women's club essay

Women’s Clubs

By Catherine Murray

The woman’s club movement began throughout the United States in the late nineteenth century. Although initially focused on self-improvement, women’s clubs in the Philadelphia region as in the nation quickly extended their goals to include community activism. Drawing upon contemporary assumptions about the inherent differences between men and women, leaders of the club movement argued that women’s spiritual and moral superiority prepared them for a more significant role in reforming society. Moreover, club members often utilized the rhetoric of domesticity to support women’s involvement, claiming their work would be an extension of their domestic role within the household.

Building on the tradition of charitable work of early nineteenth-century church and benevolence societies, women’s clubs maintained a focus on social welfare, anticipating much of the work later taken up by the Progressive movement of the 1890s. The generation of women who established these clubs often built on the infrastructure established by women in the antebellum era. The nation’s first women’s club, the Sorosis Club of New York , formed in 1868, but in the Philadelphia area, women’s clubs emerged in the aftermath of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition . Eliza Sproat Turner (1826-1903) and Elizabeth Duane Gillespie (1821-1901), president of the Women’s Committee for the Centennial, joined other local women in hosting tea parties to raise money to build the Women’s Pavilion in West Fairmount Park . The Women’s Pavilion highlighted the significance of women’s contributions to society, including their support for the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. In the Pavilion’s newspaper, Turner published a rationale for the formation of women’s clubs, which in turn influenced the development of the women’s club movement throughout the nation. The impact of the Pavilion extended beyond national borders as women continued to reframe the historical narrative to include themselves as full participants whose contributions were not limited to the home.

Building on the energy unleashed with the Women’s Pavilion, Turner joined Sarah Catherine Fraley Hallowell (1833-1914) in 1877 to establish the New Century Club, one of the first women’s clubs in the nation. Initially conceived to promote science, literature , and art, by the turn of the twentieth century the club extended its influence to include social reform, offering programs to address municipal concerns as well as other issues related to women and children.

The New Century Guild emerged as a committee of the New Century Club, and in 1882 became an independent organization where Turner sought to expand educational and political activities related to women and their participation in the workforce. In 1893, the Guild became a committee of the newly formed New Century Trust. With the support of financial gifts, the Guild secured ownership of its own property, a house at 1307 Locust Street, which allowed it to offer more vocational training, as well as self-improvement programs. Turner also held one of the first local meetings in support of women’s suffrage meetings at the Guild’s building.

Federations of Women’s Clubs

Women from the New Century Club also helped to organize the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) in 1890 under the leadership of Jane Cunningham Croly (1829-1901), who is credited with founding the Sorosis Club of New York. Organizations spread throughout the Philadelphia region. A New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs formed in 1894; the Woman’s Club of Camden not only led to the founding of Camden’s library system but also increased early childhood education and public playgrounds . In Delaware, where the New Century Club of Wilmington formed in 1889, a State Federation of Women’s Clubs began in 1898.

While the New Century Club remained the most prominent club in Philadelphia, the role and impact of local women’s clubs increased with the establishment of the Acorn Club in 1889 and the Civic Club of Philadelphia in 1894. Excluded from formal participation in electoral contests, women maintained political influence through voluntary organizations, often working in cooperation with men interested in municipal reform. In order to facilitate a greater coalition with men, Civic Club leaders such as Sara Yorke Stevenson (1847-1921) carefully defined their goal as work on behalf of women and children. Members of the Civic Club, organized into four departments for municipal government, education, social service, and art, conducted research and disseminated reports on issues ranging from education to housing. Leadership from the Civic Club and the New Century Guild supported each other by sending letters, delegations, as well as fund-raising to lobby for a wide variety of municipal and statewide reform initiatives, including the environment and conservation. Their investigations often led to legislation, including the Philadelphia Public School Reorganization Act of 1905, which granted authority to the schools superintendent to reform and standardize the city’s public schools, and the Philadelphia Housing Code of 1913, which established a Division of Housing and Sanitation in the Department of Health and Charities to improve standards for home lighting, ventilation, and occupancy.

The membership of most women’s clubs consisted primarily of white, middle class women. In response, African American women began organizing and by 1896 the National Association of Colored Women united more than one hundred local clubs under the leadership of Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954). Founded in 1870, the Colored Women’s Christian Association established what many consider to be the oldest African American YWCA. (Young Women’s Christian Association) in Philadelphia. The Southwest Branch, later known as the Southwest-Belmont Branch of the YWCA, maintained a significant presence in the Philadelphia African American community. Like women’s clubs, the Southwest Branch provided educational and social opportunities. With the financial support of John Wanamaker (1838-1922), the branch operated the Elizabeth Frye House to help African American women find affordable housing. Drawing primarily on the efforts of women from the Pittsburgh area, such as Rebecca Aldridge (1851-1933), the Pennsylvania State Federation of Negro Women’s Clubs was established in 1903. These organizations participated in anti- lynching campaigns and addressed educational and social reform issues.

