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Enjoy the logical argle bargle here!

Muirfield golf club has lost the right to host the prestigious Open championship after taking the stunningly regressive step of voting against reversing its ban on female members. In fairness, Muirfield members seem to have some very real concerns – a letter circulated by those campaigning against the change revealed the terrifying prospect that “lady members” may pose a threat to such noble traditions as “our foursomes play, our match system … our lunch arrangements”. Quelle horreur.

The news has prompted intense debate about male-only spaces and whether or not they should still be allowed, with one major argument cropping up again and again in most of the discussions I have heard. “Why shouldn’t men be allowed their own space, when women have women-only gym and swimming sessions? Isn’t that sexist?”

The answer is that these two things are not the same. In fact, they couldn’t be more different.

Discrimination on the grounds of sex is different dependent upon who is doing the discriminating.

Apparently.

52 thoughts on “Enjoy the logical argle bargle here!”

  1. I’m trying to think of an elegant way to put this… no, “Fuck off you stupid fascist cunt” will have to do.

  2. There’s a scene in the current series of ‘Penny Dreadful’ where two women watch suffragettes being arrested, and one asks the other if equality is what she wants. She (played by the ex-Mrs Chris Evans) replies: ‘No. Mastery’.

    But she’s a terrifying reanimated corpse full of bloodlust.

    Quite different. I’m sure.

  3. So Much For Subtlety

    There is absolutely no case against male-only spaces if that is what the men involved want.

    We should all offer this golf club all the support we can. If they can boycott, we need to counter-boycott. Send them some cash.

  4. I rather stupidly read the rest of the article.

    Although, as she introduced the term “non binary” into the article, it does throw up an interesting solution – the girls could always identify as men…

    SMFS – “Send them some cash”

    Muirfiled? I don’t somehow think they need it! Joining fee: £100K.

  5. Bloke in North Dorset

    I can just about get the argument about female swimming sessions and gyms, but what about those women only golf clubs?

  6. “Muirfield golf club has lost the right…..”

    The “right”? Don’t be so stupid.

  7. So Much For Subtlety

    Bloke in North Dorset – “I can just about get the argument about female swimming sessions and gyms, but what about those women only golf clubs?”

    Part of this idiot’s article is a fantasy of what gets talked about in men’s only golf clubs. As if they are all fixing Oscars Night and keeping the metric system down.

    But imagine what is talked about in the bar of women only golf clubs? It would all be about comfortable shoes and k. d. lang. When I die, if I have been sufficiently bad to go to hell, it will be something like the 19th hole in a lesbian golf club.

  8. So Much For Subtlety

    Speaking of the Guardian and a lack of logic, they are thinking about the reasons why Scarlet fever (which is not, as I feared, an unhealthy appreciation of Ms Johansson) and TB are making a come back:

    http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/23/fever-pitch-why-old-fashioned-infections-are-making-comeback

    I did the Steve Sailor test and ctrl-f’ed it for the string “immi”. Not a single mention.

    It is just a mystery how these diseases are making a come back.

  9. Worth a pendant note that, while Laura Bates is talking about UK gyms, her allegations of “perceived harrassment” come from all over the world.

    Usual anecdata, plus the lady is making fake comparisons.

  10. I have this idea that the feminist obsession with what men do when they form men only organisations relates back to their desire to gets the attention of their (probably absent) father – its just desperate attention seeking. After all why should a woman care what men get up to in the privacy of the golf club, or the London club, and have a massive desire to join them? After all feminists constantly berate men for their attitudes and behaviour, not least the sort of men who belong to male only clubs, surely the last thing a woman wants would be the company of such boors?

  11. I just don’t see the problem. A group of blokes get together, form a golf club and don’t want to let women in as members. If a group of women did a similar thing, there’s no problem there either.

    The governing body of golf can say to both “look, we have a responsibility to spread the game of golf far and wide and so can’t use your venue for our tournaments”

    End of story.

    Everything else said on the matter is a waste of time.

  12. @SMFS – that is the scariest vision of hell I have yet encountered. You should be writing horror.

