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IBM CEO Rejects Martha Burk’s Feminist Agenda
The Christian Diarist ^ | April 5, 2012 | JP

Posted on 04/05/2012 8:44:50 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Martha Burk is at it again. The director of the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women’s Organizations is demanding that Augusta National Golf Club invite ladies to join its membership.

Nine years ago, Burk waged a similar campaign against Augusta National, host of this week’s Masters golf tournament. While it generated a lot of publicity, it ended unsuccessfully.

Burk thought she had a better chance this year inasmuch as IBM, a major Masters sponsor, boasts a female CEO. Since Augusta National had proffered membership to previous IBM CEOs who were male, Burke argued, the golf club should extend the same courtesy to Virginia Rommety, the company’s current CEO.

Never mind that Rommety is reportedly not much of a golfer. Never mind that she has not asked Augusta National to add her to its membership. Burk wants to make Rommety the Rosa Parks of private membership-only golf.

“We’ve said all along, this is not about golf,” Burk wrote, in an article published this week on CNN’s website. “It is about access to places where big business is done, deals are made and careers are boosted or broken.”

Burk is partially right. Her campaign against Augusta National is not about golf. It’s about promoting the radical feminist view that there is no difference between men and women; that the separation of the two genders is tantamount to sexism.

But separation of the genders is not automatically sexist. It does not necessarily relegate women to second-class status. And it is not always the case, as Burke suggests, that such separation is injurious to career women.

Indeed, while separation of individuals strictly according to skin color is unacceptable under almost every circumstance, separation of individuals according to gender makes sense under many circumstances.

Does Burke object to separate public restrooms for men and women? Does she think the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts should be merged into a single unisex organization?

Does she have a problem with private women’s colleges? Would she eliminate gender separation in sports (like basketball, tennis and, yes, golf), forcing women to compete head-to-head with men?

Rommety climbed all the way up the corporate ladder to CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. And she managed to do so without membership at Augusta National; without the unwanted help of feminist activists like Burke.

“Ginni got it because she deserved it,” said Sam Palmisano, her predecessor at IBM. “It’s got zero to do with progressive social policies.”


TOPICS: Politics; Society; Sports
KEYWORDS: augustanational; blogpimp; ginnirommety; ibm; marthaburk
If Burk had ever been on the grounds at Augusta National, she would know that women do, in fact, have access to the club. They play the course. They enjoy the dining room. They have opportunity to do business and make deals, if that's the purpose of their Augusta visits.
1 posted on 04/05/2012 8:44:54 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Martha Burk's Warhol Fame Clock:
15:03..... :04.... :05...

Say g'nite, toots...

2 posted on 04/05/2012 8:56:24 AM PDT by Wings-n-Wind (The main things are the plain things!)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Is the Obama Administration going go after country clubs who don’t let the 99% join at a discount or for free; I can see this as the next attack. The OWSers will picket the gates, camp out on the sidewalks, block trafic, spray paint graffiti; smoke grass, have sex in the tents they will erect, and the cities who are liberal will do very little to protect those citizens. It’s going to get quite ugly.


3 posted on 04/05/2012 12:00:59 PM PDT by Joshua Marcus
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

4 posted on 04/05/2012 4:14:21 PM PDT by perfect stranger (Nobama)
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