The state federations of women’s clubs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware contributed to the growth of the GFWC as the nation’s largest women’s voluntary association. The advocacy of Alice Leakey, club member from Cranford, New Jersey, ultimately led to the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act (1906). Other notable efforts supported by women’s clubs include seatbelt legislation and the expansion of public libraries. Although the Civic Club of Philadelphia formally distributed its assets to other civic organizations in 1959, in the early decades of the twenty-first century the Acorn Club, formed primarily to promote “literary, musical and artistic tastes,” maintained a private membership. In 2012, at its original headquarters site at 1307 Locust Street in Philadelphia, the New Century Trust celebrated nearly 120 years of work improving the educational, economic and social status of women and girls.

Women’s clubs continued to increase, with more than eighty thousand members affiliated with the GFWC in the early twenty-first century. The mission statement, which remained centered on a commitment to education and civic involvement, broadened its scope to include supporting the arts, preserving natural resources, promoting healthy lifestyles, and working toward world peace and understanding. To that end, the State Federation of Women’s Clubs in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey continued to support higher education through annual scholarships and grants. With more than fifty clubs in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the Greater Philadelphia region maintained a strong affiliation with the GFWC and presence in the nationwide activism of women’s clubs.

Catherine Murray is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Temple University. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2017, Rutgers University

Women's Pavilion, 1876 Centennial Exposition

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

The New Century Club originated in the Women’s Pavilion of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The pavilion was built in response to women being refused independent exhibition space in the Main Exhibition Building. All exhibits showcased in the Women’s Pavilion were the work of women.

One of the most popular attractions was a woman who operated a steam engine that powered several other exhibits, among them a printing press. This press printed copies of the Women’s Centennial Committee’s newsletter, The New Century for Women. In 1877 at the exposition’s conclusion, a group of about forty women formed the New Century Club, a literary society for women. The pavilion, always intended to be a temporary structure, was dismantled shortly after the exposition ended.

Eliza Sproat Turner

Eliza Sproat Turner was an early leader of women’s clubs in Philadelphia. Turner became involved in reform movements in her early twenties and participated in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. During the Civil War, she volunteered as a nurse to tend to soldiers wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. Turner began championing women’s suffrage in the late 1860s. Her efforts to ensure women were included in the 1876 Centennial Exposition led to the formation of the city’s first women’s club. Turner promoted the formation of women’s clubs in the newsletter for the Centennial’s Women’s Pavilion and joined with Sarah Catherine Fraley Hallowell to establish the New Century Club after the exposition closed in 1877. In 1882, the New Century Guild for Working Women was formed to provide educational and vocational training for women.

New Century Club of Wilmington

Wikimedia Commons

The New Century Club of Wilmington formed in Delaware in 1889. The clubhouse, shown here in a later incarnation as the Delaware Children’s Theatre, was built by Minerva Parker Nichols, who also designed Philadelphia’s New Century Club headquarters. The club served as a model for other local women’s associations such as the New Century Club of Newark (Delaware).

New Century Club Clubhouse

Library of Congress

The New Century Club was formed in 1877 and within a decade was large enough to require its own clubhouse. To design the building, the club chose female architect Minerva Parker Nichols, who also designed a clubhouse for the Wilmington New Century Club. The New Century Club clubhouse was completed on Twelfth Street in 1892 and stood until it was razed in 1973 for construction of a parking garage.

New Century Club

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Members of the New Century Club donned the popular fashions of 1877, their founding year, in this photograph from the club’s fiftieth anniversary. The New Century Club originated in the Women’s Pavilion of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, where women operated a steam-powered printing press to publish  The New Century for Women  newsletter.

Civic Club of Philadelphia Playground Notice

Historical Society of Pennsylvania Women’s clubs were involved in a number of social reform campaigns from housing to education. This 1904 notice was issued by the Civic Club of Philadelphia to promote the creation of a playground in Germantown.

Jane Cunningham Croly

Digital Collections, New York Public Library

Jane Cunningham Croly is credited with founded the first women’s club in the United States, the New York’s Sorosis Club, in 1868. In 1890, she helped women from the New Century Club and other organizations form the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell was instrumental in the formation of clubs for African American women. Under her leadership in 1896, over one hundred local clubs united as the National Association of Colored Women.

