Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
H.Are exclusively male clubs still raison d’etre in 2022?
A parliamentary question recently raised the issue by pointing the finger at those affiliated with sports federations. Like the Aniene Rowing Club, founded in 1892, which for twenty years, until 2017, was chaired by Giovanni Malagò, now honorary president.
The regulation also admitted women among the members, as long as they are Olympic athletes.
Gentlemen’s clubs were born in England in the eighteenth century as meeting places for people of high rank and, in the following century, with the advent of the bourgeoisie, of wealthy people. And yes, they are born with the characteristic of being reserved for men.
At the time the question did not cause scandal or perplexity: even in the most apparently disengaged circles, whether they were hunting or chess, what was done was to weave social relations useful for business or, in any case, for one’s social positioning. And since politics and economics were the prerogative of men at the time, clubs were just for them.
There was also a second practical reason why they were: in circles the men held a relaxed demeanor that they could not have had in the presence of women.
They smoked, drank, made explicit arguments. All things known and well represented in that scene de My Africa in which the writer Karen Blixen dares to enter a men’s club to the amazement of those present, then finding a welcome there for her merits as an entrepreneur on African soil.
Which should make us think: the political and economic life of the country today is made up of men and women. It is not only anachronistic but also self-injurious to leave the affairs of women out of the parlors.
The second reason relates to customs, which have changed: men and women share the same way of relaxing, which also includes looser and more convivial languages. Which is what women experience daily in the workplace …
There is therefore no reason to keep these circles closed to the ladies. Unless doing so guarantees these clubs the only reason they can call themselves “exclusive”.
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