Great balls of ire
Women who want to take up playing golf have to think about it seriously. This is a male-dominated sport, run by male-dominated clubs, where women have been second-class citizens for years. Few serious male golfers of my acquaintance play regularly with women, and that includes Mr M, whose mood is bound to be grim if he arrives to play in a club competition and has been put in a group that includes a woman. In his mind, this indicates that the club does not rate him highly enough; if it did, he would be in an all- male group.
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This institutionalised prejudice does not seem to deter women from playing. It doesn't deter me either - what does deter me is that (a) I am not very good, (b) it takes a long time to get round, especially when you have to hit (and find) the ball as often as I do and (c) I can't stand the constant touchline commentary from my husband. "Hold your head up," "open your legs further," "keep your eye fixed on the ball" - these are all direct quotes from the last time we ventured out together. I have pointed out that if he managed this much instruction in bed we might both benefit.
So it will come as no surprise that I am not Mr M's playing partner in the local golf club Winter Mixed Knock-Out Competition. What is a surprise, perhaps, is that he has entered this competition at all, given his aversion to playing with the fairer sex. But one of the keener ladies at the club, a friend of ours, called him and persuaded him to join her. Lady G is a former successful career woman who married a prominent investment banker with a title, had a baby and now focuses her time and energy on her family. And golf.
They were drawn against a married couple and this is where the trouble started. With planned Christmas holidays it was challenging to find a date to play. Lady G spoke to the wife of the opposing couple and it did not go well. Feeling that the other couple were being unhelpful in setting a date, Lady G made a complaint to the club's competition committee.
So we got back from our Christmas holiday to find a copy of a letter from the club secretary to Lady G in our postbag, detailing her complaint against the couple concerned and dictating a date for them to play - the next day.
Mr M is conciliatory to a fault. He was therefore horrified to find that a formal complaint had even been made, and went out to play the next day determined to make up for the forthright approach of Lady G. He went the 18 holes being very polite, even (to Lady G's horror) giving away putts at the drop of a hat, and took the opponents for a drink afterwards - having beaten them. Needless to say, Lady G did not join him.
Maybe Lady G is too strident to fit easily into the male-dominated confines of a golf club. Certainly many women are incompatible with the male-dominated confines of the City of London. I am getting increasingly fed up with the number of headline-grabbing cases of women who join an investment bank - voluntarily - and then run screaming to the law courts claiming sexual harassment and discrimination.
It's a privilege to be a woman working in the City - nowhere else will a competent woman come to the attention of others as easily. Putting it in another way, there is no other environment quite so full of intellectually challenged testosterone-fuelled human beings who are so susceptible to flattery. If you can't use being a woman in a scenario like that, when can you?
So I have very little sympathy with the so-called "Dresdner Six", who have filed a lawsuit seeking an eye-watering $1.4bn in damages. The catchily-named Doug Wigdor is the lawyer acting for the six and he is quoted as saying that "the proof is in the numbers. Under 2 per cent of the managing directors at the bank are women."
What exactly is that proof of? I think it is proof that not many women want to be managing directors of a bank. I am not surprised. Why seek a job with a meaningless title? Most of the managing directors in banks that I know don't manage anything beyond their own washbag, and sometimes not even that. (Even reading that sentence makes me realise how ridiculous that title is. How can you have a combination of the definite article - the - and the plural - managing directors?) In my experience, women who want to manage something will be running a shop, or a call centre, or even a home - somewhere where their decisions about staff, investment and business strategy will actually matter.
Mr M and Lady G won the second round of the golf competition as well, although this time they were the ones who nearly didn't make it. Mr M took a call from the opponents before 8am one weekend, to say they were expected in 30 minutes. He rang Lady G to see where she was. She informed him she was in bed reading Golf Decisions. Mr M told her that the only golf decision she needed to make was to get out of bed and meet him at the golf club in very short order. With a bit of luck, she now realises who is in charge.
