The real reasons gentlemen don't want women to join their men-only clubs

As the Travellers Club, an historic private gentlemen's club endorsed by the Duke of Edinburgh, votes against permitting women to join its ranks, Radhika Sanghani talks to its members about their real fears of a female invasion: dolly birds and crèches

By Radhika Sanghani 3:28PM BST 10 Apr 2014

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My Fair Lady, set in the early 1900s, at a time when gentlemen's clubs were booming Photo: Alamy


Private gentlemen’s clubs are known for being exactly that: private and full of gentlemen. The whole concept is very 19th century – which is when most of them were founded of course – but two centuries and several suffragettes later, it looks like nothing much in that world is going to change.
Especially at the Travellers Club, in Pall Mall.

Its members were asked to finally put the ‘women’s issue’ to rest by voting on whether they wanted to permit female members to the club. A surprisingly large 40 per cent said yes, but they failed to win a majority, with the remaining 60 per cent voting no. Us pesky women will still only be allowed to attend the club as guests of male members.

The reasons for women's continued exclusion that crop up in the whopping 8,000 word report on the matter, commissioned by chairman Anthony Layden (just so you get an idea of the clientele, he is the former British ambassador to Morocco and Libya), are nothing if not mind-blowing.

One member wrote of his avid fear of letting women in: “The male congeniality of the bar and [smoking room] would be destroyed. Hen parties would appear and shrill voices be heard.”
Good god – shrill voices? I say, shall we ban women from the entire capital?!

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819, and has the Duke of Edinburgh as a patron

Another concerned member said: “My experience of the club table at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, where one does unfortunately encounter lady members, is that their presence leads to very different and far less enjoyable themes of conversation.”

Raising the children perhaps? Gender inequality and sexism? Oh, I’m sure this gentleman wouldn’t know about anything of the sort. He’s probably just frightened the ladies will spend all night discussing periods and lipstick.

But, apart from shrill voices, hen dos and girl talk, why is it that these gentlemen don’t want women to join their ranks? Is it because of old-fashioned, unfounded and sexist fears – or do they have some legitimate reasons for wanting their single-sex space?

I decided to track a few members down and ask them. One man, who’ll I refer to as Mr X because the first rule of the Travellers Club seems to be that you do not talk about the Travellers Club (a funny paradox for such garrulous men), tells me the main reason is: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

Mr X didn’t vote on the motion, because he wasn’t actually aware it was happening (“we can’t all read those long emails”), but when he found out about it, he was “rather amused”. To him, letting female members in isn’t really much of an issue.

After all, he tells me: “It works perfectly – why change this? Keep the status quo.” I can almost hear his white male companions nodding ‘hear hear’ behind him. But to Mr X, who joined the Travellers around 30 years ago, it just doesn’t make sense to have female members.

He doesn’t know what the exact problem would be – he “can’t put [his] finger on what would change” – but he does know that something would. He eventually clarifies: “It’s about congeniality. It wouldn’t be acutely different but a bit different.”

Ladies' etiquette

For example, he tells me that not everyone “minds their Ps and Qs and doesn’t swear” at the club, and if there were “ladies present”, that would have to change. A quote in the report backs this up, as a member says he likes not "having to bother with the etiquette that one inevitably must adhere to in female company (whether it be offering her drinks, waiting for her to eat, or standing when she arrives or leaves)”.

It doesn’t occur to either gentlemen that said lady might be too busy buying her own drinks to even notice if they’re standing or not. But, another member who I’ll label Mr Z, tells me that there are far deeper fears than having to be permanently polite. Even though he would have been one of the few men to vote in favour of female members had he seen the email, he explains to me his fellow members’ real fears.

What if, he says, the Travellers followed in the footsteps of the In & Out (Naval and Military Club) in St. James’ Park? The latter club allowed women to join as members, and after a while, found itself creating a crèche for the mini members.

“It’s a slippery slope,” Mr Z tells me darkly.

Of course, it doesn’t seem to occur to the gentlemen at the Travellers that someone is taking care of their children as they settle down to drink in their own giant private male crèche. But Mr Z tells me that his wife actually likes him going to an all-male club because that way she knows there’ll be lots of “old farts” and no “dolly birds” to worry about.


Single-sex clubs

Mr X, however, knows some women who don’t feel that way. “I know a lot of girls who don’t like the idea of going to clubs where they can’t be full members,” he says, “but there is the Athenaeum next door.” Note: The Athenaeum permits both male and female members.

If that doesn't appeal, he says, they can go to their own clubs. He says: “You can have equality in all sorts of professional areas but I don’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be all-male clubs or all-female clubs if you want them. They’re just places you go to to enjoy yourself.”

Perhaps there is something in that. Kylie O’Brien, The Telegraph’s Weekend Editor, who is a member of women’s-only The University Women's Club, tells me: “I have to say, not having men around is really relaxing. It’s nice to be with your own kind. It’s rather warm and welcoming. I think that’s how men feel together. There’s a kind of sympathy together. I think it’s a good thing.”

She thinks it makes sense for men and women to have their own space, and cannot “see what prize there is for women to be gained” in becoming members at gentlemen’s clubs. In that respect, she agrees with Mr X and co, but when I tell her what they think about women’s “shrill voices” and the “slippery slope”, she replies tartly: “Well, if that’s how men really feel, they’re better off on their own.” Hear hear.