Illustration by Cody Angell

The National Council of Women's Organizations is currently working with Congress to ensure human rights for the battered and oppressed women of Afghanistan. This is an example of fighting the good fight.

The NCWO is also actively pressuring the private, all-male Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia to allow women members. This is an example of whining.

Martha Burk, NCWO chairwomen, has written letters to several corporate sponsors of the upcoming Masters tournament encouraging them to pull their sponsorship of the event because it is held at the discriminating Augusta National Golf Club. To IBM, she wrote that "sponsoring the Masters legitimizes the discrimination engaged in at Augusta National."

IBM responded that their sponsorship in no way contradicts the company's anti-discrimination policy, and that they will continue to support the event as long as it is effective in reaching a "diverse base of fans."

Augusta chairman Hootie Johnson dissolved this particular conflict by forgoing the Masters' corporate sponsorship, costing the club millions of dollars and forcing the companies to save face. He insists that the private golf club "should not be Îmanaged' by an outside group," and that "a public campaign designed to use economic pressure to achieve a goal of NCWO" will not be successful.

Exactly why the NCWO is sticking its nose into the administrative practices of a private recreational club is clear. According to Burk, the council "fight(s) discrimination against women where we find it." What Burk appears to mean is: "anywhere we find it." They should be more discriminating in choosing their battles.

There is no question that the Augusta National Golf Club discriminates against women; it has not had a single female member since it was established in 1932.

So what? There is no lack of private and public golf clubs that include women in their membership. As a privately owned and operated club, Augusta has every right to select its membership. If they want to be a boy's club, let them.

There is no reason why a group of women cannot fund for themselves an all-female golf club. Would Burk consider this to be unethical gender discrimination? One cannot answer for her, but it's easy to see the flawed logic in supporting all-women's groups and decrying ones exclusively for men.

So what's wrong with having some clubs just for men, and some clubs just for women? Presumably, Burk öand fellow outmoded feministsö wants boys and girls to play nicely together in the same tree house.

What Burk fails to understand is that, while girls are a lot of fun to play with, sometimes boys want to socialize strictly with other boys. Introducing a girl into an all-boy group completely changes the dynamic ÷ not for better or worse; it simply changes the atmosphere, the conversation and the behaviors.

Not all forms of gender discrimination are unethical. There are a number of exclusively male or female fitness clubs around the country utilized by religious individuals who shun the meat market scene. If a woman wants to spare herself the embarrassment of being ogled in her sports bra while doing thigh-thrusts, it is her right to work out with women only. Similarly, if a man wants to spare himself the temptation of working out with lingerie models, he should be allowed membership to strictly male fitness clubs. It would be unreasonable to require non-discrimination of these private clubs, or to make them build separate facilities to accommodate everyone.

The same is true with the Augusta National Golf Club. Although its members may not have the same concerns with modesty, they do have a right to dictate the environment for which they are paying exorbitant sums of money.

If the government funded Augusta, the NCWO would have a good case against them. But as the issue stands, the organization for women's advocacy de-legitimizes its cause by waging a war that has absolutely no bearing on the real fight for women's rights.

It is this type of behind-the-times feminism, exemplified by Martha Burk and the NCWO, that makes the public look down on the progressive feminist movement öwhich is concerned with issues far more pressing than where women can or cannot play golf.

At its core, this issue is not even about feminism or women's rights. It is a matter of childish nagging. The NCWO should send an honest letter to Augusta expressing their real sentiments: "Hey, we wanna play too! No fair! I'm telling mom!"

Mom would tell them to build their own tree house.