Related Topics

• Greater Philadelphia
• Philadelphia and the Nation
• City of Brotherly Love

Time Periods

• Twenty-First Century
• Twentieth Century after 1945
• Twentieth Century to 1945
• Nineteenth Century after 1854
• Center City Philadelphia
• Gray Panthers
• Colonial Revival
• Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania
• Literary Societies
• Settlement Houses
• Woman Suffrage
• Women’s Education
• Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

Related Reading

Bowen, Louise de Koven. Growing Up with a City . New York: Macmillan Co., 1926.

Croly, Jane Cunningham. The History of the Woman’s Club Movement in America . New York: Henry G. Allen, 1898.

Davis, Lindsay. Lifting as They Climb: A History of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs . New York, 1996.

Gustafson, Melanie S. “’Good City Government Is Good House-keeping’: Women and Municipal Reform.” Pennsylvania Legacies 11, no. 2 (2011): 12-17.

Howe, Julia Ward. Reminiscences, 1819-1899 . New York: Houghton-Mifflin and Co., 1899.

Shaw, Stephanie J. “Black Club Women and the Creation of the National Association of Colored Women,” Journal of Women’s History 3, (Summer 1991), 10-25.

Wells, Mildred White. Unity in Diversity: The History of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs . Washington D.C.: General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1953.

Related Collections

• Civic Club of Philadelphia Records Historical Society of Pennsylvania 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Newtown New Century Club Records Newtown Historic Association 105 Court Street, Newtown, Pennsylvania.

Related Places

• Guild House Hotel
• General Federation of Women’s Clubs-Pennsylvania
• Delaware State Federation of Women’s Clubs
• New Jersey State Federation of Women’s Clubs

Backgrounders

Connecting Headlines with History

• A women's history landmark hidden in plain sight (WHYY, March 1, 2016)
• GFWC Women's Club of Newtown Square
• New Century Trust
• Minerva Parker Nichols: Architect of Gender Equality (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• Viva Minerva! Celebrating America’s First Independent Female Architect (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• Still Advancing The Goals Of The “New Century” (Hidden City Philadelphia)
• History of the Women's Club of Camden, New Jersey, 1894-1919 (dvrbs.com)
• The Porch Club of Riverton, New Jersey
• General Federation of Women's Clubs

Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy

• Anti-Abortion Movement
• Women’s History
• Film & TV
• Gender Violence
• #50YearsofMs

More Than A Magazine, A Movement

The Feminist Legacy of Modern Women’s Clubs

As a feminist in the digital age, my exposure to the movement is different than that of my mother’s. A large part of my life is click and scroll. My news feed refreshes every second. There’s a lot happening—and it’s easy to get caught up in the thick of it. Sometimes I need to unplug and seek something else.

That’s how I found The Wing.

The Wing is a co-working space and social community for women in New York City. Established in 2016, the website declares that “women need and deserve a multi-purpose space designed to make their lives easier,” and that “magic is created when women gather together.” While the space is truly designed for modern day — complete with millennial pink furniture and Instagram-friendly wallpaper—it’s rooted in the history of the feminist spaces of yore.

The women’s club movement of the late 19th century and early 20th century unfolded alongside the suffrage movement. Women’s clubs were revolutionary destinations where women could work, gather and learn alongside one another—and, in some cases, plot their next moves in the fight for equality.

Sorosis, formed in 1868 by women journalists who were denied entrance to a New York Press Club event, was recognized as the first women’s club—launched with the intention of having a place for women to “dwell together in unity.” Later the same year, the New England Women’s Club was founded in Boston.

In 1869, alongside the women’s club emergence, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony established the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA). While these entities were separate in practice, their values and function were tightly akin. Many women’s clubs which were directly involved in civil rights and other various types of reform; there was also a direct correlation between the growth of women’s clubs and the increase in suffrage organizations. And in 1888, the convention of the International Council of Women by NWSA in Washington, D.C. brought women’s clubs, feminist associations and social and political activists together for the cause of equality among the sexes and the overall advancement of women. In the name of universal sisterhood, the Council aimed to “impress the important lesson that the position of women anywhere affects their position everywhere.”

Louise Thomas, president of Sorosis, traveled to the convention alongside the club’s original incorporators and 32 of its members. She addressed the club as a composition of “literary and representative women, who meet for the interchange of thought; to be a help to each other, and to have a good time.”

Julia Ward Howe, president of the Association for the Advancement of Women (later, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs), a superintending body meant to bring women’s clubs toward cohesion, declared at the same convening that “from our coming together much good ought to result.” In her speech, Howe acknowledged the complications and inevitable downfalls in the life of an organization, but praised the work of the women’s clubs in their ability to function successfully and independently and for the great influence they have exerted upon their communities.

