In my experience, men offer this infuriating comeback when challenged about the continuing exclusion of women from clubs such as the Garrick (for now at least – the Garrick is voting on 7 May on the admission of women as members). ‘But why don’t you set up your own women-only clubs,’ they sulk, ‘and leave us alone?’

My interlocutors are often members of not one but multiple men-only clubs. My husband, father and brothers, for example, frequent a combination of White’s, the Beefsteak, Pratt’s (men-only until last year) and the Garrick. Two of my siblings à l’époque graced the Bullingdon at Oxford.

Women-only clubs are all marketed as networking hubs, while men-only clubs are social and superior

As I recall, I had my own wedding reception at the Savile, so I’ve never condemned their patronage of these establishments and enjoy my occasional visits, even though they can make me feel like a toddler on a school trip. It will pass without incident only so long as I don’t sit at the wrong table, use the wrong staircase or look too tarty/tatty to pass muster at the bar (at which I can’t place an order).

In fact, I almost respect men I’ve spoken to for articulating, in this hostile environment, any objections to the imminent prospect of the monstrous regiment of women storming one of the last citadels of the château-bottled patriarchy: clubland.

Nobody gives up power lightly. I can see why penis-owners of a certain vintage cherish their comfortable place in town where they can read the Daily Telegraph in a wing-backed leather armchair, entertain a friend over Dover sole or gulp a glass of Sancerre before the theatre. The fact that these clubs are full of powerful and important men – apparently – is not my main objection to them either. The membership lists may well be a roll call of the Establishment. Don’t care.

No, my objection is to the supposed alternative: women-only clubs. They’ll never catch on. Lynne Franks set up three B.Hive women-only business networking spaces in Covent Garden, Manchester and Bristol in 2010 – but they folded. La Franks has a new project called Seed Hub in Wincanton, which the legendary PR says will be a ‘nurturing place for women to come to be recharged and inspired’ and nothing like ‘the classic club where men fall asleep with cigars in their mouths’.

The women-only club Chief in Bloomsbury – membership costing up to £7,900 per annum – closed last month. ‘After taking a critical look at where we need to strategically focus, we’ve made the extremely difficult decision to exit the UK market,’ said one of the co-founders.

Another American women-only club, The Wing in Fitzrovia, folded after less than a year in 2020. The AllBright club – tagline, ‘invest in ambition’ – is still active and promotes itself as a space where women can ‘thrive professionally’.

Funny that. Women-only clubs are all marketed as networking hubs, while men-only clubs are effortlessly social and superior. They’re not glorified WeWork spaces – ‘no part of the clubhouse may be used for business purposes, which includes discussing business matters’, as it says on the Garrick’s website – and that surely tells us all we need to know. Men want to carry on with their cosy clubland in gentleman’s London, as they always have. While we busy bees can have our… networking hubs! No thanks.

‘I don’t think I’d be keen,’ says Julie Burchill. ‘You’re not meant to say it these days but I generally prefer the company of men.’ This isn’t internalising misogyny – don’t blackball me – if I’m ‘out out’, like Julie, I want men about me too.

After surviving lockdown, when men from the government told the women of Britain to ‘Stay At Home!’, we don’t want to pay an annual sub to socialise with our own sex. We want to slip the surly bonds of domesticity as often as we can.

In Andrew O’Hagan’s ace new novel, Caledonian Road, a female KC is talking to her brother. ‘Half the people in London – at those old boys’ clubs you like going to, the ones that hate women – had better watch out,’ she warns him, ‘because the party is over for them.’

Well, it does looks like the Garrick, for one, will allow women finally to both beat them and join them. As the vote nears, we’ll hear the argument repeated that if women can have female-only spaces, like changing rooms and rape crisis centres, men should have their men-only spaces too. Yet women-only spaces are for their own protection rather than enjoyment. Men-only spaces are for the perpetuation of privilege – and, of course, peace and quiet, which is why the Garrick has been around for 193 years and you have to wait 15 years to become a member if you’re lucky.

‘Women want to be where men are, and men want to be where women aren’t,’ says my husband (Pratt’s, Beefsteak), sounding pleased with himself. ‘And you can quote me.’