Well, I never! A membership list of the secretive men-only Garrick Club has been published for the first time ever! And guess what? It contains names of powerful, moneyed gents such as King Charles, Richard Moore, the head of MI6, Simon Case, the Cabinet secretary who was too ill to give evidence to the Covid inquiry, senior judges, many KCs, knights and CBEs, Brian Cox, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Benedict Cumberbatch (so much for leftie-liberal thespians), Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, Michael Gove, Oliver Dowden, Kwasi Kwarteng, arts and publishing supremos and sundry others who think of themselves as “the great and the good”.
Leading feminists – some friends and heroines of mine – are incandescent about these revelations. I am not. The Garrick and other male citadels will not move with the times. But why, I ask, does the sisterhood want so badly to be admitted to places that uphold exclusion and reek of snobbery? Way back in 1979, Anthony Lejeune wrote this in his book, The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London: “A good club should be a refuge from the vulgarity of the outside world, a reassuringly fixed point.” This is still the ethos of today’s private members’ clubs.
As workplaces and leisure facilities become more inclusive, the most privileged desperately seek sanctuary in elite spaces, far away from madding crowds. The businesswoman and writer, Marie Rose Connor, has looked into this weird world: “The first gentlemen’s clubs were established in the 1700s as places for the blue-blooded to let off some steam, away from the city’s increasingly filthy and overcrowded streets and outside the ostensibly more feminine domain of the home. But these were always more than places to tell dirty jokes in frock coats while knocking back a brandy or two: membership was a way to exert one’s ample social and economic capital. While a few of the surviving clubs… [allow] women and well-heeled commoners to join their enclaves of old world glamour, they nevertheless maintain a mahogany veneer of exclusivity.”
Wannabe members pay handsomely for that exclusivity, for economic and social capital. Nepotism and old school ties, though still useful, no longer work as smoothly as they once did. Uppity nobodies can now aim high and some reach places that they were previously kept out of. Exclusive clubs are the counterforce to too much undesirable democratisation.
Here’s an example of this normalised discrimination. Tom (not his real name), a young man from a dead-end seaside town, was the first in his family to get to uni. He passionately wanted to become a TV director. I met his mum at a protest march against austerity. We became friends. I helped Tom with his CV and interview skills. He applied to an indie TV company run by an acquaintance. They were impressed by his skills and quick intelligence but denied him the break he deserved. The graduate daughter of a senior TV exec was chosen instead. My contact breezily explained why: “Bright kid. Will go far. But her dad and I go way back. She knows the business.” They are both members of a club for media movers and shakers; they are from the same caste.
These clubs were once found all over the empire, beautiful places with silent, sullen servants serving too much drink and bad food. It was where white colonialists could behave badly among their own. Most are still open, still sites of snobbery and bad behaviour, only now with brown and black members with more money than sense.
So what about working men’s clubs, set up more than 150 years ago, places for solidarity, adult education and showcases for comedians and singers, some of whom went on to great success? I understand how valued they were, but many black or Asian workers felt unwelcome there often because of racist jokes being bandied about.
Funny isn’t it, how national anxiety periodically breaks out about some “segregated” communities, while private members clubs – planned, expensive places of segregation – proliferate? I oppose both and for the same reasons.
Full disclosure time: I do get taken by posh mates to their clubs and did once apply to an arty, members-only joint after a colleague told me it would be good for my career. They didn’t want me. Wise decision. These tribal enclaves are not only tedious, but an anathematic threat to individual ambition and social cohesion. So instead of abjectly wanting entry, be cool and disdain membership clubs. You are worth more than they will ever understand.
The real problem with private members' clubs
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19.03.2024
Well, I never! A membership list of the secretive men-only Garrick Club has been published for the first time ever! And guess what? It contains names of powerful, moneyed gents such as King Charles, Richard Moore, the head of MI6, Simon Case, the Cabinet secretary who was too ill to give evidence to the Covid inquiry, senior judges, many KCs, knights and CBEs, Brian Cox, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Benedict Cumberbatch (so much for leftie-liberal thespians), Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, Michael Gove, Oliver Dowden, Kwasi Kwarteng, arts and publishing supremos and sundry others who think of themselves as “the great and the good”.
Leading feminists – some friends and heroines of mine – are incandescent about these revelations. I am not. The Garrick and other male citadels will not move with the times. But why, I ask, does the sisterhood want so badly to be admitted to places that uphold exclusion and reek of snobbery? Way back in 1979, Anthony Lejeune wrote this in his book, The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London: “A good club should be a refuge from the vulgarity of the outside world, a reassuringly........
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