Feminism Could Make Itself Irrelevant
Filed under: General News — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on July 3, 2008 @ 3:59 pm CEST
If the ‘elitist feminists’ at the New York Times continue to draw attention to irrelevant, useless, and uncontroversial issues, they’ll quickly make themselves and the entire movement they say they represent irrelevant. In this particular case, the NYT decided that a golf club who separates its members based on gender - both men and women have their own grills with televisions, and so on. The complaint? The men’s grill has a television and bar, the one for women does not.
According to the NYT, such a blatant example of sexism (sarcasm) deserves frontpage coverage.
The Phoenix Country Club has male and female members and a common dining room. But like many clubs, it has separate men’s and women’s grill rooms—an innocuous arrangement to which members agree by joining the club. The Times points out darkly: “Women at the club are not permitted to have lunch in the men’s grill room with their husbands after a round of golf.”
As the author of the article points out:
It could as justly have observed that after the same round of golf, men at the club aren’t allowed to lunch with their wives in the women’s grill room.
This is a private golf club. No one forces someone else to join it. Women are allowed to join it, but women and men have different grills. Having a television in your grill is not, I repeat it is not, a right. Seriously. Read the law; read law books, read the US Constitution, bill of rights; I promise, a right that says “everyone should have a television and the same one at that, even in private clubs” is no where to be found.
The Rosa Parks role in this break-down-the-barriers battle is played by the Van Sitterts, a couple who, two years ago, wanted to eat eggs together in the men’s grill room rather than in the club’s formal dining room. Having failed to persuade the board to change its policies—presumably because most members are happy with the single-sex socializing options—they did what any self-respecting aspirant to victimhood does today: they went whining to the government. Instead of resigning their membership and joining another club, they petitioned Arizona’s attorney general to intervene. The AG was only too happy to comply, brushing aside the legal nicety that private clubs are in theory not subject to antidiscrimination laws and ruling that the club was violating those laws, since (pending renovation) the women’s grill room has neither a television nor its own bar.
This case isn’t merely legally stupid, it’s morally retarded as well. You can eat together in the formal dining room. But no, the couple wants to eat together in the men’s grill room. Like pesky little children who were spoiled from the very moment they were born.
Is it a serious subject? Of course not. It’s silly. I was making fun of myself while writing this post.
And that’s exactly the point. Considering the sheer stupidity of the subject, one wonders what the hell happened to the New York Times and to ‘elitist feminists.’ Have they lost any sense they ever had?
1 Chuck Norton
July 3, 2008 @ 4:51 pm CESTRadical feminists on campus marginalize themselves as well. I am glad that the Claire Booth Luce Institute is trying to wake them up. There is such a thing as responsible feminism, but its is not taught in the schools.
2 Claudia, Assistant Editor
July 3, 2008 @ 4:52 pm CESTFirst I’d like to get out of the way my agreement about the superficiality of the issue. It irritates me to no end how such minor affairs get such unbelievable attention. The fact that women still make less than men for the same amount of work DOES merit attention, LOTS of it, but because real sexism is a large, uncomfortable issue, and because it’s so much harder to solve, media concentrates on the stupid tiny little issues, where points can be scored. Yay, the womans grill has a TV! Sexism is over! Argghh.
I do have a question though for those who know about legal matters. Michael you mention the Constitution in saying that a private club has every right to separate womens and mens facilities and even to give lesser ones to the women, just so long as they are private. Does the law similarly protect a private club that would separate blacks and whites, giving blacks (or for that matter, whites) lesser facilities? What about exclusion? Can a private club exclude women? Can it do the same for people of other races? I know there are boys only and girls only schools, and that they can’t be prosecuted, but would the same hold true for white-only schools? I suspect not, and I find it rather hypocritical (and yes I’m aware that boys and girls are different, but I assure you that kids growing up in an all white neighbourhood and kids in an all black neighbourhood can be plenty different as well).
3 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
July 3, 2008 @ 5:08 pm CESTYes.
All whites; I believe you had a little fight about that in America some decades ago
4 A. A. B.
July 3, 2008 @ 6:47 pm CESTI’m sorry, but segregation based on sex is just as disgusting to me as segregation based on skin coulour. I don’tthink such a thing should be tolerated at all.
5 Chuck Norton
July 3, 2008 @ 7:22 pm CESTAAB - So lets have 1000 40 year old men join the Brownies and the Girl Scouts and what the heck lets throw some "former" child sex offenders in there because after all we wouldn’t want to discriminate would we?. Another example where the left has no regard for freedom of association guaranteed by the First Amendment. So all do you see the pattern I mentioned earlier? Public schools are a government program effected by government laws, equal justice under the law means no racial discrimination and is how it should be. All boys schools and all girl schools give a superior education. Single sex schools are an example of rational discrimination that most rational people don’t have a problem with. So either the far left cannot see the difference between rational and irrational discrimination, or the discrimination card is just a tool to be used when convenient for them. I oppose racial discrimination and I am also opposed to a government that can tell private groups and citizens who they may or may not associate with. A government who can do that is in no way a limited one, but unlimited government is the goal of the far left anyways, so I am not surprised.
