By Ria Panneer
“Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.” In this quote, Winston Churchill expressed the challenge of a game that never definitely submits to the skill of the player; however secure one’s position might be, golf would find some weak spot and again prevail. Every day in corporate settings, women in leadership deal with gendered difficulties that are resistant to most solutions, just like those in golf. Even behind the sport itself is a profound history of sexism, which raises the question of whether or not golf should still be used as a major form of networking. Golf is the only sport used as a tool for career advancement in corporate settings, and yet its male-only past still precedes its name, evidenced by the popular acronym “gentlemen only, ladies forbidden.” How does the use of golf to network worsen barriers faced by women in corporate leadership roles?
Outside of the office, female golfers were not offered a spot on the green until they fought a long and difficult gender-based battle. The Masters, the first major professional golf tournament of the year, refused to admit women to their host club, Augusta National, until 2012. In 2002, with the National Council of Women’s Organizations, Martha Burk wrote a nine-sentence letter to Augusta National urging reevaluation of their male-only membership policies. The letter didn’t make headlines until chairman William “Hootie” Johnson caused a public relations nightmare, responding on the behalf of Augusta National, “We do not intend to become a trophy in their [NCWO’s] display case. There may well come a day when women will be invited to join our membership but that timetable will be ours, and not at the point of a bayonet… [Augusta] will not be bullied, threatened, or intimidated,” Johnson continued.
Augusta National and the Masters never fully recovered from the damage to their reputation that Hootie Johnson provoked. When the club finally extended membership to women in 2012, many remembered his sentiment that promising women entrance does not guarantee acceptance. Professional golf has its roots in male power, and the casual use of golf in the workplace to network upholds male power further. Having noted such resistance to change within the golfing community, as a method of networking the sport may be damaging to the mobility of women in corporate leadership.
The glass ceiling, a conceptual barrier prohibiting racial minorities and women from advancing professionally, is made up of several specific obstacles. One of these obstacles is the ostracism of women from informal networks through the sport of golf: namely, the grass ceiling. Exactly how women are excluded from informal networks created through golf is by way of the contemporary American model of gender equality. Under the modern system, women are expected to engage in a career equal in workload to that of a man’s while simultaneously maintaining traditional caretaking responsibilities. “The influx of women into the economy has not been accompanied by a cultural understanding of marriage and work that would make this transition smooth,” (Hochschild, 2012). Referring to the lion’s share of childcare that mothers take as the second shift, sociologist Arlie Hochschild noted that most working fathers have yet to spend more time caretaking. This time is instead dedicated to career-building, and indeed, most working men golf during the free time that most working women spend attending to familial responsibilities. When a network-building activity such as golfing takes place outside of work hours, women struggle more to participate. In tandem with stereotyping and biases against female golfers, it becomes almost impossible for women to reap the benefits of golfing in corporate settings that men have been able to.
As the green helps build careers, it is imperative that women are granted access to the networks that men form while playing golf. Shifting the narrative within golf to recognize the value of women’s participation would benefit executives of all genders, considering that women are now integral to the economy. Nevertheless, traditional caregiving roles will long remain an obstacle for women in positions of leadership, regardless of the avenue they choose to build their careers. But this can be mollified through the reallocation of time between working parents and cultural acceptance of corporate women in golf. Dismantling the grass ceiling may enable the corporate world to relieve female executives of power scarcities, in progress towards a future in business where influence is awarded equally.
Photo Credit: https://golfweek.usatoday.com/gallery/masters-2024-sunday-final-round-augusta-national-photo-gallery/
