I like to make connections from the weekly readings to aspects in my life. Here are three I made regarding golf and gender.
The first connection I would like to highlight is with some family I have down in Florida. As observed by the reading and other bloggers, golf is a sport for the luxurious. My aunt and her family down in Tampa are the luxurious in the family. Her husband posts a selfie almost every day with him enjoying the courses, either with some work friends, my aunt, his father, or some combo. This was the first connection I made with the reading. Hegemonic masculinity is draped over golf and it shows him my uncle’s Facebook pics. His selfies with other male IBM big names, Teslas, watches I am sure cost a lot were the first thing to come to mind.
The second connection I made were the talks I had with a girl that used to work at a golf course. The course, Mountain Aire, was at the base of Mt. Mitchell and garnered White men with money, per my imagination and her confirmation. She served tables and while she said they tipped well, she felt uncomfortable in certain situations. She said, “It’s just how it was” and “That was the culture there, like how there’s a culture here at the coffee shop”. So when reading about the gender domination, her tales of the rich White man and his actions were the second thing to come to mind.
The last connection I made was sort of finding a solution to the whole debacle. I started by looking back at my history of golf. I never played a round of golf at a club; The only golfing experience would be putt-putt. My putt-putt experience would be as a kid, Spring Break, pretty much any trip to the beach and even some times in the mountains. Here with putt-putt, it was inviting to everyone because there was eight bucks or so for a round with your friends. So while I read, my thinking was that wealth is a heavier filter than gender. Not to say both are not important, class is just a stronger stipulation.
