There’s no denying that a heightened focus on gender and equality has become pervasive and unavoidable for all businesses these days. So clubs probably have a lot more to gain than lose by being proactive in showing how they are changing with the times, no matter what it might say about their past.
Look up “history” in any dictionary of quotations (or search for “history quotes” online, for those of you who have thrown out all of those old books, or never acquired them to begin with), and it’s not hard to find as many scornful and cynical comments about the word as it is to find glowing testaments to its significance and value.
Observers through the years have called history things like “a recital of mistakes” (Voltaire), “a collection of fables and useless trifles” (Leon Tolstoy), and Henry Ford’s one-word dismissal: “Bunk.”
And after we published a recent news item in our daily e-newsletter about a club that had announced it had passed an “historic” resolution to eliminate gender bias in its by-laws, governance and operations, we got some new comments from people who didn’t think this was a case of history being anything to crow about or commemorate, either.
“Why would a club want to admit that all of its prior policies were gender-biased?” one reader asked.
But the item also generated comments that saluted the club for taking the step, and hailed it as a significant milestone in private-club history. And overall, the report gained the highest readership of any of the news items that we posted over a month’s, which is why it also occupies the lead position in the News section of C+RB’s September issue.
That high readership score indicated to me that even if some may have thought it was not a good move to go public with the announcement, it spoke to an area and topic that’s front-of-mind with many club managers and Boards, as they search for ways to appeal to as broad a pool of potential new members as possible.
Whether it’s admitted openly or not, many clubs’ by-laws and operating practices can still evoke negative perceptions of private golf and country clubs as “old white men” enclaves. Many clubs have chosen to address this by working quietly to phase out terms like “men’s grill” and “ladies’ tees” as part of clubhouse renovations and course improvements, without making a big splash or even calling any attention to the changes. (Often, in fact, this is effectively accomplished by switching to new names for dining venues or tees that are tied to a club’s history.)
But there’s no denying that a heightened focus on gender and equality in all forms has become pervasive and unavoidable for all businesses and organizations these days. So clubs probably have a lot more to gain than lose by being proactive in trying to show how they are changing with the times, no matter what it might say about their past.
Joe Barks
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