Two recent decisions, by men, have come down hard on women who want to be involved in sports. In Iran, the supreme leader of the country has vetoed a ruling by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that would have allowed women to attend major sporting events. Things are not that much rosier in the more women-friendly United States, where the incoming chairman of Augusta National, the home of the Masters, has dismissed the possibility of women becoming members in the near future. Augusta National has repeatedly resisted demands for female members under the chairmanship of Hootie Johnson, who steps down on May 21. Membership matters are decided by club members and we have no timetable to discuss that issue, said the new kid in town, Billy Payne. Payne’s adamancy about no women members seems as rock hard as Johnson’s and reminds us of the build-up to the 2003 Masters which was completely overshadowed by a row between Johnson and Martha Burk, the head of the National Council for Women s Organizations. Johnson s open letter to Burk, which Augusta National would one day admit a woman, but not “at the point of a bayonet, vaulted the story from the sports section to the front pages. In the months following, Johnson went mostly silent while Burk appeared on television networks. Some big names at the time sided with Burk. Former CBS chief executive Thomas Wyman resigned from the club where he had been a member for 25 years, the first time a member of the club had quit over the issue. One of the first things U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow did when he took office was not to explain how he would energize the moribund U.S. economy but to resign his membership from Augusta. Tiger Woods, the world s number one golfer, was forced to get involved after The New York Times suggested that he should boycott the Masters that year if the women s issue was not resolved.Woods did not boycott that year or since. It would have been silly had he done so. Woods is indeed a walking advertisement for diversity; he s part African-American, American-Indian, Thai, Chinese and Caucasian. But he s not part woman. So the notion is ridiculous that Woods should somehow stand as a women s rights ambassador. The controversy divided America. An Associated Press poll found Americans evenly split on the issue, with 46 percent saying the club had a right to have an all-male membership and the same percentage saying a club holding such a prestigious tournament should have female members.The club did and continues to have a strong case. It does have a constitutional right to associate with whomever it pleases. It is a single-gender club which makes it in good company with sororities and fraternities, Junior League, with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and private high schools and universities. It could be argued that Augusta is not a sorority or a fraternity but a very national, public organization. The Masters tournament is an important part of America, a great sporting event, golf s most prestigious tournament and the year s first Major, and is viewed by 150 million people around the world. It is as much public as it is private. The issue is nonetheless moot. Augusta will probably not admit a female member in our lifetime. It took the club 56 years to finally admit a black member. When taking decisions, the club s 300 men obviously take their sweet time. That their average age is 70 means a decision might never be taken. Back in Iran, after President Ahmadinejad said last month that women must be given a chance to watch all sporting events – Iranian women were last seen in football stadiums in 1979 in the wake of the revolution – several ayatollahs and MPs now say their women could be heard but not seen. They claim Ahmadinejad s move violates Islamic law for a woman to look at the body of a male stranger. Apparently agreeing, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, now says Ahmadinejad’s ruling should be reconsidered.Of course, Ahmadinejad will bow to the wishes of Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters Iranian. That’s unfortunate for women s rights campaigners who have long protested against their banishment from the arenas.Like in Augusta, the argument is academic. Iranian women, like their U.S. counterparts, have lost. Not everybody is critical of the decisions. Some say the debates have perhaps gone over the top. A common denominator of the Augusta and Iranian issues is the question of whether they are really that important. Is access to an exclusive golf club or soccer stadium more important to women than access to a first-rate education or a job? Gender discrimination can be just as insidious as discrimination based on race or religion but in these overwrought dramas it is hard to feel outraged. Perhaps that’s because we live at a time where truly important issues should dominate our lives. Watching football up close and wanting to be a member of a club just seem a bit trivial at this moment of Iraq, Hamas, nuclear ambitions, unemployment, corruption, bird flu, terrorism . You name it. For all the valid points both sides have made throughout the debates, the one thing neither has done is state convincingly why people should feel strongly one way or the other when other issues look so much bigger and more serious.
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