Garrick Club

Yuck. Privilege squared

lol and you think those rules are abided by?

@UnaOfStormhold except in order to be invited and vetted you need to have more than just a career and money.
Nice move that women will now be able to join. Any mention of successful applicants yet or will that be kept private.

So do all clubs need to be closed and all lawyers / judges become Trappist Monks with no pastimes or hobbies? It just isn’t workable - or desirable. Instead people should disclose connections that make them too close, but simply belonging to a club with several hundred members isn’t enough

I think the primary issue isn't that it's male only but that it is an exclusive club whose members receive career benefits and opportunities not due to merit. It's obviously unfair that it excludes women, but it also excludes those who aren't wealthy or well-connected. Even if it allowed women in it wouldn't be fair.

That said I don't know how you could prevent that kind of club - I think the solution needs to be more about the way in which jobs and other opportunities are opened up more fairly. Perhaps any club member should recuse themselves from court cases or decisions on recruitment where a club member is involved in any way? I imagine that would quickly become so annoying that it might make it less attractive to be a member.

Any such person simply shouldn’t be a judge.

Since not all judges / lawyers or even more than a small percentage could belong to the same club, does this mean that judges should lead purely Trappist lifestyles with no social interaction?

Some claim there is a distinction between men and women’s spaces, because men have more influence, but that’s not workable in law. Is someone going to monitor female participation in any industry and then reverse the permissible clubs once it reaches a certain level?

Ironically, though, if clubs are forced to behave like corporate HR departments they will soon close. A private club by definition is exclusive. Forcing them to admit anyone and everyone would make them pointless.

But networking, even social networking, is hugely important in many professions. As the female lawyers say, if you’re appearing before a judge and that judge has seen you occasionally at their club, it’s going to make a huge difference to how they view you.

It’s naive to imagine that the Garrick and similar clubs aren’t largely about soft networking (and having somewhere nice to go in town).

You don’t apply to be a member, you get invited, by someone who knows you, and other members vote on it.

Simply not true. Traditional gentlemen’s clubs ban work from taking place there (some have business rooms where it is allowed), and the Athenaeum used to have a rule in centre table that people didn’t disclose who they were. The club is for R&R, not corporate networking.

I think Cath Leng may be right. It's a stunt:

https://x.com/lengcath/status/1773571713680179546?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

https://x.com/lengcath/status/1773596204934259103?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

As an aside, Wikipedia quotes this on its page defining 'tufthunter' (my new word of the day)*:

The Garrick Club is one of those snob snuggeries that abound in London. It consists, for the greater part, of comic authors, Whig journalists, tenth-rate artists, Irish and Ethiopian melodists, fast barristers, faded dandies, “unspeakable” M.P.’s, roue noblemen, impudent showmen, together with a small, miscellaneous shoal of insignificant individuals whose sole title to distinction is that they are inveterate and intense tufthunters. The Garrick has for its object the cultivation of priggism; the enabling of its members to meet for the purposes of mutual “clawing” and congratulations, and the enjoyment of cheap, fashionable dissipations.
—From Reynolds's Newspaper, 1 August 1858

*(UK, slang, archaic) A hanger-on to noblemen or persons of quality, especially in English universities; a toady.

@Startinganew07 There is no organisation solely for women that men are not invading by pretending they are women.

Is equality about getting more women in to elitist institutions - or eliminating that inequality in the first place?

😂😂😂
You think it's an accident that so many of our prime ministers are ex Bullingdon club?
That so many of our politicians are ex Eton?
Why do you think people pay through the nose for private school? Or men pay a fortune to be a member of a club like this? Of course they aren't "paying for a space away from women". They don't need that. The whole world is designed for them. So they are paying for access to a network that benefits them and will give them a return on investment. They are paying for power.

There might be more to this than meets the eye..?

https://x.com/barbararichlaw/status/1773335264800170120?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

The club is entirely legal based on the EqA, and the case is being brought on narrower grounds than the single-sex space exemption. I don't think it should be made illegal, but I fully support all efforts to allow women to join as full members. They even voted in favour of it (but a 2/3rds majority is required). It excludes women from powerful networks of influence. There is an argument that people in certain positions should exclude themselves from such envionments, and this could be enforced by professional standards bodies.

@BoudiccaOfSuburbia I'm not sure what you mean by "Championship cycling" but males have been banned from the women's category in all domestic (British Cycling) and international (UCI) racing since last year. Many other sports have enacted similar bans.

To my mind, the question is not should single sex spaces exist at all, clearly they should as the self-id debate has revealed. The question about the Garrick Club is should judges belong to an organisation that excludes women and exists to provide its members access to networking opportunities with other very powerful men? My view is that the answer is no, because as judges they must be seen as impartial- they should not support discriminatory policies nor should they be taking advantage of their status to build alliances with others in similar positions or those who want to be. This is a very different situation from the WI or a working men's club.

Women sport is not protected as a sex based space.

From the Hampstead Women’s Pond to Park Run to Championship cycling.

That’s what I would include as ‘not allowed’

@anyolddinosaur what do you mean by “women are not allowed their own equivalent clubs”? There are clubs set up by women for women (ie the All Bright, University Women’s Club, the Wing, Grace Belgravia) and, generally, women do not want men (or transwomen) to join their clubs. The all-women clubs do not (yet) have the power men’s clubs have but perhaps that is because women do not use clubs in the same way?

The Garrick club is the patriarchy in plain sight. I'm surprised that so many women on a feminist board are ok with it. Women shouldn't aspire to join the Garrick, they should burn it down.

Mens sheds dont bother me. Mens rugby /cricket/football clubs dont bother me as long as women are allowed their own equivalent clubs. At present women are not allowed any clubs of their own so for that reason I'd like to see women invade the Garrick.

There is a different problem when those in positions of power and influence who are supposed to be impartial give the appearance of misogyny. So no judge should be allowed to be a member of a club that is deliberately exclusive. Imagine if the Garrick explicitly excluded jews or black people, as some clubs used to do.

I think this article gets to the fault lines of the issue on two separate issues: should men only clubs be allowed and should judges and barristers be members
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/mar/27/lawyer-boys-club-concerns-judgment-misconduct-case

“A barrister is facing disciplinary proceedings for expressing frustration at the “echoes of a boys’ club attitude” that she claims were in a family court judgment that went against her client….Proudman suggested the judge had minimised the significance of the domestic abuse her client said she had faced at the hands of her ex-husband.
“I lost the case. I do not accept the judge’s reasoning,” she wrote. “This judgment has echoes of the ‘boys’ club’ which still exists among men in powerful positions.” “

She has now successfully challenged the judge who was due to preside over her disciplinary case to have himself replaced on the grounds that he himself is a member of the Garrick Club so cannot say that he would be free of bias.

@emilysquest there are “women only” clubs in London, modelled after historically “men’s club”. They do not wield the same power as men’s clubs mainly because they are newer and do not yet have the history nor are there sufficient senior women with time and interest to join to make them significant “power clubs”.
i personally don’t mind men’s clubs. I think they serve a purpose today different from what they did historically. Why shouldn’t men have clubs designed to suit their needs and interests just like women are seeking to have clubs that suit our needs and interests? There are plenty of clubs that accept both men and women so people can chose what they prefer. The days of jobs being handed out amongst old boy networks are over — at least as far as I can see on the various interview panels on which I have participated or which I have witnessed in recent years.