Women get equal rights at Manawatu Golf Club
During a special meeting on Monday night an attempt to prevent the change failed and women at the Manawatu Golf Club will now have equal rights when it comes to booking tee times.
The move effectively ends the club’s longstanding men-only Saturday afternoons and the old full-playing men and full-playing women subscriptions have been scrapped and replaced with seven-day memberships and six-day memberships.
Michael Williams, Manawatu Golf Club general manager, explained that the main issue members had was the way the changes were made.
“It was not so much opposition to the concept,” he said. “[Monday’s] meeting was around the process that the change was implemented.”
New Zealand Golf and the Manawatu-Wanganui Golf Association supported the decision to implement change made by the club’s committee members.
“The committee had held information evenings and consultation via email throughout the year. The committee then decided to use their powers and just go ahead and implement them,” Williams said.
That frustrated some members of the club, who started a petition and forced Monday’s meeting, but failed to garner enough votes to change the decision.
Committee member Karen Manninen believed much of the opposition stemmed from club members’ reluctance to lose their men-only time.
“I think that they have come from a position that they have always played on a Saturday afternoon and they are used to there being no women in the clubhouse. It is men’s time and that is how they like it,” she said.
“It just came down to a human rights issue,” she said. “Women have equality everywhere else in their lives. We are a bit behind the eight ball, so we needed to change it, because it was not right.”
And she was ecstatic the move has been supported by the majority of members.
“From the perspective of someone who has been wishing for equal rights for the whole entire 18 years I have been playing, it is great,” she said.
“It is going to be great for the future because every golf club in New Zealand needs young people playing. It is a challenge to get new young people and young people do not tolerate discrimination.”
