{"id":10784,"date":"2024-03-27T05:24:49","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T05:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/27\/inside-the-garrick-the-elite-men-only-london-club-rocked-by-criticism\/"},"modified":"2024-03-27T05:24:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T05:24:49","slug":"inside-the-garrick-the-elite-men-only-london-club-rocked-by-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/27\/inside-the-garrick-the-elite-men-only-london-club-rocked-by-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Garrick, the Elite Men-Only London Club Rocked by Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/23\/multimedia\/23uk-garrick-club-ctwg\/23uk-garrick-club-ctwg-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Inside the Garrick, the Elite Men-Only London Club Rocked by Criticism\" title=\"Inside the Garrick, the Elite Men-Only London Club Rocked by Criticism\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On a side street in Covent Garden stands an imposing palazzo-style building, strangely out of place amid the burger joints and neon marquees of London\u2019s theater district. It houses the Garrick Club, one of Britain\u2019s oldest men\u2019s clubs, and on any given weekday, a lunch table in its baronial dining room is one of the hottest tickets in town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A visitor lucky enough to cadge an invitation from a member might end up in the company of a Supreme Court justice, the master of an Oxford college or the editor of a London newspaper. The odds are that person would be a man. Women are excluded from membership in the Garrick and permitted only as guests, a long-simmering source of tension that has recently erupted into a full-blown furor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After The Guardian, a London newspaper, put a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2024\/mar\/18\/garrick-club-men-only-members-list-roll-call-british-establishment\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">fresh spotlight<\/a> on the Garrick\u2019s men-only policy, naming and shaming some of its rarefied members from a leaked membership list, two senior British government officials resigned from the club: Richard Moore, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/people\/simon-case\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Simon Case<\/a>, the cabinet secretary, who oversees nearly half a million public employees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Only days earlier, under questioning at a Parliamentary hearing, Mr. Case defended his membership by saying he was trying to reform an \u201cantediluvian\u201d institution from within rather \u201cthan chuck rocks from the outside,\u201d a line that provoked derisory laughs. Mr. Moore\u2019s membership seemed at odds with his efforts to bring more racial and gender diversity to the British spy agency, known as MI6.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, the club\u2019s 1,300 members are debating the future of the Garrick over lamb chops in the dining room, after-dinner drinks in the lounge under the main staircase and in a WhatsApp group, where they swap fretful messages about the latest developments. Some welcome the pressure to admit women as long overdue; others lament that doing so would forever change the character of the place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Garrick Club has an absolute right to decide who its members are,\u201d said Simon Jenkins, a columnist at The Guardian and a former editor of The Times of London who is a longtime member. \u201cThat said, it is indefensible for any social club these days not to have women as members.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cJudi Dench, for God\u2019s sake \u2014 why shouldn\u2019t she be a member?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Or Jude Kelly, an award-winning former theater director. Ms. Kelly, who now runs the charity Women of the World, said that excluding women from membership in the Garrick deprived them of access to an elite social circle where professional opportunities inevitably flowed with the brandy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019re in 2024,\u201d Ms. Kelly said. \u201cThese are incredibly senior people. Many of them are espousing diversity and inclusion in their professional lives. Being on the inside for a long time makes you complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Garrick Club is not the only private club in London that does not admit women: White\u2019s, Boodle\u2019s, the Beefsteak Club and the Savile Club are also men only. But what makes the Garrick is unique is its star-studded membership list, which ranges across the worlds of politics, law, arts, theater, and journalism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Members, based on The Guardian\u2019s leaked list, include the actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Brian Cox and Stephen Fry; Mark Knopfler, the guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits; Paul Smith, the fashion designer; the BBC correspondent John Simpson; Oliver Dowden, Britain\u2019s deputy prime minister; and, yes, King Charles III (on an honorary basis).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The boldfaced names have lent the dispute extra piquancy, especially since many of them would seem the kind of bien-pensant progressives who would abhor any kind of discriminatory policy. Indeed, Mr. Cox, Mr. Fry and Mr. Simpson are among those who have come out publicly in favor of admitting women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The last time the members voted on the question, in 2015, a slender majority \u2014 50.5 percent \u2014 said they supported it. But the club\u2019s bylaws require a two-thirds majority to change the policy on membership, and a new vote, if it were scheduled, would not be held until the summer. A club official declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For all the misgivings that members have about not admitting women, some predict they would still fail to reach the two-thirds threshold. The dispute has, perhaps inevitably, turned bitter, pitting a handful of committed campaigners against a larger, older group, many of whom are fine with women as guests but are reluctant to rock a boat that has sailed grandly since 1831.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In New York City, private clubs like the Union League and the Century Association began admitting women in the 1980s, often under the pressure of legal judgments. But in London, where clubs like the Garrick are more zealous about being social rather than professional networking institutions, defenders argue that the case for preserving male-only membership is more justifiable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">These members say they go to the Garrick to drink wine, unwind and enjoy themselves. They crack jokes they wouldn\u2019t make in mixed company. They are not allowed to conduct business; even pulling papers out of a briefcase is looked down upon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some dismissed it as a tempest in a teapot. Jonathan Sumption, a lawyer and former justice in the Supreme Court, said he supported the admission of women, but added that those who opposed it were entitled to their opinion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Garrick Club is not a public body and the whole issue is too unimportant to make a fuss of,\u201d Mr. Sumption said. \u201cIt is still a pretty good club.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Jenkins, the columnist, agreed, suggesting that some of the news coverage had caricatured the Garrick as a vaguely sinister place where men gather to plot against women. Women, he said, were welcome at the communal table in the dining room, perhaps the club\u2019s most hallowed place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The only room off limits to women is the members\u2019 lounge, known as Under the Stairs, where men gather after dinner. Yet, as Ms. Kelly and other women note, the most valuable relationships are often formed in such informal settings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">To that extent, the Garrick is different from White\u2019s, an even more exclusive men\u2019s club in St. James\u2019s, where Queen Elizabeth II was the only woman ever invited as a guest. When President Donald J. Trump\u2019s ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/24\/world\/europe\/woody-johnson-trump.html\" title=\"\">held lunches there<\/a> with his senior staff, he could not invite his own political counselor because she was a woman. Female employees at the embassy complained to the State Department, and he was urged to end the practice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But White\u2019s and its old-line, Conservative-friendly brethren \u201ctend to be high Tory places, where the question wouldn\u2019t arise,\u201d said Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of The Guardian, who resigned from the Garrick more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Garrick membership is more a mix of actors, journalists and lawyers,\u201d he said. \u201cThus, it\u2019s a more pertinent question.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a side street in Covent Garden stands an imposing palazzo-style building, strangely out of place amid the burger joints and neon marquees of London\u2019s theater district. It houses the Garrick Club, one of Britain\u2019s oldest men\u2019s clubs, and on any given weekday, a lunch table in its baronial dining room is one of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/23\/multimedia\/23uk-garrick-club-ctwg\/23uk-garrick-club-ctwg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1096,4762,5782,8565,7196,8564,15730],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10786,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10784\/revisions\/10786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}