The girly-men at the New York Times and a perpetually aggrieved feminist you’ve never heard of finally got what they wanted.

In August, Augusta National Country Club, home of the storied Masters Tournament, finally admitted two women: Condoleezza Rice, a neocon secretary of state under President George W. Bush, and the fetching Darla Moore, a mistress of high finance.  Yet another citadel of the heterogametes has fallen.

When the admission of Ladies Rice and Moore was announced, Martha Burk, who with the New York Times mounted the  campaign to admit women a decade ago, opined thusly: “We won.  It’s about 10 years too late for the boys to come into the 20th century, never mind the 21st century.  But it’s a milestone for women in business.”

Having published nearly 100 articles on Burk’s failed effort, the Times editorial page twisted its brassiere into a ball and hurled it to the floor: “Excuse our lack of enthusiasm for a decision to do the right thing a few generations too late. . . . Augusta National, which added its first black member in 1990, has missed lots of chances to broaden and diversify its membership.  Now, with two women in the club, it has finally reached the point of gender tokenism.”

Madame Burk and the Times shouldn’t kid themselves.  Admitting women to Augusta doesn’t help women in business.  Moore, for whom the business school at the University of South Carolina is named, didn’t need to don Augusta’s green blazer to dust the men in her line of work.  Membership in Augusta is a prize on reaching the top, not a step on the ladder on the way up.  So why did Burk and her suffragettes stand in the rain outside Augusta’s gates, and why did the Times become their publicity wing?  Granted, the Times was reliving the glory days of shilling for the civil-rights movement, but one was hard-pressed to see the national import of women at Augusta.

Burk and the Times had no real grievance.  What exercised the two old biddies was hearing the word no.  It was discovering that some things are simply forbidden to women, that a door still stood through which they could not pass.  Figuratively, it was a rudely painted sign on the treehouse: “No Girls!”  Those many years ago, when then-Chairman Hootie Johnson observed that other organizations forbid members of the opposite sex, and that “we all have a moral and legal right to organize our clubs the way we wish,” and that Augusta would not change its policies “at the point of a bayonet,” Burk and the sisterhood dug in their heels.  Augusta’s rights mean nothing, harped the harpies.  Their tacit corollary?  Ours do.

Perhaps more than any other word, no sends mod run wymyn into blind, snarling rage.  To be fair, the word sends many modern men into estrogenous tantrums, albeit less furious.  But women are particularly given to hysterics and histrionics when the monosyllabic negative jolts the auditory nerve.  It’s been a long time, after all, since any man—other than the pope on the subject of priestesses—has uttered it.

The most notable example of refusing to tell a woman no?  Against all common sense and moral propriety, the bemedaled flag officers of the Pentagon put women on the front lines and turned the military into a social-services agency.  Burk conscripted Pentagon policy to make her point.

Augusta couldn’t hang on forever.  But Condi and Darla at Augusta means precisely nothing for the average woman.  The club has about 300 members, and even if membership doubles to bring women into “parity,” nothing changes.  Augusta is invitation only; its members are the richest of the rich.  It is noted for two things: the golf course—conceived by a Southern gentleman and Renaissance man, Bobby Jones—and the Masters.

To some degree, the rage against Augusta also goes back to this provenance.  Jones’ stately masterpiece of landscaping, architecture, and golf-course design is a revenant of the Old South.  Time was, the most prestigious blacks at Augusta were loopers.  They began walking through the front door as members, the Times just had to observe, only two decades ago.

Now the wymyn can, too.