Supreme Court says no women need apply to Golf Club. Mod warning post 119

It's like being on one big roundabout here, I'm getting dizzy.

This whole debate, as with many currently being conducted in this country, is all over the shop.
Yes people should be allowed hang out or associate with whoever they want; that's not the issue.
The issue is the states role; the state should not endorse discrimination through funding or through, say, the allocation of licensce to sell alcohol.
If Portmarnock Golf Club want to allow only men to be members then they should be made pay back any taxpayers money they have recieved and they should not be allocated a liquor license.
People are making comparisons with female only gyms: these are entirely private enterprises that, as far as I'm aware, are not entitled to sell alcohol.

I'm still a little unclear on the whole 'a gym is different to a socail club because it involves physical activity and women might be self-conscious'.

I bet if I were to set up a male on tennis club tomorrow I'd be hounded for being sexist yet it is a club that involves physical activity and some men may be self conscious and want exercise that doesn't involve a gym.

Would this situation be acceptable to you windsock??

WindSock wrote: »

This is also what I find interesting about the whole thing. It is very blurry.

As for the above regarding rugby..again, not like with like. Rugby is a team sport and a contact sport.
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Well - I think its important to realise the point about them not being 'like for like' only is valid, if the ways in which the two things are different matters to the argument at hand.

So, to look at the ways you raised to object to them being compared.

1) "Rugby is a team sport"
I don't really see how whether its a team sport is relevant? Golf is often played as a team sport too. Also, some team sports are mixed without any problems, and some are segregated.


2) "Rugby is a contact sport"

I attempted to deal with this in my first post here.

Maybe you are trying to say something like:
'Men are bigger than women, therefore they might be physically damaged by the bigger rugby playing men'. I tried to deal with the physical size disparity by saying that instead of being segregated by sex, clubs could be segregated by weight class instead, thus solving this problem. This might mean that the highest weight class is effectively men only - but thats a distinction that just happens by-the-way - its not enforced, and so its not sexist.

Equally you might say 'Well, because its a contact sport, women might feel uncomfortable with the male contact, because the men might take advantage of the situation'; again, I attempted to cover that in my first posting.

Perhaps there are other reasons, but I think we could quite happily have a world where rugby was not segregated by sex, as long as we took this sort of thing into account.
Given that theres not yet any good argument against the feasiblity of that, I see no reason why Golf should be special, and forced to be open to both sexes, but Rugby should not. If you can advance an argument as to why golf should be mixed but things like rugby, gyms etc single sex, I'd be interested to hear it.

If there isn't such an argument, then I think, for consistency, if you open Golf clubs to both sexes, then you have to look at other sports clubs too.

WindSock wrote: »

But the issue isn't about golf. It's about a Members Club at a Golf Club that allows women to play but not to join.

So, if I have this right, the position you take is that women must be allowed partake in the whole club, if they are allowed partake in some of its activities.
But, at the same time, you don't have a problem with the idea of segregated (sports) clubs in general.

But, this means you are back to the messy grey area you just said was 'very blurry' at the start of your post. You would have a situation where you allow segregated clubs, but if a certain threshold of activity is shared, then they must allow mixed membership. Do you think this position is consistent? Isnt it very grey and blurry, open to debate, and to exploitation?


So, moving away from sport - I mentioned womens book clubs in my original post. Given that men are allowed read, should men be allowed join such members clubs? Should men be allowed join all womens social clubs?

Or maybe book clubs should be allowed be segregated.
But, by your reasoning, what would happen if the book club started having a few social events, where both men and women were allowed? Would men then be allowed demand full membership?

What if there was a womens tennis club that occasionally allowed mixed doubles? What if it allowed mixed doubles every sunday? 3 times a week? At what point would it suddenly be forced to have mixed memership?

What if there was a womens social club, that allowed men at some of its events, but not all?

Doesn't this, which you seem to be advocating, get awfully grey?


I think there are two consistent reasonable positions here - one where private clubs are allowed choose whether they are segregated or not, and the extent to which they allow their non-preferred sex to join them - and another position which is that no club is allowed discriminate based on sex.