While it’s true that many women’s clubs were of a positive influence, and in some ways crucial to the advancement of women’s rights, a legacy of segregation led black reformers to organize their own groups through the 1880s. In 1896, the largest federation of local black women’s clubs, the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) was formed—concerned with the advancement of all people of color.

Independent of the aforementioned clubs and associations, the NACW fought for change beyond suffrage and women’s rights, including ending the segregation of transportation systems and the anti-lynching movement. The association, directed by Mary Church Terrell, also focused on job training, wage equity and childcare. In 1900, nearly every black community had a women’s club. By 1914, there were over a thousand participating clubs in the NACW; these women’s clubs counted among their members some of history’s bravest feminists, including Ida B. Wells and Harriet Tubman.

Today, diversity is an asset. The Wing seeks variety as a primary quality of its members and aims to maintain career diversity as well as ethnic and racial diversity among them. Community and activism are also key principles: The Wing membership agreement has a service requirement to encourage social activism, and they provide many political opportunities to those who join. Last year, The Wing sent 100 women by bus to the Women’s March on Washington; each month, rotating events feature information sessions with organizations like the New York Civil Liberties Union or Planned Parenthood.

Most women’s clubs were founded on the notions of higher education and community-building. The New Century Club House of Philadelphia aimed to improve the lives of women through various committees—including education, entertainment, municipal affairs and the working women’s guild. With over 700 members in their working guild alone, the club offered nightly classes to accommodate the lives of working women. These classes proved extremely popular, especially those of literature, language and philosophy, and spurred the growth of the club.

This exponential growth peaked investor interest—and proved the potential for women’s clubs to be a financial success. The New Century Club House formed the New Century Trust in 1893 to promote funding and ensure the vitality of the club. They proved so successful that they were able to purchase their own building on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, renovating the space to suit the needs of their members, with various community spaces, parlors, committee rooms, a library and a 600-person capacity drawing room.

Developments and luxuries like these parallel today’s women’s clubs. Women today gather in Brooklyn warehouse or Soho lofts with large windows and lush velvet sofas—and their clubs have had great financial success. The Wing has a total investment of $42 million, including their most recent $32 million investment from this past fall, and they plan to expand from their two locations in Manhattan to establish new spaces in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. Seattle-based women’s club Riveter successfully raised a $600,000 seed-round investment for their flagship facility, which opened last spring; less than a year later, they’ve already opened a second location in the Emerald City.

This is not to say that women’s clubs of today are simply defined by their fiscal prosperity—as their founding values are reminiscent of the original women’s clubs. In this age of tech and Internet isolation, women’s clubs offer a real-world destination for women to congregate, work, learn and build connections offline. An 1899 report of the International Women’s Council Congress declared that women’s clubs’ “interchange of ideas must cultivate breadth of view, as one’s world is enlarged by seeing it from a neighbor’s hilltop.” A century later, these spaces are still being established on the pillars of equality and community.

The revitalization of the women’s club is not merely a cyclical trend or an emergence of happenstance—it’s a reflection upon our society. Living in a world which often seems ruled by turmoil and chaos, spaces where women can pursue positive change and revel in their collective, diverse power is reassuring and comforting.

And above all, it makes me feel grateful to be a woman.

About Ava Graham

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For Our Mutual Benefit : The Athens Woman's Club and Social Reform, 1899-1920

The athens woman's club and social reform.

Women's Clubs

150 years ago, Americans believed that a woman’s place was in the home. Bright, curious, and ambitious women found few other places to display their talents. After household care, benevolent work at church and patriotic fundraising for Civil War soldiers were the only outlets that permitted women to contribute to shaping the public world. Education and career opportunities were few. Skill-building, beyond needlework, was deemed unnecessary. Political activism, civic reform, and community involvement were regarded as outside the realm of big-hearted mothers and wives who should focus on loving their families and providing a good example of moral behavior.

A few brave women in New York and Boston challenged these constraints in the late 1860s and soon persuaded the general population of middle-class American women to form voluntary organizations in their neighborhoods to defy custom, undertake serious study of intellectual topics and current events, and organize for social reforms at the local, state, and national levels. All this well before they saw the right to vote to effect change at the ballot box!

In the years between the 1870s and 1920s, women’s clubs became the major vehicle by which American women could exercise their developing talents to shape the world beyond their homes. Although the twentieth century would deliver increasing educational, professional, and business venues for women to make use of their intellect, training, and creativity, hundreds of clubs continued to function in this country into modern times, providing members with regular meetings in order to network, learn about social issues, identify civic problems, and devise solutions through volunteer power.

Julia Ward Howe, 1908. 

