Seems women don’t really want equality

February 1992

It is now a year since Wexford Golf Club struck a blow for equality for agreeing to offer women full membership and the right to vote on club decisions.

Before last year’s AGM, women could only avail of associate membership, which excluded them from holding club officerships or casting a vote at annual meetings.

Then, in the midst of a national furore about sexism in golfing circles, the Wexford club voted by a majority of three to one to allow women to become full members if they so wished.

A year has passed, and what has happened? Not one female member of the club has taken up the offer. In most cases, they say it is because they do not wish to pay the extra money involved.

The difference between associate membership and full membership for an individual golfer is a not insignificant matter of £150 per year. For a couple who pay a husband and wife rate, the jump to paying two individual full memberships would be even larger.

Most women members of Wexford Golf Club are paying on the basis of family or husband and wife rates, so to take up the new equal rights offer would cost them dearly.

In any event, women members of Wexford Golf Club enjoy far more freedom than their sisters in Dublin clubs, according to club captain, Adrian Doyle.

They have their own ladies section with a committee and officers, they have a Ladies Day every week, and they are also entitled to play golf on other days when there are no men’s competitions running.

Women in Dublin clubs face far greater restrictions than their country counterparts, and to them, full membership appears to be a necessary solution. In Wexford, on the other hand, the offer is open – but nobody is interested.