女子高尔夫和金融城
要
是女子想打高尔夫球，必须慎重考虑一番。这是一个男性主宰的体育项目，同样由男性占主导地位的俱乐部运作。在这里，女性多年来一直是二等公民。我所认识的、球艺不错的男性高尔夫球手中，几乎没人与女性定期打球，这其中包括钱眼先生。如果在他前往参加俱乐部比赛时，被分到有一位女性的一组，他的心情肯定会糟糕透顶。在他看来，这就表明，该俱乐部认为他的水平不够高；否则的话，他会被分在全是男性的一组。
这种制度化的偏见，似乎并未阻止女性从事高尔夫运动。它也没能阻止我打球――阻止我的原因是：首先，我打得不太好；其次，打高尔夫需要长时间地走动，特别是像我这样击球(和找球)如此频繁的情况下；第三，我受不了丈夫在身边随时发表评论。“把头抬起来！”“腿再分开些！”“眼睛盯住球！”――这些都是我们上次试着一起打球时的原话。我说了，如果他在床上能提供这么多指导，我们俩或许都会从中受益。
因此，在当地高尔夫俱乐部的冬季混合淘汰赛中，我没有成为钱眼先生的搭档，也就不足为奇了。也许，令人感到奇怪的是，他竟然参加了这个比赛，因为他反感与女性一起打球。不过，是该俱乐部一位热心的女士，也是我们的朋友，给他打了电话，并说服他共同参赛。G夫人曾是一位成功的职业女性，嫁了一位拥有头衔的知名投资银行家，生了一个宝宝，现在主要把时间和精力花在她家庭及高尔夫上。
他们抽到的对手是一对已婚夫妇，麻烦就从这开始了。在安排满满的圣诞节假期，要找出一个比赛的日子可不容易。G夫人找那对夫妇中的妻子谈了此事，但进展不太顺利。G夫人觉得那对夫妇在确定比赛日期方面帮不上什么忙，于是向俱乐部竞赛委员会提出申诉。
因此，我们圣诞节度假归来后发现，在邮袋里有一封俱乐部秘书致G夫人信函的复印件，其中详细谈到她对那对夫妇的抱怨，并确定了与他们比赛的日期――第二天。
钱眼先生是个典型的“和事佬”。 因此，当发现这一正式申诉后，他吓了一跳。于是次日他前去比赛，并打定主意，要对G夫人的直率稍加补偿。他非常“礼貌”地打完了18洞，甚至放弃了一些近在咫尺的推球入洞机会（这吓着了G夫人），在击败对手之后，还请他们去喝酒。不用说，G夫人没去。
或许G夫人太过尖刻，不易融入男性主宰的高尔夫俱乐部领域。的确，很多女性也与伦敦金融城男性一统天下的氛围格格不入。我越来越厌倦那些在新闻报道中抢眼的女性投诉案例，说的是女性加入投行――这可是她们自愿的――而后，在法庭上嚷嚷，声称自己遭性骚扰和歧视。
成为一名在金融城工作的女性，意味着一种特权――再没有别的地方能像这里一样，可以让一个有能力的女性如此轻而易举地引人注意。换言之，再没有其它环境能像这里一样，充满了智商可疑、雄性激素旺盛且极易为恭维奉承所动的人群了。如果在这种情况下你还不能利用身为女性的优势，什么时候才用呢？
因此，我对所谓的“德累斯顿6人案”(Dresdner Six)没什么同情心。这6位女同胞曾经提起诉讼，指控德累斯顿银行歧视女性员工，索赔金额高达14亿美元。拥有迷人名字的道格?威格多(Doug Wigdor)是这6个人的代理律师。他曾说过这样的话：“证据就在数字中。在银行里，女性董事总经理的比例不足2%。”
这究竟能证明什么呢？我想，它证明很多女性并不希望成为银行的董事总经理。对此我并不感到惊讶。为什么要找一份头衔毫无意义的工作呢？据我所知，大部分银行董事总经理除了自己的洗漱包外，并不管理其它任何东西，有时甚至连自己的洗漱包也不管。（光读威格多的这句话就令我意识到这个头衔是多么荒谬。你怎么能把定冠词“the”和复数形式的“managing directors”结合在一起呢？）依照我的经验，有管理愿望的女性会选择经营一家商店或呼叫中心，甚至是掌管一个家庭，在那里，她们关于人员、投资和商业战略的决定的确起作用。
钱眼先生和G夫人在第二轮高尔夫球赛中也获得胜利，不过这次他们几乎没去成。在一个周末的早晨，还不到8点钟，钱眼先生就接到对手打来的一个电话，说希望他们在30分钟内赶到球场。他给G夫人打电话，问她在哪里。她说她正在床上阅读《高尔夫决策》(Golf Decisions)一书。钱眼先生对她说，她现在唯一要作出的“高尔夫决策”就是马上起床，立刻去那个高尔夫俱乐部和他会面。如果运气好的话，现在她会意识到谁说了算。