It was journalist Jane “Jennie June” Croly in New York and anti-slavery advocate Julia Ward Howe in Boston who first brought together their peers, in 1868, to usher in the women’s club movement that would sweep the nation by the turn of the century. These women decided to ignore customary restrictions and insisted on developing their minds and communities by meeting regularly in order to learn about the great ideas of the past and contemporary urban problems together. In particular, they came to target limitations on the lives of women and children and sought to do something about them. They valued education and called for women’s admittance to institutions of higher learning, but they also addressed the abysmal conditions of working girls in factories and appealed for the amelioration of workplace abuses.

General Federation of Women's Clubs in the early 20th century. 

Soon women throughout the United States, in small towns and large cities, embraced the club format to bolster their association with like-minded neighbors. Some enjoyed the long overdue study of literature, history, and geography. Others stressed reform and initiated scholarships for girls, improved street lighting, environmental protections, and free milk clinics for impoverished mothers. By 1890, a General Federation of Women’s Clubs was founded to assist the nation’s clubwomen in benefitting from the experiences of other clubs. The organization, which still exists in Washington, DC, provided publications and regular conventions for members to swap success stories about the educational and reform projects that they had attempted. Jane Croly’s massive book The History of Women’s Clubs in America , published in 1898, attests to the impressive number of clubs and staggering ambition of members in the era before the twentieth century. By 1910, membership totaled 800,000 women, and the numbers would rise until 1926.

Officers of the Women's League of Newport, Rhode Island. Circa 1899

At first, club membership tended to be exclusive. In general, white, Protestant women of comfortable means, with husbands in positions of local prominence and servants who carried out domestic tasks, tended to form and join clubs. Once their youngest children were in school, mothers felt free to hold meetings once or twice a month, September through June. Gradually, the club idea grew  among excluded populations, including religious, racial, and ethnic minorities and wage-earning women, who founded clubs of their own. Small groups held meetings in members’ homes. Larger and more affluent groups built clubhouses with posh facilities to host meetings, classes, and events for members as well as the community. The two largest clubs in the nation in the 1920s were located in Los Angeles. The Friday Morning Club and Wilshire Ebell, each with an enrollment of over two thousand members, could therefore marshal significant pressure on government officials to improve local parks, playgrounds, libraries, workplace safety, clean water, and a wide range of other reforms for the community. Our entire nation is dotted with grand clubhouses that represent the heyday of women’s organizational efforts in our past: the Woman’s University Club and Woman’s Century Club in Seattle, Ebell in Los Angeles, Worcester (Massachusetts) Women’s Club, Baton Rouge (Louisiana) Women’s Club, Victoria (Texas) Women’s Club, Barnesville (Georgia) Women’s Club, to name but a few. Their histories are replete with major and minor improvements instigated by the members through their clubs.

As modern women pushed to break more and more glass ceilings in business, politics, and the professions, clubs ceased to remain key venues for women to develop and spend their organizational skills. Club work did continue, meeting community needs as they arose, notably through charitable efforts during the Great Depression of the 1930s, war relief efforts during World War II in the 1940s, and suburban community building in the 1950s. But clubs did not continue to attract the numbers of women that they had prior to the 1920s. Recent years have seen the closure of many once-esteemed women’s clubs, but others are enjoying revitalization through interest from today’s women, eager to reconnect with peers and enrich their lives by advancing the livability of their communities.

Originally published in Volume 19 of  A Different Point of View . 

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Women's Club Movement in Washington

• By Karen J. Blair, Ph.D.
• Posted 9/27/2009
• HistoryLink.org Essay 9170

A vigorous women's club movement began to sweep the nation in the mid-nineteenth century, enjoying a heyday from the 1890s through the 1920s. Washington state women were no exception to the wide enthusiasm for  informal volunteer societies dedicated to  charitable efforts, self-improvement, and civic reform. Club activity continues to the present day, and the long and successful history of organizational activities can be seen in impressive social welfare programs, educational and cultural achievements, legislation, and thriving institutions throughout the state.  Women's organizations not only provided countless benefits to the citizens of Washington's urban and rural communities, but they also gave club members a unique venue in which to learn and exercise new skills. These new skills helped give a public voice and influence to women even before they were enfranchised as full citizens with voting power. The Power to Do Good

Despite the Victorian dictum that “woman’s place is in the home,” Washington women, from the days of pioneer settlement, defied social constraints against public life and formed women’s clubs for their own benefit and for that of their communities. Women made the time to cooperate for the purpose of helping the needy in their neighborhoods through church-based Ladies Aid Societies and secular Ladies Relief Societies. Members raised money to provide food, clothing, medical care, or social services for destitute men, women, and children.

In Seattle, for instance, prosperous friends of Anna Herr Clise (1866-1936) gathered with her to establish Children’s Orthopedic Hospital (now Seattle Children's Hospital)  in 1907. They also launched a network of women’s guilds, which still exists today and helps provide steady funding for the maintenance of the medical facility.

