The Good Old Boys and the Gender Thing

By Brigitte L. Nacos
When the New York Times reported the other day about a female golfer suing a public golf course on Cape Cod for gender discrimination, I was hardly surprised. What Elaine Joyce experienced as a member of the Dennis Pines course was deemed newsworthy only because she is a champion amateur golfer who is fully capable to compete with the guys—and playing from the men’s tees. Yet, she had to fight for playing with the guys on weekends and, more recently, was denied to compete in “men only” club tournaments. Yes, the Professional Golf Association (PGA) allowed Michelle Wie, an exceptional teenage golfer, to participate in several PGA tournaments—but that gimmick made for media hype and drew larger TV audiences. Out in the every day world of golf, there are plenty of the guys who insist on and get away with their gender privileges in terms of male only boards, men-first weekend tee times, men’s grills, etc. While once lily white golf clubs eventually opened up and extended men only privileges to male minority members, they continued to resist the same changes with respect to female golfers. 

When the chips are down, many white males are more inclined to welcome male minorities into their club rather than women. Just as they enfranchised African-American males many decades earlier than their female compatriots.

And this brings me to this year’s primary competition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. As the results in the Wisconsin primary showed, the trend of white males voting overwhelmingly for the African-American male candidate and not for the white female intensifies. It is hard to believe that most of these guys examined the positions, characters, and electibility of the two rivals carefully before casting their ballot based on such information. Carl Bernstein said on CNN last night, “we have all these exit polls, which are terrific, but voting is mystical. It's a mystical act and deep down, people are voting, and we don't know exactly what motivates them, but a lot of it has to do with their perceptions of character, and they have a feeling.”

I, too, believe that, wittingly or unwittingly, a whole range of conclusions and emotions enter into the act of voting—including deep-seated societal prejudices. I do not doubt that racial prejudices cost Senator Obama votes in the primary season and may hurt him more in the fall election if he is the nominee of his party.
But exit polls in Wisconsin and elsewhere have revealed what has entered increasingly into the voting decisions of white men at the expense of Senator Clinton: the old (and middle-aged and young) boys’ gender thing.

 

Comments

[Dormaphaea]

"...someone has to convince Hillary that she is sounding like a nag, accusing and finger-waving; if it's a strategy, she makes Barack look like a hen-pecked husband."

Wow. Way to prove Brigette's point.

[Tony]

Brigitte, someone has to convince Hillary that she is sounding like a nag, accusing and finger-waving; if it's a strategy, she makes Barack look like a hen-pecked husband. If it isn't strategy, that's even worse news. In the Youtube Age, she can't afford that behavior, she has to display a presidential demeanor. She should drag him into deeper water where she has the advantage of experience. Thank you as always for the opportunity to comment. Tony