Lawyers should be especially bothered by the Garrick Club affirming its ‘men only’ stance on membership, writes the Equal Justices Initiative.
The Garrick Club, a gentlemen’s club in London has voted against allowing women to join as members.
A motion put forward last week by former Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews to amend the club’s rules to allow women’s membership failed, receiving support from only 50.1 per cent of the members’ vote, below the two-thirds majority needed for the proposal to carry. One member freely admitted that he voted against the motion in order to preserve the ‘camaraderie’ and ‘banter’ of the all-male atmosphere in the Club.
‘Who cares?’, came the cries. ‘Let the men have their space if they want it – what does it matter?’ Some gleefully saw the vote as a poke in the eye of the ‘PC Brigade’. Others simply pointed to declining support and an aging patronage and suggested that gentlemen’s clubs like the Garrick should be left alone to be what they are – dwindling relics of the past.
So why should we care? And why should lawyers in particular be bothered by the Garrick Club affirming its ‘men only’ stance on membership?
The Garrick Club is well-known for being a forum where members of the legal profession are able to socialise and network with each other. It has been estimated that around 25 per cent of the senior judiciary holds membership at the Garrick Club, including those right at the top such as the current President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lord Neuberger. In addition to judicial representation, a number of senior legal practitioners are also members – including 11 QCs who reportedly voted against allowing women’s membership.
These men are afforded an opportunity through their membership of the club to spend time with other lawyers and members of the judiciary who may support their own professional aspirations and help them up the ranks. This is an opportunity expressly denied to women.
For a profession that still struggles with inclusion – not only in terms of gender, but also class, race, ethnicity, sexuality and disability – this has real, tangible impact on the already-dire statistics at the top.
Furthermore, by silently accepting or even supporting the vote, senior figures in the legal profession who are also Garrick Club members perpetuate the message that women in the legal profession implicitly receive every day. You are not welcome here – you can come as a guest, but full membership is the preserve of men.
This is the message sent when we see Lady Hale sitting as the first and only woman justice (as she has sat for the past 11 years) on the House of Lords and now on the UK Supreme Court. This is the message sent by only 17.3 per cent of women being part of the senior judiciary.
This is the message sent by only 12.3 per cent of QCs being women, and of 27.2 per cent of law firm partners being women.
This is the message sent in 2015, by the fact that these inequalities persist, despite more than 20 years of women graduating from law school in equal or greater numbers to their male counterparts.
Irrespective of any tangible benefit that membership of the Garrick Club offers, unquestioning association with a club that exercises such an exclusionary rule cannot be consistent with the commitment to equality and diversity that we are entitled to expect from the leaders of our profession in modern times. A useful and informative test would be for those gentlemen to ask themselves whether they would consider being members of a club which barred entry to individuals based on their race, religion or sexuality.
This is not about abolishing all affinity clubs regardless of their purpose. Some are crucial in the struggle for equality – for example, there are a number of organisations focussed on women in the profession. However, where these differ from the Garrick Club is that their aim and effect is to redress an imbalance, not expressly to perpetuate and entrench it.
As long as women are excluded from opportunity, and as long as this is seen as acceptable, they will always be knocking on the door to power from the outside, at a serious disadvantage to those men who are already inside. That is not a meritocracy – that is a fix. For the few who do manage to penetrate those upper levels, they will continue to be seen as anomalies and outsiders. One wonders whether any of those 11 QCs who voted against the motion will one day find themselves on the Bench and whether they will resent the impact of a female presence on the “banter” and “camaraderie” in the robing room.
By simply accepting the results of the vote, Garrick Club members affirm the message it sends.
The Equal Justices Initiative therefore calls upon any lawyers who are members to commit publicly to bringing about equality and diversity at all levels of the legal profession, and to drive these aims forward in the Garrick Club.
Alternatively, we call on them to distance themselves from the message sent by the vote last week by renouncing their membership until the position changes.
The Equal Justices Initiative is an organisation with the aim of promoting the equal participation of men and women in the judiciary in England and Wales by 2015.
Oh dear…what a sadly illiberal idea: seeking to prevent men acting entirely lawfully without suggesting for a second any reciprocity from members of women-only clubs. It’s one thing to suggest abandoning the right for single-sex clubs to exist on the ground of equality and quite another to single out one men-only club.
How specious and feeble to suggest that women-only clubs justify their existence by being ‘crucial to the struggle for equality’ but that the Garrick seeks to perpetuate that imbalance.
If I was feeling mischievous I might suggest that this attack looks a lot like cyber-bullying but I know a number of the signatories and I can be confident that was not the intent: however I suggest they consider that appearances might be to the contrary.
Surely the reality is that some women want an opportunity enjoy the company of other women and some men want to enjoy the company of other men. That sounds like equality to me.
Anyway the old saw that women who seek equality with men lack ambition clearly applies.
Very well-said.
What a ridiculous argument, Mr Levinson. Following that logic, there is no place for any affinity group that campaigns for equality. Presumably you would not argue – for example – that there was no justification for the NAACP in the fight against segregation and the “separate but equal” doctrine in the US (which was of course far from equal due to an imbalance of power). Presumably you would not argue that they should have just accepted that “some white people want to enjoy the company of other white people”? It doesn’t sound quite right when you substitute the words, does it?
The old saw is missing a few teeth, ol boy.
A woman’s ambition may actually exceed a man’s, but as long as she is never allowed to reach parity (aside from the few who fight their way through the cracks), we may never know how far she can go past her peniled brethren.
Interesting article by the Equal Justices Initiative; a body seeking equal participation by men and women in the judiciary but itself having an Executive Committee of 11 women and only 1 man.
This is ridiculous. If men want to have a men-only club, why shouldn’t they? Women have women-only clubs and societies, but nobody bats an eyelid. Or should we be outraged that I cannot go to the women-only sessions at my local gym?
The commenter who compared this to racial segregation in the United States seems to be stretching the comparison a little too far. First, this is not based on racism (or, I would suggest, a damaging form of sexism). Women are not being denied the opportunity to network anywhere, merely at this particular club. Second, this club is self-contained, whereas racial segregation applied to all walks of life and affected many basic needs (or, as our American friends would put it, liberties). I would suggest that women, perfectly capable as they are, should be able to find the same opportunities that other men who are not members of the club do.
Mr Levinson speaks a good deal of sense. This is an argument over nothing and I suggest a result of the more radical feminists who are seeking positive discrimination, as opposed to the main body of feminists seeking equality and, more importantly, freedom. This is not an example of inequality, merely an example of freedom of association and freedom of choice.
I don’t know, but I guess the EJI is open to male membership and for men to stand for the executive, so it is not an exclusive body. How desperate the sexists are to find a justification. Cut them off from your social circle – men that boast about voting this way at the Garrick, Lords – I was going to say ‘etc’ but there are hardly any others; tax lawyers; UKIP supporters … Deny them the oxygen of social approval. Let’s face it, no-one’s falling over themselves to join the Garrick to get on in the law.
To be clear, the comparison was not between the Garrick Club and racial segregation – the point was that affinity clubs campaigning for equality are highly necessary when there is an imbalance (as Mr Levinson would no doubt agree in that case).
The commentator at 16-Jul-2015 5:38 pm suggesting (without any apparent irony) that this is about positive discrimination in favour of women when talking about an all male club that allows senior male members of the profession to network and petition each other is staggering.
So lets look at this another way the poor dears really are so without skill they would not get on any other way. So exploit their ignorance where it hurts most. What happens if the cross dresser or those under going a sex change wish to join? Oh come on have some fun with this one.