In Hugo Ceron-Anaya’s work of Gender on the Golf Course, they examine how gender roles play out on the golf course, specifically focused in Mexico. Throughout the piece, Ceron-Anaya makes comparisons between gender roles that take place outside of the golf course and how they can be present within it. “Indeed, the refined manners, politeness, and chivalry that characterize golf obscured the gender imbalances in the sport and thus reinforced the assumption that hegemonic masculinity only affected popular sports.” The point is made that golf is seen as a refined person’s game, and that since there is less physicality involved in the sport the gender norms of previous generations may have been more accepting of women playing golf. This does not mean that women are equally represented in the sport, as one golfer, Patricia puts it “I may be wrong but I guess that we are about 10% of the overall number of players. I usually play one mixed gender tournament a year, sometimes two. We women are always a minority, six, eight, 10 players, never more than that.” The women who do participate in tournaments would describe their experience as being discriminatory. From modifying handicaps of women players to make it more difficult to play, and use of different tee boxes for women to differentiate the men that play from the women that play. I believe that the real meat of this work is talking about the class dynamics of the sport of golf. Golf is generally a high class sport, and in all of Ceron-Anaya’s interviews at these golf clubs, there are multiple instances where the class dynamic plays out. A service worker mistakenly asked her to go through a service door, causing Laura, the woman she was interviewing to “correct the mistake.” There was also an instance where she was interviewing someone, and talking about how lower classes should be more accepting of the building of golf courses, more specifically in indigenous areas as it is a “source of employment.” To “enjoy” golf, it’s inherent that you have a high social class, some means of capital, and lots of free time, something working class people may not have much of. These class dynamics, gender roles, and difficulty of access to the sport make it difficult for women in Mexico to play golf, and this piece examines why, and gives an idea of what it could be like if women were not discriminated against in Golf.
