Word: clubness
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...only real solution is for the male clubs to do what they should have done a long time ago: accept women. The problem is that many club members don’t think this is a very good idea. When confronted with the fact that half of the student body is automatically excluded from their social institutions, most final club members don’t share my lack for words; instead, they respond with a number of justifications for the status quo, some with more merit than others...
...primary defense offered up by single-sex advocates, however, is that there is something important about all-male social space—something that would be lost in a world of co-ed clubs. One final club president told me that he enjoys "having a space on campus where you can interact with just your own sex," and that he finds a "value in male camaraderie." Variations of this theme surface again and again in conversations with club members. Many express concern that with the introduction of women, cohesion, tight membership bonds, and institutional respect would all vanish. They often...
...Princeton seniors I spoke with articulated similar sentiments. Giovanna Campagna, who is in Princeton’s tony Ivy Club—one of the last to integrate—told me that having co-ed clubs "makes the whole social world more gender-balanced—it’s not like a bunch of guys can rule the scene." She is unequivocal about her preference for gender integration: "I wouldn’t want to be in an all-girls eating club," she says firmly. Lizzie Presser, another senior and a member of the Terrace Club, also found...
...Final clubs eventually learned to thrive with Jews, blacks, homosexuals, and all sorts of other people who would have once been considered incompatible with the Rockefellers and Morgans who filled club dining rooms. The past teaches us that distinctions between people that appear fundamental at the time may in fact rest on dubious assumptions. Throughout history, well-meaning individuals have believed that the introduction of new elements into their social communities would ruin something important, but time and time again, history has proven them wrong...
...think that there’s a bit of Lowell’s fallacy in every club member who asserts that, while he firmly believes in gender equality, he still finds it important to preserve his claim to men’s-only space. He, like Lowell, fails to note that bringing different types of people together in the social realm is not only possible, but beneficial...