  13. So Much For Subtlety

    Jack C – “Immi? What were you hoping to find?”

    Immi is the stage name of a Japanese singer Mayu Nakazawa. She spreads these diseases everywhere she goes. She is the typhoid mary of our times.

    That was a serious question was it?

    Matt Wardman – “Worth a pendant note that, while Laura Bates is talking about UK gyms, her allegations of “perceived harrassment” come from all over the world.”

    In three years the Everyday Sexism Project has received a whopping 984 testimonies from women writing about their experiences of sexism, harassment and assault at the gym; 541 related to swimming pools.

    So that is about one a day. As complaints go, that is not exactly a hot line. In fact that is roughly f**k all. If they came from all over the world, even less so. It is about what I would expect for complaints of alien abduction.

  14. “In three years the Everyday Sexism Project has received a whopping 984 testimonies from women writing about their experiences of sexism, harassment and assault at the gym; 541 related to swimming pools.”

    One wonders how many involve that Japanese singer………………

  15. @Jim

    I think the idea is that once the women have gained access to the previously men-only clubs they can then start the process of controlling the behaviour and speech of the men with a view to eradicating the toxic miasma of masculinity that presumably occurs in such places.

    Put differently, they just want to get access so they can stop men feeling comfortable enough to enjoy themselves.

    Probably.

  16. It’s similar to the SJW ploy to control what and how we think by using ever-more convoluted PC language. Control what people can say and you’ll (perhaps) start to control how they think.

    This Mirfield nonsense is an example of trying to get the same result, but this time by controlling what a group of people choose to do / how they want to do it.

  17. So Much For Subtlety

    Lockers – “This Mirfield nonsense is an example of trying to get the same result, but this time by controlling what a group of people choose to do / how they want to do it.”

    More to the point, civil society must be pummeled flat. No corner of society can be free from the Right Thinkful. No one has any standing against the power of the State.

    It is inherently totalitarian. We only think we won the Cold War. The Soviet Union is gone but it won our hearts and minds.

  18. Why someone would pay £100k to join Muirfield when there are abundant superb links courses either side of the Firth is a mystery.

  19. So Much For Subtlety

    Rob – “Why someone would pay £100k to join Muirfield when there are abundant superb links courses either side of the Firth is a mystery.”

    On the plus side they would not have to listen to the complaints of the sort of women who write for the Guardian.

    Seems a bargain to me.

  20. From the comments:

    “Is it that much of a “punishment to men” that women only gyms exist? Does this actually affect you at all?

    This isn’t about punishing all men, its about protecting women.”

    So, replace ‘men’ with ‘muslim’ and ‘women’ with ‘western civilisation’ and it’s the same reason Donald Trump wants a ban on muslim immigration to the US then?

  21. @Rob:

    They aren’t joining for the golf course.

    Agree there are loads of great courses on the east coast, but Muirfield is by far the best that I’ve played anywhere (and I’ve played most of the top ones in Scotland and a few in England). Even 10 years after I played it I can still remember every hole.

  22. I’m waiting for the Inimitable Steve’s post on this one but in the meantime my meanderings will have to act as the palest imitation:

    Let’s look at this woman’s bio in the Guardian:

    ‘Laura Bates is the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, a collection of more than 80,000 women’s daily experiences of gender inequality’

    Let’s hope this is a private organization receiving Sweet FA from the taxpayer, but given this is the Guardian I think it likely it’s one of these ‘charities’ that is dependent on the taxpayer for 99.9% of its income from donations.

    ‘I am far from alone in this experience. In three years the Everyday Sexism Project has received a whopping 984 testimonies from women writing about their experiences of sexism, harassment and assault at the gym; 541 related to swimming pools’.

    No doubt these were probably all from the same 20 or so women that perceive sexism in any action a man takes (even giving up his seat on a train or opening a door)

    ‘It doesn’t get much more ironic than trying to defend a privileged all-male club that exists because women are literally considered inferior beings using the example of an all-female space that has been created because of the violence men direct at women. One of these things does not defend the other. They are part of the same ingrained, structural gender inequality.’

