Page 24 - IFV Issue 9_2023

Humour

WOMAN

& CLUBS

BY JAMES CLARKE

everal years ago
Johannesburg’s Rand Club
Sdecided to allow women to use
its front entrance. Until then women
could use only the side entrance in
Fox Street. Even then, they had access
only to the restaurant. The next hurdle
was to allow women to use the grand
staircase into the heart of the club – Ring. Ring. lotharios before being dragged off for a
a staircase ironically dominated by a THRENODY, DON’T ANSWER THAT romantic interlude. (As I say, clubs have
huge portrait of the Queen. PHONE! always been important to men.)
For nearly 100 years, women had been Too late. This is why men can happily sit in a
forbidden to use those marble stairs. The I knew it. It’s the E*D*I*T*O*R. club lounge all afternoon and evening
original reason, I was told, was because Threnody (she’s my secretary y’know) and say nothing. A man can simply go
members might then be able to look up says the editor says if I carry on like this “hurrumph!” and the club steward will
their dresses. I say! I suppose this would I’ll be horse-whipped by irate women know to bring a pink gin.
have led to the slopping of drinks and readers. Women would be talking all the time
perhaps older members collapsing. about kids and clothes in that high-
But women don’t wear dresses much Maybe I should confine myself to pitched way they have.
nowadays – they wear trousers – so it discussing this new theory that women Clubmen don’t care how their fellow
won’t matter even if they slid down the invented language way back in pre- members dress – as long as they wear
banisters. historic times. It’s hardly surprising. Men a dark suit, black shoes, quiet tie and
I recall seeing, for the first time, had to stalk wild and dangerous animals non-commercial cufflinks. Nor do they
women in the club’s bar. According right up until the cow was invented and discriminate as long as members are
to a friend, some were even offering that required silence or, at most, the all male, have a similar standard of
opinions. Many old members when they occasional “Psssst!” education, speak the same language
saw this for the first time said it was the Exhausted hunters, returning home and share the same views.
end of something, I forget what. dragging a mammoth or woolly Modern women currently attacking
Today the club is no more. Anybody rhinoceros, would hardly have been in male exclusivity are displaying nothing
can now hire the magnificent old the mood to join in chatter. Womenfolk, less that the Bobbit syndrome.
building for an event. having to constantly tell their kids to eat
Men’s clubs worked well for centuries. their boiled lizards nicely, would have Ring, Ring.
Then came this women’s liberation thing had a much greater need for words. And Threnody! DON’T TOUCH THAT PHONE!
and next thing even London’s Reform working communally, gathering berries, HEY? WASSAT?
Club was having to eject women from its would have been conducive to chatter. A friend tells me of a fellow who, to
steps because they were using abusive “I say, Sybil, you smell dee-vine! Are prove to his wife that women talk too
language and demanding membership. you using that warthog gall bladder much, read out a news item: “Men use
Why were men’s clubs so chauvinistic? juice again?” about 15 000 words a day - women use
I think it was because men are more They probably compared each other’s 30 000.”
able to sit in a companionable silence head lumps from the night before, when His wife said, “That’s because we have
for long periods. Women cannot sit in they were bonked (if you’ll forgive the to repeat everything we say.”
silence for longer than... expression) on the head by club-wielding He said, “What?”

22 • Issue 9 2023 • The Villager