Fab post!...by Guerrilla Girl
Tom Bevan, ad executive and founder of Real Clear Politics, cannot understand all the fuss over who buddies up with the president for a game of hoops or a turn on the links. Let boys be boys, he begs, which, of course, is male-speak for "no girls allowed." After all whines Bevan:

Did Bill Clinton and George W. Bush ever include a woman in their golf games? I have no idea - not only because it's irrelevant but because I don't recall the media ever making a big deal about it to begin with. So why is Obama getting the treatment now?

There are far more important things (and people) to worry about and report on, Tom says, citing: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, health care. Certainly more important than the 52% of the population whose vote was crucial to electing Obama!...women who put their hopes in this man as a sign of Change, turning back antiquated segregation of shop-worn sexist male-only bonding rituals. This is the POTUS, NOT just Joe six-pack out for a pick up game in the hood. The POTUS sets examples and the electorate expects as much. We want forward motion for women not stagnation and status quo.

However, apparently, Obama isn't taking any chances. For, as Tom said, right after assuring the press that he was no chauvinist, despite having played 24 rounds of golf in a row for nine months with nary a female in sight, he went and "caved to the press and their silly sniping by having White House aide Melody Barnes hit the links with him," cried Bevan

Yep, I can just see Rahm's gofers at the last minute searching the White House high and low for a female - any female - who plays golf to help get Obama off this well-deserved hook.

Tom finds this "disappointing."
Now every two-bit Jill, Jane and Mary will expect to be included in that charmed circle of exclusiveness, par excellence: playing golf with the president.
Newsflash Tom: Mad Men called and they want you back!
Women do sports now, they actually play golf, and gasp…even play basketball.
Jake Tapper of ABC, whose journalistic professionalism is inspiring the shock and awe of his spineless, housebroken colleagues in the White House press corps, did the decent thing: he polled some of the 52% majority in question.

We asked Terry O'Neill, the new president of the National Organization for Women, what she thought of those Democratic women and others quietly complaining about a "boy's club" atmosphere at the White House, as exemplified by the president playing basketball earlier this month with 11 members of Congress and four Cabinet Secretaries -- all men.

Is this much ado about nothing?

O'Neill says no.
"Relationships get built in those more informal settings," O'Neill told ABC News, "and the relationships have a huge impact on the influence an individual has.. We know what happens when we segregated whether it by race or whether it by gender -- you end up with 1st class citizens and you end up with 2nd class citizens."

O'Neill's views are echoed by Bobby Lopez, PGA:

Golf is the game of business. More deals are closed in a golf course club house or through the relationships cultivated while playing golf than with any other endeavor.

http://www.golfarticles.net/Article/Golf---Business--Go-Together-Like-A-...

Obama himself proved that golf with the president is much more than just a game when the press trumpeted his invitation to Tom Friedman to play so the two could chat about Friedman's book on the course - a perfect example of the "relationships cultivated while playing golf" mentioned by Lopez above. Yet for nine months and 24 rounds no female was allowed that privilege. Coincidence? Oversight?

Tapper continued:

O'Neill told ABC News' Mike Callahan, "we need to see the White House leading the way for desegregating the work places all around the country and it is troubling."

Well, Obama seems to have got THAT message, even though he still seems clueless on the subject of equal representation. For while his inner circle of czars swarms with men and people of color, only three out of the 32 happen to be members of the 52% majority (And Dunn is rumored to be leaving).

But Bevan and his ilk didn’t get the memo. Just imagine the outcry if President Hillary Clinton had played all-female basketball and all-female golf for 24 weeks!
I bet Bevan wouldn't have called that "silly sniping!”
Every now and then, from the days of the campaign until the present, Obama shows his lack of genuine empathy on gender issues - like sending his wife out to shill for the female vote on health care instead of mainstreaming this message into his many speeches on the subject.

So far, he seems to shape up when somebody whispers in his ear to remind him that women are not a special interest group, but half the population. But it won't be long before the 52% majority begin to really catch on that Obama has a less-than-compelling interest in gender issues, i.e. he really doesn't care.

Then they might start remembering certain revealing facts that came out in the campaign, like he paid women on his Senate staff an average annual salary of $44,953.21, which was $12,472 less than the $57,425.00 average annual salary he paid men, even though women outnumbered men on the staff 30 to 27.
I wonder if Melody Barnes gets paid for equal work? –minus her bonus for being a golf object.

Added link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/us/politics/25vibe.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=...