    A rare example of a paragraph where every single word is utter bollocks – well done – You are a credit to the decline of the admissions process at St. John’s College, Cambridge….

    There really is no other response to someone as self-evidently demented as the author than to say – ‘I’m sorry, I don’t recognise any of the concepts you are babbling about as anything other than a manifestation of flat earth theory – thanks for your contribution but I am exercising the right to ignore you completely and allow free association of individuals’

    Sadly, as the numerous superb contributors on this forum point out, there is more chance of Men from Mars landing than this government responding to these kind of complaints with anything other than an abject raising of the White flag.

    I fear this woman, and those like her, are in desperate need of further ISIS territorial gains and indeed first hand exposure to ISIS rule to bring them starkly into contact with real oppression.

  23. Bloke in North Dorset

    @SMFS

    “Part of this idiot’s article is a fantasy of what gets talked about in men’s only golf clubs. As if they are all fixing Oscars Night and keeping the metric system down.”

    I can assure them golf clubs are the most boring places on earth. Men talking about missing that 3ft putt on the 5th, how their new driver means they will min the next monthly medal, moaning about slow play (usually by the slowest players), moaning about the course and committee and so on it goes. I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone talking business in the 25 years I’ve been playing.

    @Rob
    “Why someone would pay £100k to join Muirfield when there are abundant superb links courses either side of the Firth is a mystery.”

    I’ve played it a few times (corporate jolly, but business wasn’t discussed) and there are a lot better courses in terms of views but its one of the best gold courses I’ve played, its a golfers golf course.

    And what people miss is that women can and do play there, they have top be invited, like any other non-member. I was playing off 10 and struggled, anyone over about 18 handicap won’t have a chance, and that is most women.

    The lunch thing is odd though. We were playing 36 holes and expected to change in to jacket and tie to go in to the dining room. Their gaff their rules.

    I do think the R&A are right, though. They have a duty to the wider game and the poor publicity, warranted or not, isn’t good for the game but like most on here Muirfield’s right to free expression and association is a bigger principle than a few upset SJW.s sensibilities.

  24. ‘stunningly regressive step of voting against reversing its ban on female members’

    Her words are fighting each other.

  25. The Inimitable Steve

    I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone talking business in the 25 years I’ve been playing.

    Bollocks.

    If films and telly have taught me anything, it’s that when white male business types get together they invariably scheme to oppress women and gays, tell racist jokes, murder prostitutes, and dump toxic waste in pristine wetlands.

    Then they all repair to a private shooting estate where they hunt disabled people for sport.

  26. Then they all repair to a private shooting estate where they hunt disabled people for sport.

    or,

    Then they all repair to an economics website, where they hunt the mutant Murphy homo sapiens aberration for sport.

  27. I played in my youth; women members at our club were welcome, since non-working wives could use the course during weekdays when the men were working. The women were largely banned from playing in the evening and at weekends. Their membership was much cheaper than the men’s.

    One advantage of the golf club was that as a junior member I seemed to be allowed beer before I was eighteen, at least if I was in the company of adults. I can confirm that the vast bulk of the conversation in the clubhouse consisted of boreathons about drives, slices, hooks, chips, pitches, and missed putts.

    I decided I much preferred cricket. The golf course had been more attractive when I was in short trousers and used the place as a vast adventure playground.

  28. The Inimitable Steve

    Surely they also commit unspeakable acts against small children and consume rare species out of malice as well, which you seem to have forgotten, and all with the help of loot originally confiscated by the Nazis and Japanese in World War 2

  29. The Inimitable Steve

    BraveFart – Candidly that is a splendid idea.

    Van_Patten – A fair point, my good man, but I took the Nazi gold as a given.

  30. “If films and telly have taught me anything, it’s that when white male business types get together they invariably scheme to oppress women and gays, tell racist jokes, murder prostitutes, and dump toxic waste in pristine wetlands.

    Then they all repair to a private shooting estate where they hunt disabled people for sport.”

