Gender at Stake: The Role of Eighteenth-Century London Clubs in Shaping A New Model of English Masculinity

Abstract

The English club, as an arena of exclusive male sociability, contributed to the refashioning of a new model of politeness, which did not posit refinement and masculinity as opposites. Some of the main aims of clubs were to preserve their members’ masculine identity and to reinforce their cohesion by developing a strong male affiliation network. The success of clubs in England enabled to establish a unique model of male sociability, proving that being an Englishman did not imply being unsociable and rough. The club was an exclusive social space, where a man can perform his masculinity through his activities, his conversations and his behaviour. The visibility of gender and social performance induced the respect and support of his fellow clubmen and could determine a man’s future social and political success. The eighteenth-century club thus played a crucial role in the process of gender identification and of social recognition. This article shows that masculinity was a social construction as well as a social performance. Being a man obeyed gendered norms, which corresponded to gendered social manners and practices. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the ideal of the gentleman served as a means to shape the Englishman’s masculine identity, but it revealed the limits and the paradoxes of politeness, thus questioning the French model.