Lingerie boss’s sexism battle with men-only Garrick Club
THE famously men-only Garrick Club is facing legal action over its ban on women – from the founder of a luxury underwear brand.
Emily Bendell, 39, wants to join the hallowed private club but cannot due to its policy of allowing only ‘gentlemen members’.
Oxford graduate Miss Bendell, chief executive of lingerie business Bluebella, says this is sexist and unlawful. She has instructed lawyers to seek an injunction preventing the club in Covent Garden, London, from ‘continuing to operate its discriminatory policy’.
The Garrick, which has 1,400 members, was founded in 1831. Past members have included Charles Dickens, HG Wells, JM Barrie, AA Milne, Kingsley Amis, Lord Olivier and Sir John Gielgud.
It is regarded as one of the last menonly bastions in the UK – although women guests are welcome as visitors in most parts of the club and it employs female staff. Miss Bendell, whose firm produced a Fifty Shades Of Grey underwear range to tie in with the books and films, says this means women are treated as secondclass citizens and can enter only ‘on the whim’ of a man.
In 2015, 50.5 per cent of members voted at the Garrick’s AGM in favour of allowing women to join – well short of the two-thirds needed for a rule change.
Miss Bendell, from east London, said last night: ‘I really do feel that this is a serious issue. If this was a tiny little club with five members in the middle of nowhere, then that would be one thing.
‘But this is a club in the middle of London with QCs, MPs and even Cabinet ministers as members – these are people who are running the country. We all know how important these invisible connections are, and in this case women are excluded.’
In a letter before action sent on Monday, her legal representatives claimed that, in barring female members, the Garrick is in breach of the Equality Act 2010 as its gender policy is an act of direct discrimination towards women.
It states: ‘By advertising that it is for “gentlemen only” and only allowing men to become members, the club has treated Ms Bendell, who wishes to become a member..., less favourably than it has treated or would treat a man who wished to do the same.’ It asks the Garrick to change its policy within 28 days or face court action.
The bid to admit women in 2015 won backing from members including actors Damian Lewis, Hugh Bonneville and Stephen Fry, politicians Michael Gove and Ken Clarke, and broadcasters Sir Trevor McDonald, Melvyn Bragg and Jeremy Paxman. But three former Tory MPs and 11 QCs were among those who voted against.
Supreme Court judge Baroness Hale protested about the club’s continued exclusion of women saying: ‘I regard it as quite shocking that so many of my colleagues belong to the Garrick, but they don’t see what all the fuss is about.’ She argued that judges ‘should be committed to the principle of equality for all’.
The club said in 2015 it might ‘revisit’ the issue after five years but no vote has yet been proposed. Yesterday, the Garrick said it would not be commenting.