[crazygringo]

Wait -- the Magic Circle didn't admit female members until 1991?!

I thought the 1960's and 70's were when all the all-male universities and other organizations opened up to women. And that mostly groups left after that were those that had a functional reason for being all-male, i.e. male tenor-bass choirs. Or certain male "fraternal" organizations.

But magic obviously doesn't have any functional reason for being male, and it's about an activity (magic), it's not a fraternal organization. So how the heck did they go until 1991 before admitting women? That sounds crazy to me.

[astura]

Doesn't surprise me even a bit.

I was born in the early 1980s. My entire childhood was filled with people[1] explicitly telling me I can't do this-or-that because I was a girl. Other things I wasn't explicitly told I couldn't do, but I just thought weren't for me because they were zero women doing them.

I badly internalized some of it. I think I've gotten over it now though.

My first job was explicitly sex segregated, this was the late 90s. It was in a kitchen and they only had men do certain jobs even though literally every person in that kitchen was perfectly capable of doing every job, physically. Just some jobs were considered manly and given only to men. My female friend begged to be allowed to wash pots and pans, which was a "man's job" in our kitchen. She was told no, because she didn't have the correct genitalia to wash pots! She was eventually allowed to, after being persistent enough. Guess what? she could wash pots just fine, lol.

[1] the people included everyone but my parents.

[blueflow]

I long for the day when judging people by their gender will be as shunned as judging them by their nationality, heritage or skin color.

Its 2024 and that day has not come yet.

[Ylpertnodi]

Hair length, too?

[blueflow]

Superficial things in general. Including hair length.

For men, long hair is quite normalized (think viking look, metalheads), but women with short hair could need some action.

[Timwi]

I think it bears mentioning that women were probably not excluded from cleaning cookware because it was believed they couldn't do it. They were segregated to maintain a male-dominated society where men call the shots and women are just generally held back.

All the talk about “women are too emotional” or things like that have always been after-the-fact excuses.

[potato3732842]

We're talking about a niche professional organization with annual membership in the mid to high hundreds at the time. Based on what wikipedia says about the process of getting in I assume churn is stupid low. I would find it unlikely but not at all unbelievable that the rule was never actually tested from the mid 1970s until 1991.

Considering the subject matter of the organization it wouldn't surprise me if there were some other women pretending to be men who weren't kicked out. With really turnover being only 18mo in probably made her a boat rocking newb in the eyes of leadership at the time.

[morkalork]

This reminds me of a rumor I heard long ago about how there was an awkward impasse when Ginni Rommetty became CEO of IBM. Apparently one of the perks of the job was an annual membership to some golf club but it was men-only, literally an old boys club. I forget what the conclusion was though.

[compsciphd]

Not a perk and not an impasse. Augusta (where The Masters is held), had a tradition where the CEO of IBM was always a member. This has nothing to do with IBM, but the club itself (which has nothing to do with IBM). Even though she didn't end up being the first women invited into membership (she was the 3rd), one could argue that her promotion at IBM was what forced the club to make the change (there had been years to decades of pressure in regards to it).

[MrMcCall]

'Functional' reasons are in the eye of the beholder. Most people work at a far lower level than what a compassionate person considers functional.

Nearly all organizations are intrinsically discriminatory, but the only valid (indeed, necessary!) discrimination is, "Does the person accept the unity of humanity and the need for a compassionate world society?"

One must always remember the importance of considering the paradox of tolerance.