Boston Globe Columnist Shirley Leung follows up on her reporting from last July about questioning the Charles River Country Club’s building of an exclusive “men’s grill lounge… complete with food, booze, and a stone fireplace.”
Leung reports today that state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission investigators “issued a five-page report in April and concluded the club did not violate any of the commission’s regulations. The rules allow for segregation of locker rooms and restrooms based on gender in places serving alcohol.”
But that doesn’t mean Leung thinks it’s OK…
You may be wondering why anyone outside the Charles River Country Club should care. Here’s why: Male members of the club are business and civic leaders who would never dare to approve a men-only lunchroom in their workplaces. Yet in the privacy of their own clubs and social circles, it’s suddenly OK to treat women as second-class citizens.
That’s not OK. We all know what happens in the country club doesn’t stay in the country club.
at the private county club.
Last gasp of an irrelevant club for fuddy-duddies.
Not ok.
Not okay!
We all have a hard time moving forward because of backward thinking like this.
“The rules allow for segregation of locker rooms and restrooms based on gender in places serving alcohol.”
Yeh, but they have gender specific locker rooms and restrooms. I’m not reading they have a exclusive “women’s grill lounge… complete with food, booze, and a stone fireplace.”
Lame rationalization and not okay.
This Club, their members, and their policies are not cool. But we already knew that!
Stories like this are the reason people outside of Newton think it’s a city full of entitled snobs. Everyday women deal with sexism, unequal pay, harassment, and all kinds of unreasonable expectations from society. This story is such an insult to them. Nobody cares whether women at the Charles River Country Club can have their chicken sandwich in the locker room.
The ruling came from the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission; it’s a ruling about regulations, not a legal ruling. I’d like to see what the courts have to say about it.
And it’s an ass-backward ruling. “The rules allow for segregation of locker rooms and restrooms based on gender in places serving alcohol” is not the same as allowing segregation of places for serving alcohol in a places having locker rooms and rest rooms.
“What got the exclusive Newton club in so much hot water last summer was a $1 million-plus renovation of the men’s locker room that brought back a single-sex pub complete with food, booze, and a stone fireplace.”
Did the $1 million come from only the men’s membership fees and dues? Do women pay less so they get a worse locker room?