Augusta: Should women be members?

Where was Virginia Rometty’s green jacket? asked Jason Gay in The Wall Street Journal. By all rights, the new CEO of IBM deserves to be awarded the legendary blazer that signifies membership in the Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the prestigious Masters Tournament. Rometty, who was at the 18th green to see Bubba Watson win the Masters last weekend, is a golfer, a die-hard fan, and the chief executive “atop one of the world’s most prominent companies,” which happens to be a major sponsor of the event. The last four heads of IBM have been offered memberships at Augusta, where they mingle with the likes of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and the CEOs of ExxonMobil, AT&T, and GE. Rometty was denied a green jacket for one reason: She’s a woman, and for all of its 80 years, Augusta National has been an all-male club—a tradition now “woefully out of date.”

Does every group and club need to include both sexes to be legitimate? said John Hawkins in HuffingtonPost.com. “Do women need to take a guy on ‘girls night out’?” Augusta is a private club, and it has every legal right to set its own membership policy. “You want to tell Augusta whom it must accept as a member?” asked Sally Jenkins in The Washington Post. Then try telling the same thing to the YWCA, the sisters of Chi Omega sorority, and the African-American fraternities. Women can play golf at Augusta and eat lunch there. They simply aren’t invited to pay thousands of dollars in membership fees. “It’s silly to call that a profound hardship or a social ill.”

No, but it is a blown opportunity, said Tom Watson in Forbes.com. Admitting Rometty to the “Clan of the Green Jacket” would be symbolic, signaling an end to the “institutional sexism” that has kept women from the old boys’ club of power and wealth. Sooner or later, Augusta will have no choice but to drop its “no-estrogen” policy, said Rebecca Dana in TheDailyBeast.com. The club stalled in admitting Jews and continued to exclude blacks until 1990, when it became too costly to its image to continue such bigotry. In recent years, HP, Xerox, Pepsi, and now IBM have installed female CEOs in the corner office. If Augusta wants to maintain its status as a center of influence, it will start tailoring its green jackets to fit the female form.

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