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Back to the Future: The Persistence of Single-Sex Clubs

What’s past is prologue.

–William Shakespeare, The Tempest

In President Harry S. Truman’s experience, the lessons of the past were too often neglected. “The only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know,” he warned. What has gone before not only sets the context for the present, it also offers useful clues as to how the future may unfold.

The private club is a coin with two sides: inclusion and exclusion. The desire to freely and privately associate with a group of people is the essential organizing principle of a club. This freedom of association is closely linked with the American identity and its core values, which have historically elevated such rights as liberty and the pursuit of happiness. On the one hand, there is the individual’s right to do as he or she pleases: to join or to leave. On the other hand, there is a recognized and established right of a private association to accept or decline membership based on certain criteria of its own determination.

For the most part, the system works. People seek membership in clubs to which they are well suited—by geography, by lifestyle, and, yes, sometimes gender can be important or even determinative. But the selection process is a necessary sorting and evaluating that will give the club its distinctive character and will provide present and future members with assurances that the club and its essential nature is being preserved, protected and promoted.

The present moment offers us a situation in which we can take Truman’s history lesson to heart. Clubs, over time, have been less likely to be institutions of privilege and exclusion, and more likely to serve society by joining groups of people. Furthermore, the process is all the more remarkable for its adaptability and broad application to a social context that is inevitably changing. Clubs provide us with the resources and support we need to navigate the various cross-cutting currents and successfully cope with change.

Clubs gained widespread popularity and expansion in 18th and 19th century London. At first, these clubs were largely the preserve of aristocratic men. But the idea of the club rapidly morphed to include members beyond the elite and beyond the rich and, notably, beyond just men.

The Victorian Era in England was a time of growing social mobility. With greater participation in work, politics and social reform, more and more people sought voluntary associations, and thus a variety of new and different clubs were offered to more and more segments of the population.

Women’s right to vote was an issue of the day and, more generally, women were actively seeking influence beyond their traditional domestic roles. Like the so-called Gentlemen’s Club of London, the first women’s clubs were typically reserved for women with a claim to elite status. Despite these women-only clubs, they had limited popularity. However, these clubs serve as key examples as to the gradually expanding role of women.  

New clubs popped up to provide them with good choices. Some of the early clubs did have a career or professional orientation. These included the Women Journalists’ Club and the Pioneer Club. Amy Milne-Smith, a Canadian academic and author of London Clubland: A Cultural History of Gender and Class in Late Victorian Britain, states that these clubs “tended to be professional networking sites, and sites for women with careers who needed a place to work in London, and to connect.”

Sound familiar? It should. The club world has always moved alongside the changes and trends that have transformed society. And, as the role of women and the power they wield with the assumption of new responsibilities has increased and broadened, clubs have adjusted. The change is mirrored in both subtle and dramatic changes in – and the list is lengthy – who gets targeted for club membership, what services and facilities the club offers, and how the club get operated, managed and governed. 

Since the dramatic expansion of women’s rights have come significant increases in women’s labor force participation as well as their visible movement into positions of leadership in politics and business. Women continue to expand their numbers and influence in education, the arts and entertainment as unquestioned arbiters of culture and social mores.

Clubs are not just bending to accommodate the preferences and tastes of women, many clubs—some historic, but many representing a new type of club—are principally and primarily women’s clubs.

A survey of the current scene would include these examples:

AllBright. Founded in London, and now established in Los Angeles, Allbright has been characterized by its founder this way: “If Soho House and WeWork had an enlightened feminist baby, it would be us.” The name is a tip of the hat to former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, who said that “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

The club is intended to aid women who are focused on new approaches to career and professional development with its signature style of women-helping-women.

Chief. This club defines itself as “a private network of powerful women.”  These women have taken the “Old Boys’ Club” and coopted it.

Wing. Again, this club franchise is aimed at providing career success with a useful and female-focused social backdrop that is both supportive and fun.

The Jane Club. This “matriarchal oasis” takes its name from social worker Jane Addams. Less focused on women’s work roles in favor of creating “an environment of whole care for women” – something especially appreciated by working moms. Its LA clubhouse has several stress-reducing outdoor spaces, child care and fitness classes. Amenities that pamper, too: hair salon, Botox touch-up, physical exams and car washes!

Marguerite. This club is centered in London but doesn’t have a physical clubhouse. It does, however, have a full program of speakers and other programs for women. The membership is targeted to “female art world professionals who work across art, design, fashion and photography and share a strong desire to lift each other up.” Like Allbright and Jane, this club takes its name from a famous woman: Marguerite “Peggy” Guggenheim, herself a generous supporter of the arts.

The same, but different

In 2011, Ilene Lang, then the president and CEO of Catalyst, a nonprofit focused on expanding opportunities for women and business, wrote a call-to-action in the Harvard Business Review entitled “Co-opt the Old Boys’ Club: Make It Work for Women.” She caused quite a stir when she urged men – especially C-suite executives – to bring women into the so-called Old Boys’ Club. One wonders what she might think today to see so many all-women’s clubs springing up, and many with the express mission to support, mentor and accelerate the progress of women. She’d be encouraged by this positive trend, we suspect. The adaptability of the club concept, it seems, is capable of demonstrating itself in surprising ways. The old adage that a woman’s work is never done perhaps takes on new meaning as it works to usher in new institutions and possibilities.

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