Women don’t want women-only clubs

00:00 05:39

Rachel Johnson has narrated this article for you to listen to.

In my experience, men offer this infuriating comeback when challenged about the continuing exclusion of women from clubs such as the Garrick (for now at least – the Garrick is voting on 7 May on the admission of women as members). ‘But why don’t you set up your own women-only clubs,’ they sulk, ‘and leave us alone?’

My interlocutors are often members of not one but multiple men-only clubs. My husband, father and brothers, for example, frequent a combination of White’s, the Beefsteak, Pratt’s (men-only until last year) and the Garrick. Two of my siblings à l’époque graced the Bullingdon at Oxford.

As I recall, I had my own wedding reception at the Savile, so I’ve never condemned their patronage of these establishments and enjoy my occasional visits, even though they can make me feel like a toddler on a school trip. It will pass without incident only so long as I don’t sit at the wrong table, use the wrong staircase or look too tarty/tatty to pass muster at the bar (at which I can’t place an order).

In fact, I almost respect men I’ve spoken to for articulating, in this hostile environment, any objections to the imminent prospect of the monstrous regiment of women storming one of the last citadels of the château-bottled patriarchy: clubland.

Nobody gives up power lightly. I can see why penis-owners of a certain vintage cherish their comfortable place in town where they can read the Daily Telegraph in a wing-backed leather armchair, entertain a friend over Dover sole or gulp a glass of Sancerre before the theatre. The fact that these clubs are full of powerful and important men – apparently – is not my main objection to them either.