    Steve–as one who watched American cop/action shows of the 70s and 80s I can tell you that Ma Bell was kept solvent in those decades by rich white businessmen phoning up to order kidnappings, beatings and murders. And more than half of the 20-50 male USA population were employed as henchmen and incompetent thugs.

  31. So Much For Subtlety

    Mr Ecks – “And more than half of the 20-50 male USA population were employed as henchmen and incompetent thugs.”

    Unless they were Black. Then they were brain surgeons.

    At least since the 1980s. The last show I can think of that was “racially realistic” was probably Kojack. I think someone has claimed that more White people have killed other people in New York on the Law and Order franchise than in actual reality.

  32. I would pay 100K to escape Laura Bates, if I had the money.

    Now these lefties tell me that there are not two sexes but a variety of sexes and that one cannot judge the sex of a person by looking at them.

    So how do they know that the Muirfield men are all men? They may be women, trannies or poached eggs for all we know….we cannot judge!

  33. Put differently, they just want to get access so they can stop men feeling comfortable enough to enjoy themselves.

    I’ve long thought that the thing which British women hate the most is the thought of their husband enjoying himself. I have heard it supposed that not wanting to see their husbands having fun is why they close their eyes during sex.

  34. Inimitable Steve

    Good to see you taking the fight to ‘Neo-feudalism’ and ‘Corporate Fascism’ as well as sticking it to ‘The Patriarchy’ amongst your myriad other talents anyway….

  35. Tim N,
    You may have been away too long.

    The weather remains un-conducive, but it’s all go in Bonking Britain.

    You can even drink much of the wine.

  36. It’s the usual confusion in lefty mind between private property and public property, since for them the former should not exist. Unless it’s theirs of course.

    The assault on private property needs to be stopped but I don’t see the current shower in government doing much about it.

    Truly, a good lefty is a dead one.

  37. Bloke in North Dorset

    Dearieme,

    “I decided I much preferred cricket. The golf course had been more attractive when I was in short trousers and used the place as a vast adventure playground.”

    For me its at least my 2nd childhood and my wife would probably say I never finished my first. I went from cricket to golf, I wear shorts and the parts of the course I end up in make each round quite a venture.

  38. Bloke in Costa Rica

    In what way would insisting on joining a golf club that does not want you as a member be different from someone like me, who does not play golf and has no desire to, wishing therefore to shut down golf clubs? It’s the same illiberal impulse of, unbidden, telling other people how they should behave and with whom they should associate. In other words, it’s progressivism.

  39. Have just read that there are 6 members golf clubs in St Andrews. As you might have guessed, 3 are men only, 3 are women only.

  40. “Excluding women at the cost of the Open shows just how desiccated and joyless the sport’s guardians are”

    I can assure you they feel quite giddy right now. They told the lot of you to go screw yourselves. Hosting a big tournament disrupts life for the members. When they talk to the other clubs about how much better life is WITHOUT the Open, others may follow. The R&A may live to regret this.

    BRING BACK BEN WRIGHT !!! “Women are handicapped by having boobs.” Maybe he was talking about their campaigners.

  41. Tim Newman,

    “I’ve long thought that the thing which British women hate the most is the thought of their husband enjoying himself.”

    Generally no. A few, but nearly every bloke I know that is in trouble with his wife for his hobbies is out of line. My cousin who thought he could still go away with his mates for a weekend of outdoor pursuits every month after the baby came along. A bloke I worked with in the same situation who was moaning that his wife wanted him to give up going to away games.

  42. Insisting on being a member of a club with whose values you fundamentally disagree – ah te Brexit debate all over again.

    And with the same halfwits and demented fascists on the wrong side.

  43. Intractable Potsherd

    Who is to say that men don’t want want their own spaces to get away from the abuse they perceive from women? After all, abuse is in the eye of the victim, not society … (okay, that isn’t a serious comment – victim-mentality needs to become a historical footnote).

    People and privately-owned businesses should be allowed to exclude whoever they want, for whatever reason they want. If a B&B wants to exclude gays/straight/men/women/foreigners, they should be allowed to. If a club wants to exclude anyone on any basis, that also should be allowed. Liberty is found not only in what is accepted, but what is rejected.

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