Benevolent groups in Seattle also created the Children’s Home (1884) for orphans, the Florence Crittenton Home for Fallen Women, the Dorcas Charity Club, founded by African American women to help their needy neighbors, and the Neighborhood Settlement House (1915) established by the Council of Jewish Women to assist immigrant  Russian Jewish families new to the Pacific Northwest. Today’s Overlake Service League began in 1911 as the Seattle Ladies Fruit and Flower Mission, became the Seattle Milk Fund, and now raises money to aid the needy through its thrift store in the Bellevue Square Shopping Mall.

Women's Clubs Across the State

In the early years of North Bend, the Ladies Aid held fundraisers to create the Community Church. In Spokane, the Catholic Ladies Benevolent Society opened an orphanage in 1890, shortly after the club’s formation. That city’s Ladies Benevolent Society, made up of Protestant women, was formed the 1880s and continued into the 1950s. It succeeded at serving both the elderly and impoverished children and at providing needlework classes to women in need of wage-earning skills.

Also in Spokane, the Hebrew Ladies Benevolent Society (formed 1893), the Ladies Scandinavian-American Aid Society (1895), and the  African American women’s societies at  Calvary Baptist and Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Churches (founded in the1890s) provided charitable assistance to those in need. Throughout the state, women’s auxiliaries to fraternal orders, such as the Daughters of Eastern Star of the Masons and the Rebekahs of the International Order of Odd Fellows, raised funds and provided social services for destitute members and their families through lodge orphanages and old-age homes.

Going to War Against Alcohol

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) won adherents in the Pacific Northwest soon after the organization’s founding in the 1870s. Women often met in Methodist churches to advocate the prohibition of alcohol because of the social effects of its abuse, especially ill-treatment by husbands against wives and children.

WCTU  members targeted Olympia taverns in 1874, praying outside the establishments and singing hymns to discourage business within. Temperance supporters worked tirelessly, but with spotty effectiveness, for local-option legislation that would permit individual communities to “vote dry” by closing saloons. After decades of effort, they finally secured their goal in 1914, when Washington citizens voted to effect a dry Washington by 1916, four years ahead of the federal Prohibition amendment to the constitution.

WCTU members also addressed a wide array of other social problems, including the need for kindergartens, raising the age of consent, and woman suffrage. In fact, so intertwined was the support for women’s enfranchisement and the prohibition of alcohol that activist Abigail Scott Duniway (1834-1915) warned that brewers, bartenders, and men who frequented gin mills would surely halt the cause of the women's vote unless  suffragists tempered their attacks on drunkards. From Jail Reform to Self Improvement The WCTU in Spokane championed still another reform, petitioning their City Council as early as 1889 for a woman jail matron, to prevent sexual advances on women inmates by male wardens. They rallied other women’s groups to the cause, winning permission in 1902 for a police matron to be called to the jail on an as-needed basis.

During the Free Speech Movement of 1909 there were massive arrests in Spokane, including radical Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964), who exposed sexual abuses against women prisoners like herself. The embarrassed city government finally agreed to the calls of women's clubs for a resident woman matron in the jails. Many women turned to clubs for a purpose other than good works. In an era when educational opportunities were sparse and few girls enjoyed access to private academies, public schools, or institutions of higher learning, some clubs decided to create self-improvement groups. Adult wives and mothers, for whom an eighth grade diploma might have been a privilege, set up “universities for middle-aged women” and undertook monthly literary club gatherings to broaden their minds.

Elite women in Olympia are generally credited with forming the first reading group in Washington, the Olympia Woman’s Club, in 1883. They modeled their society on book clubs thriving in more populated parts of the nation. Founded by Abbie H. H. Stuart, the group hosted 50 invited participants bi-monthly from September through June to hear members’ reports on contemporary culture and current events.

To Learn and to Mingle

The format spread quickly throughout the state and women in large cities and small towns formed local woman’s clubs to examine American novels, English poetry, French history, Asian art, or U.S. foreign policy. The Aloha Club of Tacoma, Spokane Sorosis, the Nineteenth Century Literary Club of Seattle, the Women’s Reading Club of Walla Walla, the Everett Book Club, the Port Angeles Society of Literary Explorers, the St. Helena Club of Chehalis, Centralia's Ladies of the Round Table, and the Woman’s Literary Club of Hoquiam are among the groups described in Jane Croly’s gigantic 1898 compendium of American women’s clubs.

While the state’s farm women labored in isolated settings with unrelenting burdens, they too made time for similar activity, in such groups as the Orchard Ridges Club, Riverside Woman’s Club, Union Flats Women’s Club near Pullman, the Don’t Worry Club in Mockonema, the Stitch and Chatter Club in Clinton, the Get-Together Club in Hooper and the Get-Acquainted Club in East Mabton, the North Country Club in Selah, and the multitude of Granges in the region.

