A Case Against Mixed Membership

Ian Crowther

Web Note:  The YRC was an all-male club. However, following a 2012 ballot of members, we now welcome applications from both men and women.

 

As members will by now know, that part of the committee’s plan for the next twenty five years which pivoted around the introduction of mixed sex membership of the YRC was substantially defeated by those present at the special general meeting following the 1994 AGM. I am not so blind as to be unable to see the point of the plan. I well understand that the committee are concerned that, whilst we have been able to replace our membership losses at the upper age range reasonably adequately so far, the fact still remains that it is inevitable that our losses through natural causes will accelerate by the turn of the century. My objections to female membership are more philosophical. We can’t ignore the practical, and we’ll no doubt see what our new keen recruitment secretary can do in this respect. I nevertheless think that we ignore our gut feeelings at our peril, because if we do then we ignore the fact that our club has always been just that bit different from other clubs. I don’t think that most of us really want mixed membership in our hearts, although I believe that some of us think that it would be expedient.

I think that these latter delude themselves. All we could seriously expect to get would be a few girlfriends and wives of members. We have been assured that membership criteria would be no different than for male members. I retain some cynicism about this assurance, but I don’t think that it really matters all that much, because by far the majority would be brought along as guests, never joining the club, but affecting the ethos of our meets by their very presence. Some might attend frequently enough to be almost accepted as members without ever actually applying for membership – becoming ‘part of the scene’ without having to put their bona fides to the test, and how long would it be before young children appeared on the scene with their parents, further disrupting our equilibrium?
The ‘pro’ lobby will no doubt argue that the acceptance of girlfriends, even as guests, would permit us to better facilitate the intake of young male members, possibly from university sources, and we might even get some good female members also in course of time.

This would be a disgracefully patronizing attitude toward the female sex. If I wanted to join a mixed club, then I’d apply to join a proper one & so would any sensible woman – unless she chose to join one of the all-female, clubs, amongst whom I detect no enthusiasm for admitting men. Such evidence as I have is quite to the contrary – they intend remaining as they are and have said so firmly. One leading member of the Pinnacle Club is reputed to have advised us to ‘stay as we are’. They are a mirror image of the YRC and good luck to them!

I’ve asked myself whether or not I would have joined the YRC had it been a mixed club in 1962. After 32 years I really don’t know. Possibly I would have, but what I definitely do know is that like all of us I willingly joined this all-male club, which I subsequently learned to value & grew to love.

The great majority of YRC members are and have always been married men, and are privileged in that they can go onto the hills with their families whenever they wish AND they can follow their hobby with the YRC away from their womenfolk on meets.

In my view (and that of my wife) it psychologically benefits us in normal circumstances to spend time with our friends away from our nearest & dearest. I think we are the better for doing so & owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to continue cherishing our eminently sensible & life enriching facility. Ladies with a proper sense of self-esteem will ensure that they have similar benefits available to themselves as well.

I hope that those of you who are not yet in permanent domestic partnerships, or have very new ones, appreciate the wisdom of this because, if you don’t, then I think that your lives will be the more restricted, a situation that you may live to regret.

Regarding our average ages I think that we merely reflect the ageing society in which we live, but rather than radically change the nature of our club I would, albeit regretfully, prefer to contemplate a smaller membership. If we shrunk to as low as 100 members it would mean some financial re-thinking, but so long as we had a hardcore of active fellows, it wouldn’t mean the demise of the club any more than did two world wars.

In my address to the members at the special meeting I begged them to join me in rejecting this move which, although an experiment, would be irreversible, would damage the nature of our club & thereby impoverish our lives in pursuit of the delusion that it would solve our problems as they are perceived by the middle aged officials of the club. Our destiny lies elsewhere, and I was very gratified to note that amongst the substantial majority against the motion were most of the keen younger members present at the meeting.

I sympathise with incoming President Derek Bush & his committee in their dilemma, but can we now please drop the matter and get on with our lives?