A Victory for Women?

I know I'm a little slow on the uptake on this one, as it's almost two weeks old now, but better late than never, and you all know how life can get busy sometimes ....

Every year I go round and round about watching the Masters. As a fan of golf, I want to watch. The Masters, though, represents privileged elitism in so many ways. While part of it is the lack of female membership at Augusta, there so much more to it than that. (I think Bill Simmons summed a lot of it up nicely last week.) I'm thinking next year I'm going to go back to not watching. I get more and more sickened by the Masters the more I think about it.

This year, I watched a little coverage on ESPN on Friday while working at home, a little on CBS while visiting with my parents on late afternoon Saturday, and a little bit toward the end of the fourth round on Sunday. I probably would have watched the end (I left coverage when the final group had about a hole and a half left), but I had another, more pressing matter to attend to--namely, going to see the musical Wicked.

As I'm sure you know by now, Phil Mickelson won the Masters this year, claiming his third green jacket. And, particularly as a contrast to Tiger Woods' recently uncovered activities, the fact that Phil Mickelson had taken time off the tour last summer to be with his wife and his mother as both battled cancer was played up on the telecast and has been a significant theme in coverage of the event ever since. See, for instance, this column by ESPN's Rick Reilly, as indicative of the kinds of themes and claims that have been occurring. Rightfully, I think, Gregg Doyel at CBSSportsline challenged the extravagant claims of the likes of Reilly. I would agree with what I interpret as Doyel's sentiment. There are some good reasons to applaud and be happy for Mickelson, but let's not exaggerate the claims about his character with blind admiration when we don't really know what goes on his life.

I'm not going to rehash what Doyel says. Please read his article for more. I do, though, want to add something to the conversation, particularly in conjunction with the title--and, thus, the overall tone--of Reilly's piece: "Mickelson's win a victory for women." Seriously, Rick? A victory? I think I understand what Rick is doing, but I think I also understand that this is exactly the stuff that hegemonic power is made of. Where's the victory for women? A privileged man won a tournament full of other privileged men at a golf course that is very heavily built on and steeped in privilege, particularly male privilege in that it continues to lack female membership and took a very public stand against a private call asking it to address that issue by admitting a female member. And this is a victory for women because Mickelson took time off the tour last summer to be with his wife while she was battling breast cancer? Look, I think what Mickelson did was commendable. I also realize that many people (men or women) would not have the financial resources or type of job that would allow them just to take several weeks off like that. My mother is battling cancer right now, and I'm thankful that as a university instructor I have a schedule conducive to making the hour trip to see her fairly often. I also know that (1) I'm lucky to have that opportunity and (2) I'm still not in a position to take off work completely. I think I have it better than a lot of people along those lines. I also recognize I'm privileged to have that opportunity, and I should not take that for granted, particularly when interpreting the actions of others who are less fortunate. Mickelson enjoys even more privilege than I do, and his actions are at least in part the result of his privileges.

And it's on the idea of "privileged actions" that this all goes back to what this means for women. Let's phrase this story this way: A man achieves occupational success in a public arena of activity in which that success is achieved against other men. Indeed, that public arena of activity does not even allow women to be included or to participate. The man also takes care of his wife and his family, as his success in that male-only public arena has allowed him the time and money to provide for and care for them. This is certainly another way to characterize the story of Phil Mickelson. It's also a way of characterizing the story that points out how deeply the entire scenario is built in patriarchy. Saying, then, that Mickelson's win is a victory for women rings rather hollow. Sure, it might bring attention to breast cancer and provides an illustration of a man who did things that suggest care and concern for the most prominent women in his life. Yet, the entire situation patronizes and devalues women as it implies that men should provide for women and that women should accept a system of opportunities that both implicitly and explicitly excludes them and, thus, does not allow them as many opportunities to provide for themselves as it allows for men. Indeed, Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters golf tournament perpetuate a system that positions women to need the care of men. To then celebrate a man for caring for women within such a system does little to advance the cause of opportunities and rights for women. Mickelson's ability to play the role of the caring husband as a contrast to Tiger Woods as the unfaithful husband relies, at least in part, on this system of privilege. Mickelson's actions in winning the Masters exemplify that male privilege. Rather than a victory for women, then, Mickelson's win constitutes a victory for patriarchy, disguised to the likes of Rick Reilly by the attention it places on women in certain ways, though the very ways in which it places that attention on women actually reinforce and perpetuate the system of male privilege. That, in a nutshell, is hegemony--when the things that seem to provide opportunities or "victories" for the oppressed actually reinforce and help perpetuate the system that excludes them.

So, while I like Mickelson, I also see his actions in winning the Masters as privileged, and I recognize them as perpetuating the system of sexism in United States society. In that regard, then, I don't think that he, the many other golfers involved in the tournament, and the many fans of the tournament (myself included) are as "good" to women as accounts like Reilly's might suggest. Now, if Mickelson took another kind of action, like if he used his victory to call for Augusta National Golf Club to admit female members, if he donated a significant portion of his winnings to the National Organization of Women to help their fight against sexism in the United States, or if he did something else along similar lines, then I might be willing to call this a "victory for women."