Adult enthusiasm for club study prompted women to launch similar groups for young women in their schools, YWCAs, and churches; for immigrants in ethnic neighborhoods; and for working girls in cities. The Woman’s Industrial Club (1895), for example, started by Mrs. Homer Hill of the Woman’s Century Club, offered discussion among domestic workers in Seattle. 

Members profited from literary club activity in numerous ways. In addition to acquainting themselves with major authors and ideas from the past and present, they enjoyed the regular social interaction with their peers at each meeting over tea and cookies. They developed public-speaking skills when they took a turn informing their fellow club members about a selected topic. They mastered parliamentary procedure through Roberts’ Rules of Order , and applied those rules to discuss club themes in an orderly fashion. In addition, they began to build the confidence and organizational skills needed to embark on a new path, that of addressing the many social problems they observed in their communities. Books for the People Among the earliest social issues that women’s literary clubs examined was the need for public libraries. Committed to learning among themselves, members began to contribute small collections of books for their neighbors to borrow. They also created traveling libraries, shipping boxes of books to remote logging camps, prisons, and rural schoolhouses.

Not surprisingly, women’s literary clubs by the dozens launched local movements to obtain the $10,000 Carnegie Library buildings offered by steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). To meet the requirements of his gift, the clubs successfully raised large sums of money, acquired new volumes and periodicals to circulate, and pressed their mayors and city councils to support a new tax to finance books and a librarian’s salary. Among the women’s clubs that initiated their local public library were the Duvall Women’s Civic Club, Ballard WCTU, Auburn WCTU, Kirkland Woman’s Club, Danish Sisterhood of Enumclaw, Seattle Ladies Library Association, Ellensburg’s Municipal Improvement Society, Tacoma’s Women’s Library Society, Aberdeen Woman’s Club, Everett’s Woman’s Book Club, Puyallup Woman’s Club, Hoquiam Woman’s Club, and Kalama Woman’s Club.

Mothering and Schooling Additional educational issues attracted the attention of Washington’s women’s club members. In fact, the topic of good mothering ignited the earliest known aggregation of Northwest women, a group of missionary wives. Among them were Narcissa Whitman (1808-1847), Eliza Spalding (1807-1851), Myra F. Eells (1805-1878), and Mary Richardson Walker (1811-1897). They agreed, soon after arriving in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1830s, to study modern ideas on child-raising through their Columbia Maternal Association. When their work took them to distant parts of the region, they agreed to set aside the same hour to read the same materials, uniting  with their far-away club sisters in the pursuit of advanced notions of mothering.

Mother’s Clubs became popular in the late nineteenth century and evolved into Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) in the 1920s, bringing much-needed educational materials to sparely furnished rural schools. Until mother’s groups undertook fundraising to supply such “amenities," most one-room schoolhouses offered no books, maps, globes, window shades, hot lunches, pianos, outhouses, graduation festivities, Christmas pageants, or playground equipment.

The White Salmon Woman’s Club, started in 1900, founded a permanent PTA after they donated $100 to furnish the city’s first “high school room” and contributed the school’s first dictionary. Tacoma’s Aloha Club bought reproductions of Old Master paintings to decorate the local schools and uplift the student body with notable works of art. Women’s clubs also raised money for loans and scholarship to school girls, with the knowledge that many families prioritized their sons’ education, while daughters struggled without financial assistance.

The improvement of Washington’s library and educational systems by women’s groups was facilitated by the creation of the Washington State Federation of Women’s Clubs (WSFWC) in 1896. An alliance of many clubs, it sponsored annual conventions at which representatives of each club could confer about techniques for effecting civic reform and social change. These meetings also permitted many clubs to unite behind a particular cause, with conservation emerging as an especially compelling issue.

Women's Clubs Go Green

Admiration for Thatuna Park (purchased by Pullman’s Fortnightly Club), Tillicum Park and Sutton Park (created by the Cheney Woman’s Club), Pioneer Park (established by Puyallup’s Teacup Club), and Ravenna Park (founded by Seattle’s Woman’s Century Club) led the state network of women’s clubs to become drawn to environmental protection. Cross-club cooperation enabled federation leader Esther Stark Maltby to collect the funds in 1925 to acquire a 63-acre virgin forest in the Cascade Mountains, east of Snoqualmie Pass, from the Snoqualmie Lumber Company. Later, this protected land was sold to finance the purchase of a more ambitious park, a 612-acre forest on state route 140, 17 miles east of Enumclaw, known today as Federation Forest.

