Martha Burk is ready for the next phase of her mission to get a
female member into Augusta National.
Burk hopes to resume her campaign within two weeks, targeting
corporate leaders who are members of the all-male golf club that
hosts The Masters, she said Sunday from Atlanta.
Burk, head of the National Council of Women's Organizations,
hopes to set up individual meetings to urge them to take a stand
against what she considers sex discrimination at Augusta National.
''The club needs to open its doors to women, but the larger
goal, and it has been for months, has always been to make sex
discrimination as unacceptable in the halls of power as race
discrimination is,'' Burk said.
''If it were a race issue, the corporations would not have
stonewalled for eight months. We have to elevate sex discrimination
to the same level of scrutiny.''
Burk called her protest at Augusta National on Saturday a
success because ''the American people heard our message,'' even
though the turnout was small and protesters were confined to a
vacant lot where club members could not see them.
Burk said the next phase is a ''corporate accountability
campaign,'' which she insists could be even more effective now that
it appears the club doesn't plan to admit a female member any time
soon.
''I don't think they can remain silent any longer,'' she said,
referring to club members. ''The choice is too stark.''
And Burk plans to keep fighting, no matter how long it takes to
achieve her goal.
''We're prepared to not only keep going but to expand this to a
much larger discussion of corporate America's treatment of women
overall,'' she said.