This is from an upcoming New Yorker piece by Peter Boyer, about Martha Burk's quixotic tilt at Augusta:
At one point, I asked her to help me to understand the benefit to society that would result from a woman joining Augusta National. She responded with what has been, throughout her campaign, her case-closing line: "You wouldn't ask me what was the benefit to society if we were talking about excluding people on race."
No, but this wasn¹t race. I wondered, "Can there exist such a thing as a benign exclusion of one gender or the other in a private social setting?"
Her answer surprised me. "I myself have what I call the 'girls' dinner,'" she said. "Just some of the women in the women's movement, and we get together for dinner. Women in Congress do it, too."
The difference, she explained, has to do with the conditioned behavior of men and women. "Here's the difference. And it's interesting that you should ask this, and it¹s just now come to me, pretty clearly. It is because, when men get together, denigrating women is often a part of the social interaction. When women get together, denigrating men is rarely done. It's just not even on the radar screen. Even among the so-called strident feminists of the women's movement. We don't have anything to hide in that way, and men seem to."
I am flabbergasted. This is tinfoil helmet territory.
For Ms. (I know, I know, "Dr.") Burk's edification, men don't spend a lot of time together running down women. Apart from the obligatory, "Hey, did you see that stupid bitch Burk on Crossfire last night?"
Not that I'm invited to such august councils myself, but I've got an educated guess as to the conversation:
What is it with these kids today?
I made a shot like that on . . . Pebble Beach? 4th hole? 1964?
So I'm up about three, four times a night?
How's your beer? Anyone?
What I would tell Bush is . . .
Hey, did you see that stupid bitch Burk on Crossfire last night?
I am really, really sorry that Martha Burk was kicked out of the treehouse by her deadwhitefatherbrotherhusbandfetus or whatever.
Get over it, and leave those rich old farts whatever scrap of dignity they have left.
Rich old farts are people too.