The sexism embeddeded into golf's \"etiquette\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[245,547,1528,103107],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-feminism","tag-golf","tag-sexism","tag-womens-golf"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/files\/2017\/09\/golf.jpg?fit=3264%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8iFlL-cQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2075"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":800,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/engagingsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}