Anything else is very grey and blurry, and essentially asking the courts to decide how much of a segregated clubs activities have to be non segregated before it opens itself to a case demanding equal membership.

I don't see any other option - I think we either say 'private', 'never sexist' or 'case-by-case [verrry messy]'


Its a real can of worms, no matter which way you look at it!
What do other posters think?

WindSock wrote: »

It's not the same as single sex schools. It's more like a mixed school with a special privilaged class that is segregated by gender.

Since single sex schools are 'worse' in that you can't even go in for a day's education if you aren't of the correct gender, where as you can go in for a days golfing, how come you aren't rallying against the schools?

Lets take a step back, and be clear about this.

Firstly on the subject of abuse:
1) the only person who called you a “feminazi” was yourself
2)the only person warned for getting personal was arguing in defence of women
3)and you yourself were personally abusive to me

Naturally we can all get caught up in the heat of an emotive topic, but once you start lowering yourself to abusive comments or slights at another persons character, it’ll only act as an agent to dissolve/further inflame the discussion; it does nothing to strengthen your points. I’d ask you (as I feel you hold me responsible) who called you a derogatory name? Where? And why didn’t you report it? If it was me – I apologise.

While I may be wrong, (and I apologise again if I am) it strikes me though that the abuse is largely in your head, either that or the mods are against you which I’m inclined not to believe. It’s this incorrectly perceived persecution that feeds the concept that you are “playing the victim”. Have you considered that you may be mistaken? Perhaps, if your belief is contrary to everyone else, you could be in fact incorrect?

On the matter of sexism, it’s all good to challenge sexism where it exists, but in doing so, we have to allow ourselves to be challenged. This was a point I started out making in this thread, where I pressed you for proof to support your statements. This proof was not provided (you posted one report which was in relation to female employment and did not support your assertion that: “straight white middle class male in Ireland is the dominant class and culture”).
Often, where we see prejudice attitudes we demand evidence. We’ve seen this in threads about Roma gypsies, and travellers etc.. This is a good tool to challenge the poster to further examine their attitudes. It’s right that we do not accept sweeping, and unsubstantial comments as facts; it’s right that we seek proof. Because a man seeks proof of what appears to be a sweeping comment, does not equate to misogynistic abuse of women.

The reason I pressed you to back up your assertion is because I believe it’s incorrect. I believe it’s incorrect because, as we can see from our current economic conundrum, the middle classes aren’t the dominant class. I also don’t believe males are the dominant class, I’d argue that the dominance is held by families (ie: a male & female team). And I also don’t believe males forged the culture. Thankfully Irish culture has a very, very strong female influence – some people would argue that Irish culture is dominated by women. Let us not forget the infamous “Irish mother”, or on a more serious note, the Celtic matriarchal culture.

If attitudes and behaviours are unchallenged they can become accepted, that is very true. But it’s by this sword that you’ll find your attitudes challenged here. Is it not ok for all of us to challenge attitudes that we feel are biased against us? Or is this privilege only to be extended to what is popularly deemed as a “minority”?

Zulu wrote: »

Lets take a step back, and be clear about this.

Firstly on the subject of abuse:
1) the only person who called you a “feminazi” was yourself
2)the only person warned for getting personal was arguing in defence of women
3)and you yourself were personally abusive to me

This is all true

If anyone is still trying to argue against the court judgement, I'd quite like the point I made in my post addressed.

The bit where I say:

I don't see any other option - I think we either say 'private', 'never sexist' or 'case-by-case [verrry messy]'

I'm really not in favour of sexist institutions or anything here, just trying to see what the alternatives are, from a policy point of view; I think you either ban all discrimination by sex in private institutions, or let private institutions decide, or have the courts rule on everything by some fuzzy notion of degree.

I really don't see how you can justify schools segregated by sex (I mean, schools, ffs - not about whether someone gets to be a full member of some exclusive golf club, but about whether members of each sex get equal access to a good education!! how anyone can be upset about golf clubs, but not schools, is beyond me), and book clubs - but not golf clubs.

As to the argument that in the golf club women are allowed to do many of the activities, but not all - do we really want courts ruling on these things on a case by case basis? Isn't that very messy? Is that really the preferred solution?