What do Benedict Cumberbatch, King Charles, and Michael Gove have in common? They’re all members of a men-only “retirement home that serves fine wine”. This week, the Garrick Club has come into the spotlight as an elite institution that bars women. On 18 March, The Guardian published a previously secret list of its all-male members, reigniting controversy over the merit and very existence of gentlemen’s clubs. The chief of MI6 Richard Moore and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case both left the club on Wednesday in response. But even the most cursory glance at the history of gentlemen’s clubs and similar institutions will tell you: the problem lies too deep to be solved by a simple opt-out––or by admitting women.
It’s amusing to picture Succession co-stars and Garrick members Brian Cox and Matthew Macfadyen sipping their Spätburgunder off-screen as much as on-screen — distinguishing themselves, in the words of Macfadyen’s character Tom Wambsgans, from “the weekend Malbec morons”. But there is a more serious problem with clubs, and the fact that the Garrick excludes women is only a part of it. Indeed, private clubs exclude far more than “just” 51 percent of the population –– a sense of exceptionality, rarity, refinement, is their very essence. It’s what creates and reaffirms entitlement to be in power, since the social capital that produces that power is supposed to be based on merit and “greatness.”
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