Why I’m breaking the Garrick Club’s omerta over its exclusion of women

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/09/garrick-club-exclusion-women-london

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We’re not, as members, meant to talk about what happens at the Garrick Club. Let alone write about it in a newspaper. What happens at the Garrick stays in the Garrick. But sometimes there’s a moral imperative to break our omerta.

Thanks to a couple of clowns – and by and large, being a jolly place, the Garrick likes its clowns – the Garrick has had a terrible week. We are damaged goods. We’re not Freemasons (well, I suspect some of us are, actually, but that’s not why we’re bound to secrecy) so there are times when we can and should come clean. This is one of those times. And, in any event, it’s a fantasy to pretend that what went on at the annual meeting at the Palace Theatre on Monday did not reach the Guardian’s (female) reporter outside within seconds of the chairman’s conclusion of business.

Related: Garrick Club votes to continue with ban on female members

The Garrick voted by a narrow majority to accept female members, but the requisite 66% majority was not reached, so the resolution failed. The portrayal that has, understandably, emerged is of a bunch of misogynistic old dinosaurs taken on by a ginger group of bleeding-heart liberals. For those who know and love the Garrick for its lack of clubby pretensions, this isn’t what it’s like at all. Or it shouldn’t be.

There were perfectly reasonable arguments on both sides of the debate. For the traditionalists, there is every justification for a same-sex sanctuary with dozens of available, alternative places offering female company and some even offering female-only membership. I have heard feminists concur with this view.

For the progressives, in whose ranks I include myself, we’re the poorer for not having women members who are at the top of their professional and social game and we actually lose good, young male members too as a consequence .

An engaging debate to have, you might say. Our problems came with a couple of mean-spirited, ad hominem speeches at the AGM which directly attacked the integrity of Bob Marshall-Andrews, the Labour parliamentarian who brought the women members resolution (and the only name that will appear in this article). These attacks were so ill-judged that they defeated their own purpose. You could hear reasonable traditionalists abandoning their cause in disgust. So the rich irony is that the women’s lobby may not have reached its slender majority without these contributions from the antis.

The club has always prided itself – really – on its diversity. It can be stuffy and old, but it’s not like other clubs

That’s not just my view. A kind of Garrick intranet has over the past few days built an uncharacteristic head of steam. There is widespread talk of resignations: those (voluntary) of depressed members who want to found a rival club; and those (involuntary) demanded of speakers who were deemed to have behaved unclubbably. The Garrick has been committing suicide over the past few days, both reputationally and as an institution.

It shouldn’t be. The club has always prided itself – really – on its diversity. Yes, it can be stuffy and old, but it’s not like other clubs. It’s funny and energetic and evergreen. It laughs at itself and at establishments. It embraces the broadest political spectrum and engages in good-natured argument across it. It’s a sanctuary, not from women (there are always plenty of women guests there these days), but from pomposity. But all that can be put at risk by the bad blood has been coursing through some veins since Monday’s debate.

In that respect, I’m reminded of another venerable institution of which I’m a member, which suffered the same reputational fate over the past few years over the same issue: what to do about women. It’s the Church of England, in which I’m a rural and part-time vicar. The Garrick could learn from it, because women as equal guests was its “ordination” moment and women as members is its “bishops” moment (and, funnily enough, the General Synod needed a two-thirds majority too).

Related: Church of England votes against allowing women bishops

The club could learn that women are made as much in God’s image as men, but that’s not really my point. It could learn that women as priests have enriched the church, not threatened it, and that traditionalists now wonder what all the fuss was about anyway, but that’s not my point either. And those are not my points because others may take a different view.

My point is that those who opposed them also accepted that women bishops were inevitable, just as most Garrick members accept that women members are inevitable. The difference is that church traditionalists decided in the end, albeit belatedly, to vote with progressives because they knew we should act together, rather than as the consequence of eventual defeat in a vote. It was an act of creativity, of good faith and, at the risk of sounding like a vicar, of love. Those are qualities the Garrick should have in abundance. But it can’t have them so long as it excludes half the human race, who look on bewildered and hurt, whether they want to join or not.

It’s really about generosity of spirit. It’s what the Garrick should be good at, and usually is. We need to win back our capacity to love, because we’re in danger of losing it along with our soul. And that’s beyond sad.