I don't see why any group can't have their own club. Who does this hurt? Why do people care?
(Let me, in advance, apologize to the house for potentially kicking this thread into the Politics Forum.)
I'm not sure if the guys that go to Wing locations are doing it "because they can", doing it to ogle, or doing it to network/do business. But I do know why the law constrains Wing from explicitly excluding men from the premises -- there's a concept that women (and any protected minority class) should be protected from exclusion from male (or any majority class) clubs. The laws that carry out that concept, for better or worse, swing both ways and are written to cover all cases of exclusion based on sex/gender, race, orientation, etc. Belonging to a majority, "privileged" class, by law, does not exempt a person from being protected by anti-discrimination law.
If such laws were nonexistent -- or merely selectively enforced -- it could lead to problematic situations like the ones described below:
-- In New Orleans, four racially-segregated Mardi Gras krewes paraded on publicly-funded roadways and enjoyed police protection until 1992. Many krewes (especially long-time ones) functioned much like private social clubs that felt free to limit membership as they saw fit. Membership in these krewes was (and is) an important way to make and maintain business connections in New Orleans. However, the krewes obviously depended on publicly-funded services to hold their parades though they also hosted and paid for other functions privately.
The rest of the story in the 2006 NPR transcript spoilered for length below:
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, NPR: Dorothy Mae Taylor was a longtime civil rights advocate before she was elected the first woman in New Orleans City Council in 1986. Taylor became famous, and some would say infamous, when she proposed an ordinance in 1991 to desegregate the gentlemen's luncheon clubs that had been the public face of the Mardi Gras krewes. Taylor held public hearings that forced the club members to answer questions they didn't even ask in private.
Ms. TAYLOR: Have you recommended any other members since you've been there 40 years?
Unidentified Man: I'm sure I have, yes.
Ms. TAYLOR: Have any of them been blacks, Jews or Italians?
Unidentified Man: I don't know if any have been Italians or not. I don't know that question.
Ms. TAYLOR: Okay. What about blacks?
Unidentified Man: No, ma'am.
Ms. TAYLOR: Okay.
Mr. JAMES GILL (Columnist, New Orleans Times-Picayune): The old-line krewes, I think you could say, were the social elite, the educated crowd.
BATES: James Gill is a columnist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the author of The Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans.
Mr. GILL: I think you cannot deny that she is remembered among white people here as the vixen who tried to destroy Mardi Gras, and who to some extent succeeded.
BATES: He covered Taylor's city council hearings in 1991 until a weakened version of the anti-discrimination ordinance was passed in '92. Gill says that many of the old-line krewes believed Taylor ruined what had been a wonderful party that they had sponsored and financed as their gift to the city.
Mr. GILL: No one is trying to defend segregation, but I think you cannot undermine an American's right to choose his own friends. It's not quite as simple a matter of principle as it might at first seem.
BATES: But many black citizens saw it differently. Jay Banks was a senior aide to Dorothy May Taylor. He says integrating the old-line krewes for Mardi Gras was never the main focus of his boss's efforts.
Mr. JAY BANKS (Senior aide to Dorothy Mae Taylor): Many business deals are being cut in those private clubs that everybody didn't have access to; business deals that related to tax dollars. Those businessmen were benefiting, but if you or I were in the same business, we didn't have the opportunity to sit at their table and have that discussion. That is how the whole thing started.
BATES: Banks says the opponents of Taylor's ordinance framed it as a challenge to the beloved tradition of Mardi Gras instead of a challenge to segregation.
Mr. BANKS: It got twisted into a Mardi Gras ordinance because the folks that were opposing it, that's not sexy. Mardi Gras never was sexy.
BATES: And nobody wanted to mess with the festival that made New Orleans world-famous. In the end, a weaker version of Taylor's proposal passed. Three of the four segregated krewes immediately withdrew, although one, Proteus, returned in recent years. Many white citizens were furious, and to this day they remember Dorothy Mae Taylor as the woman who tried to ruin Mardi Gras, but Jay Banks says Dorothy Mae Taylor, who died in 2000, did more for New Orleans than she's given credit for.
Mr. BANKS: The legacy will be long remembered, unfortunately for that quote "Mardi Gras Ordinance." But the reality of it is, it was much bigger than that. And again, if folks will just remember that it really was about trying to do what's right, they will be remembering her in the light that she's in.[/spoiler]
-- Augusta National Golf Club excluded African-American members until 1990 and female members until 2012. In common with the New Orleans Mardi Gras krewes, membership among the powerful members of Augusta National was felt to confer significant advantages in making business connections from which women were excluded.
A synopsis of the controversy around admitting women as members spoilered below:
Augusta National and its then-Chairman Hootie Johnson are widely known for a disagreement beginning in 2002 with Martha Burk, then chair of the Washington-based National Council of Women's Organizations; the dispute arose over Augusta National's refusal to admit female members to the club. Burk said she found out about the club's policies in a USA Today column by Christine Brennan published April 11, 2002. She then wrote a private letter to Johnson, saying that hosting the Masters Tournament at a male-only club constituted sexism. Johnson characterized Burk's approach as "offensive and coercive". The club hired consulting firm WomanTrend which ran a survey and found that "Augusta National's membership policies were not topmost on the list of women's concerns"; the poll was called "unethical" by Burk.
Responding to efforts to link the issue to sexism and civil rights, Johnson maintained that the issue had to do with the rights of any private club:
“Our membership is single gender just as many other organizations and clubs all across America. These would include Junior Leagues, sororities, fraternities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and countless others. And we all have a moral and legal right to organize our clubs the way we wish."
Burk, whose childhood nickname was also Hootie, claimed to have been "called a man hater, anti-family, lesbian, all the usual things." Johnson was portrayed as a Senator Claghorn type —"a blustery defender of all things Southern".
Following the discord, two club members resigned: Thomas H. Wyman, a former CEO of CBS, and John Snow, when President George W. Bush nominated him to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. Pressure on corporate sponsors led the club to broadcast the 2003 and 2004 tournaments without commercials. The controversy was discussed by the International Olympic Committee when re-examining whether golf meets Olympic criteria of a "sport practiced without discrimination with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play". Augusta National extended membership to Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore on August 20, 2012.
...
So, there's a few angles one could take when discussing Wing. Is discrimination by protected class (sex/gender, race, etc.) always, 100% of the time, something that should be struck down? Are there instances where it's OK to discriminate this way? Is it more OK for protected-class minorities (e.g. women, African-Americans, etc.) to foster institutions that discriminate this way than it is for protected-class majorities?
