The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Men-only clubs reflect a natural human desire
Everyone, whether you’re a young male fogey or a female hockey player, needs a space to relax in with people who are just like you
Ponder the excitable young male fogies hovering at the tendrils of the Garrick Club. Desperate for entry to this 19th-century institution in the heart of London’s West End, chomping at the bit for membership, their blood is up because a couple of spaces have appeared. Normally, with membership bursting at the seams at around 1,300, it’s an agonising wait for a few of the oldies to fall off their perches, or others to go broke and resign because they can’t pay their bar bills. Then, like a car parking space becoming free at Waitrose, it’s an unfeasibly polite, through gritted teeth, rush to bag the space.
But not this time: modern scandal has wrapped around a few members and they’ve quit. The outrage? The revelation that they’re actually members. And not members of some death cult, but simply an old building with a grand staircase, elegant bars and dining rooms, where the walls are adorned with fine paintings, ceilings hang with chandeliers, and whose members hold the privilege of being able to wear a pale pink and green silk tie and who all share one vital statistic: they are men.
Hence the scandal. This week The Guardian revelled in its scoop of obtaining a list of members and in due course various of those members folded up their ties and cleared their tabs in the Irving Bar for the last time.
The concept of the male-only club in today’s world is viewed by the Left as holding less intellectual rationale than terrorism. Out trooped the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, and head of the Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Moore. Bored journos from across the spectrum can now chunter their way down the list and, cheered on by politicians who find this stuff more entertaining than fixing potholes, can press other members into resigning.
Membership of an all-male club is apparently incongruous in an age of equality. Case defended his former membership thus: “If you believe profoundly in reform of an institution, by and large it’s easier to do if you join it.” He added: “I’m very sure I speak on behalf of all the public servants who have recently joined the Garrick under the banner of trying to make reform happen.”
To which I would say, if you believe profoundly in that, you’ll believe anything. What those “public servants” were most looking forward to when the memberships were approved was not the chance to effect societal change by tearing down one of the last bastions of chauvinism, but a good lunch, in wonderful surroundings, and some fun.
And, anyway, that central charge of archaic, sexist exclusion is nonsense.
Firstly, because of the idea that there is something wrong with men wanting to be in the company of other men.
It is possible to be a decent, male member of society – who champions equal opportunities in the workplace, changes nappies, generally strives to be a domestic god and is ( joyfully) surrounded by women and small children at home – and, at the same time, enjoy a lunch with the boys. In the same way that others might want to hang out at the golf club, or in the snooker room. Or similarly how members of the LGBTQ+ community might wish to hang out in a club or bar or pub with their folk, or players in an all-female hockey team might wish to spend an evening with each other sipping champagne in a hot tub.
Humans are tribal, gravitating towards those they talk, look, act, feel and sound like. That is not incongruous with supporting positive discrimination in society, and promoting the visualisation of minorities in fashion, policing or politics.
The mantra of the all-male gents’ club is fun. It is there for relaxation and enjoyment in pleasant surroundings, which suits members who like to grab hold of a dash of old-fashioned formality by donning a jacket and a collared shirt.
And don’t fret that these institutions are somehow secret cabals pulling the strings of world events. If there’s one rule at these clubs, it’s no business. That means no signing of documents, no tapping at the laptop, no convening of colleagues, no entertaining of clients, no chatting on the mobile. Any prospective member suspected of wishing to use the club to further their career or business is swiftly removed from the books.
Once in a blue moon, to celebrate a new sovereign, for example, the rules might lapse and in come the ladies. Members proudly give them a good time, they enjoy themselves and leave sure as hell that they do not want to join.
So let’s stay tribal and decent and respect people who, seeking sojourn from the rigours of life, have the freedom to choose whose company they keep. And if, for some reason, you still can’t handle that, then just buzz off and form your own damn club.