6 Claudia, Assistant Editor
July 3, 2008 @ 10:01 pm CESTChuck, if you are opposed to government telling you who you can and can’t associate with, then do you oppose rules that prohibit exclusion based on race? How about religion? Nationality? What would you think about a golf club that allowed blacks in, but gave them lesser facilities? Should the government intervene?
Quite frankly, I see a lot of picking and choosing by EVERYONE on this issue. Certainly it makes sense to have separate sex bathrooms, but I really can’t see the difference between separating men and women and giving one gender lesser treatment, and doing the same to different races, or different religions or nationalities.
7 Chuck Norton
July 3, 2008 @ 10:32 pm CESTIf the golf club takes public money than they cant discriminate based on race. Golf has nothing to do with expressing political, social, cultural or religious ideas so there is less of a First Amendment issue at steak. The black congressional caucus keeps out blacks who are republicans. The black panthers keeps out whites. Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam keeps out conservative white Christians and Jews. Could you please show me the post you have made condemning the Black Congressional Caucus? Maybe you should start critiquing the Democratic Party for not letting people from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University faculty from attending party strategy sessions, I know, it must be that Democrats are bigots against Southern Baptists. Claudia, if you are one of those leftists who cannot discern the difference between irrational and rational discriminating thinking then no explanation I give you will to be good enough for you to grasp it. If you cant see the difference between blatant racism and expressive association than with all due respect, the person with the problem is you, not me. Do you have any idea how many families who send their students to all boys schools, or all girl schools resent people like you who try to enforce your social standards by the force of an unlimited government? In the case of this golf club, if its truly private, the women who have joined it must be happy with it, or they would not spend the money to join the private club. Here is an idea, how about you sue the Ladies Pro Golf Tour for not letting in male golfers, but wait you haven’t critiqued them (speaking of being selective). In fact lets boycott the Olympics because they separate mens and womens sports! By the way, I have noticed that you have not answered any of my examples of how the left has tried to use the "discrimination" card in an attempt to silence or destroy anyone who would dare disagree with them. Care to answer or is it easier just to keep pretending like those countless examples don’t exist? You are not going to like this Claudia but the First Amendment exists to protect citizens from those who think much like too many of your friends on the left do. Just ask the Boy Scouts.
8 Claudia, Assistant Editor
July 4, 2008 @ 12:47 am CESTConner, I’d really appreciate it if you did not assume you knew my political or social positions on these matters. I know how hard it is for you not to group anyone who disagrees with you in anything other than that big nasty "left" but it’s really starting to grate on my nerves.
I have NO obligation to answer to each and every example you find acceptable or unacceptable because I have neither endorsed or denounced these examples. I haven’t even said that there’s anything particularly wrong with sex segregation (or even race segregation) if you’ve noticed, which I rather doubt. I’ve remained neutral on my position (though I most certainly have opinions on the matter). What I HAVE said is that in my opinion there is rank hypocrisy in the outrage about some kinds of segregation and exclusion and the indifference to others. Double standards are nothing new (you should have seen the look on my high school teachers face when I asked him if us white kids could have a "white club" like the blacks, Latinos and Asians had their clubs) and I don’t happen to like them. Even if I generally recognize the rights for private citizens to make those decisions on their own, I don’t like the fact that the government endorses some forms of discrimination and represses others.
Oh and by the way Conner, I highly suggest that you stop making the assumption that when someone holds a different opinion than you, that means they "don’t get it" or are stupid. Sometimes there’s actually more than one valid opinion. Hell, people with different valid opinions can even play golf together!
9 Chuck Norton
July 4, 2008 @ 1:17 am CESTHi Claudia, my name is Chuck, not Conner. I asked you some tough questions and instead of dealing with them as an intellectual challenged on a policy position, you have chosen to lash out at me. I have done you the courtesy of answering your specific examples, yet when challenged to answer mine you lash out. Also I never said that when someone holds a different position than me that it means that they don’t get it or are stupid. My previous statement is clear as I stated that IF you hold such thinking, as I gave specific reference to, you will not be able to understand me. So again, is it not more responsible to answer the exact question or statement I have posed in context rather than taking a message I never stated, or intended to say and attributing it to me? Your emotional and accusatory response, combined with your unwillingness to answer rudimentary questions about your previous policy positions, as you have articulated them, indicates that the nuances of your policy position are not morally, intellectually or legally defensible. Claudia it’s nothing personal, and there is no shame in losing a policy debate. It is how people learn and grow assuming that they are willing to challenge their own assumptions. I hope that you try to keep an open mind and always remember that displaying such unwarranted hostility does not aid your policy position or further it intellectually. All the best, Chuck.
10 Chris
July 4, 2008 @ 7:25 pm CESTOn a different take about the NYT piece, as citizen of Arizona my gut reaction was:
Here we go again another suggestion from back East that those folks in flyover land just aren’t as enlightened as we are.
I know of the Phx Country Club, even have a friend who’s a member (I don’t golf) Personally, I think the separation is stupid. I never got the "Man cave" mentality. But having said that this piece is just so…..
11 Interested
July 5, 2008 @ 2:17 am CESTI’m not Chuck, but personally I’m fine with that. It’s not public money and it is their right to provide services to whomever they choose. And it is equally my right as a consumer to either support or not support that establishment.