Martha Burk

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Martha Burk (b October 18, 1941 in Tyler, Texas) is a political psychologist, feminist, and head of the National Council of Women's Organizations who led a protest at the 2003 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia to bring attention to the male-only membership rules of the Augusta National Golf Club, which hosted it. Burk attracted national media attention for a few months, drawing mention in 100 New York Times articles and a cumulative 4,424 stories in major U.S. newspapers and magazines between Sept. 1, 2002, and March 1, 2003. Even so, her actual protest fizzled, as only about 40 people joined her in a vacant lot far from the country club, compared to about twice as many police officers who'd been brought in to control the anticipated crowd. Burk was thus unsuccessful in changing the policy or and convincing heads of the Fortune 500 corporations who are members to resign, and the media quickly moved on to other stories. Burk currently runs the Corporate Accountability Project for the National Council of Women's Organizations, is a syndicated columnist, and serves as Money Editor for Ms. Magazine. Burk is author of Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It, published by Scribner in 2005.