In Britain recently there has been a confected show of outrage at the fact that an old club called the Garrick has for many years refused to admit women. When a woman pointed this out in the press, all sorts of portly men in the public eye who have belonged to the club for decades decried the discrimination in unison. In doing so, they demonstrated they were either utter hypocrites or total fools who had never realised the absence of women about the place was due to the club's strict rules.
Personally I'd be far happier to know my husband was having fun in a club that was entirely male. I wouldn't have to worry that some ambitious high-flying female, realising suddenly that she is 41 and needs a husband fast if she is to achieve the item on her bucket list called having a baby, may be doing her best to prise him from our marriage.
But I am just irredeemably conservative on all subjects. I realised this once and for all when I saw this item about Morris dancing becoming dominated by women and felt extremely sad. I am a woman - I ought to be pleased my own sex can participate in things previously closed to us, but I'm not. I hate it.
To show that even I can, if I really try, go against the grain of my hatred of novelty, I will use a newly minted phrase that I loathe so much it almost makes me sick:
"My bad."
I have never seen an all-male group of Morris dancers. Or, to put it more plainly, the only group of Morris dancers I ever saw included women.
ReplyDeleteMy notion of clubs is mostly Groucho Marx's: why join one with standards low enough to admit me?
Originally Morris dancers were known as Morris Men. When a tradition that already seems silly is being upheld, my feeling is that it should be upheld strictly if it is to be taken seriously. ZMKC
Delete