Golf, for a long time, has been considered a male-dominated sport.
As such, women have over the years been locked out of the greens and fairway to swing their shot in the game.
There has been progress over the years but there have also been changes in the way women experience discrimination.
Bernice Ng’inja, Product Management Lead at Safaricom, has experienced it in subtle ways. “You’ll find that sometimes men who are mostly lower handicaps will not want to really play with you because they perceive us as being high handicappers. They think we are going to spend the whole day in the bush so they pass us by as they take on other lower handicaps,” she says.
A handicap in golf is basically a number indicating a player’s skill level. A low handicap means that a player is getting better at the game and will therefore spend less time on the course. Golfers generally prefer to play with people at their level, or higher, so that they can move faster on the course and move together.
Carolyne Kendi, Head of Brand and Marketing Communications at Safaricom, says that gender discrimination in sports manifests in many ways, especially wage inequality and the overall range of opportunities that exist between men and women in the sports arena.
“I think the reason that’s happening is that women are not participating in sports. What I’m doing this year to break the bias is just doing my part to participate,” she says.
As the Safaricom Golf Tour continues, women like Bernice and Caroline encourage women to play and achieve the pro title in a bid to break the stereotypes against women.
“Sports such as golf will help break the bias if we all rally together as little golfers to bring up as many girls as possible to play golf and good golf at that,” says Bernice.
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