These clubs are where influence is exchanged, so exclusion withholds opportunity rather than company

The argument

Opponents argue that the clubs actually at issue are not simply places of leisure. Their membership is drawn substantially from the people who run institutions, firms and public bodies, and what happens in them is partly social and partly business: introductions made, appointments canvassed informally, disputes smoothed over, positions tested before they are taken in public. That is a large part of why membership is sought and why it is valued, and opponents hold that any honest account has to start there rather than with the dining. If that is what the club is, the exclusion is not a matter of taste. A person who may not be in the room cannot be introduced, cannot be thought of when a name is wanted, and will not know what was discussed or by whom. The disadvantage is cumulative and largely invisible to those who do not suffer it, since nothing identifiable is ever refused and no decision is ever recorded as having been made there. Opponents argue this is the characteristic form that exclusion from opportunity takes once formal barriers have been removed. The conclusion drawn is that the privacy claim cannot bear the weight placed on it. A gathering whose value to its members consists in who else is present, drawn from those holding commercial and public power, is not a private matter in the sense that would settle the question. Opponents therefore hold that such clubs should not continue in their present form: what is being distributed inside them is advantage, and advantage distributed by sex is not made acceptable by the venue being paid for out of subscriptions.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Proponents reply that the premise is asserted rather than shown, and that it proves too much if granted: by the same reasoning any gathering of well-placed people, a dinner party, a round of golf, an alumni circle, would have to be opened to all comers. They add that the remedy does not follow from the complaint, since if the objection is to advantage circulating informally, the answer lies in how appointments and contracts are made and recorded rather than in forbidding people to dine together.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Substantially is unquantified, and the membership of such clubs is in fact mixed in occupation and standing, so the picture of a governing class at dinner is assumed rather than established. [Rejecting P2] Informal transaction happens wherever people who work together also socialise, including in thoroughly mixed settings, so it cannot be what singles these clubs out. [Rejecting P3] If presence where advantage circulates is the test, every private gathering of well-placed people is caught, a conclusion almost nobody holds and which the premise offers no way to avoid. [Rejecting C] The remedy does not follow from the diagnosis. If informally distributed advantage is the harm, it is addressed through how appointments and contracts are made, not by regulating who may dine with whom.