Well ahead of today’s environmental movement, members of the state federation called for tree planting on Arbor Day, school-yard gardens, street trees for neighborhood beautification, pure food and drug laws, and clean-water legislation. The federation also successfully pressed for a woman member on Washington’s Conservation Commission, placing its 1902 president, Elvira Elwood of Ellensburg, on the state agency's board. Less Literature, More Lobbying

By the early twentieth century, enthusiasm for civic reform issues diminished the early literary concerns of women’s clubs. Members used their clubs to rally behind solutions to improve the lives of less-fortunate women, attacking the dance halls that perpetuated prostitution, funding a low-cost residence for single women, and establishing Woman’s Exchanges, stores where housebound women could support themselves by selling their handicrafts and home cooking for pure profit, without paying overhead for the facility.

The women also pushed government to become more responsive to social needs, laying the groundwork for the government's assumption of responsibility for social welfare in the 1930s. Their call for a state reformatory for girls, mothers' pensions (a forerunner of Social Security), an eight-hour day for women workers, minimum wage, and child labor laws predated New Deal legislation.

The Suffrage Campaigns

Public wariness of programs initiated by women in clubs sometimes alerted members to the need to restore suffrage to Washington women, who had briefly been granted the vote in territorial days, from 1883-1887. Woman suffrage organizations, employing a range of tactics from lady-like to militant, worked vigorously for enfranchisement, until victory came on election day in 1910 with two-thirds of the state’s men endorsing the vote for the women.

Washington became the fifth state in the United States to grant women the vote. This achievement inspired other states to rejuvenate their campaigns during the period from 1911 to 1920. Having a Little Fun    The twentieth century saw a tendency of women to form new special-interest clubs. Music lovers created the Seattle Ladies Musical Club in 1891. The Drama League in Tacoma performed amateur theatrical productions, as did the Spokane Negro Dramatic Club.

Garden clubs inspired and facilitated the exchange of home and community landscaping information. Girl Scouts, 4-H Club, and Camp Fire Girls grounded young women in club activity. The Daughters of Norway, Vasa Lodge, the Slavonian Women’s Lodge, and the Italian Fidelia Club created venues for immigrants.

In the 1920s club women identified lobbying needs through the Washington Woman’s Legislative Council, whose regular newsletter alerted members to legislative bills likely to impact the lives of women and children.  

Work, War, and Remembrance

Career women established the  Washington State Teachers Association, sororities for women lawyers, and the League of American Pen Women for writers and painters. Altrusa, Soroptimist, and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women facilitated networking among businesswomen, who were not admitted to businessmen’s alliances like Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions until the 1970s. The American Association of University Women attracted alumnae of institutions of higher learning.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 and World War I sparked Red Cross organizations to provide war relief. Heritage groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Confederacy, and Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington sprung up.

Multitasking Members Club activity was attractive to many women and examples of those holding multiple memberships abound. One example is suffrage supporter Jessie E. Atkinson of Spokane, who served as president of the state WCTU and editor of its newsletter, but also as treasurer of her YWCA.

And that's not all. In addition to being a board member of the Florence Crittenton Home, Atkinson organized two garden clubs and was active in the Shakespeare Club, the Spokane Art Association, and the PTA while her two daughters were in school. Canadian-born, she somehow found time to start the Daughters of the British Empire.

Twenty-First Century Legacy 

Although today’s women enjoy additional venues for social outlets, study, and community-mindedness, evidence of Washington’s vigorous women’s club life remains visible. Women’s clubhouses still stand, including Seattle’s Woman’s Century Club (now the Harvard Exit Theater), Women’s University Club, Sunset Club, Daughters of the American Revolution (modeled after George Washington’s Mount Vernon), Spokane’s Woman’s Club on South Hill, and the Yakima Woman’s Club.

On our highways, tourist facilities, like Indian John Rest Stop on I-90 east of Cle Elum offer markers of the Blue Star Memorial Highway from the Washington State Federation of Garden Clubs, a tribute to the Armed Forces. The YWCA buildings of Seattle, Yakima, and Bellingham developed from early efforts to assist working girls and college women.  In Ellensburg, the downtown clock comes courtesy of the Friday Morning Club.

The cooperation among women inherent in clubs provided the foundation for the women’s rights movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and resembles the sisterhood resurrected during the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s.  The creativity and the commitment of members to find solutions to social problems, and their tenacity in institutionalizing those solutions, have won women’s clubs a significant place as a force inshaping American community.   

Sources: Mildred Tanner Andrews, Washington Women as Path Breakers (Dubuque: Kendall-Hunt, 1989); Jane Cunningham Croly, The History of the Woman’s Club Movement in America (New York: Henry G. Allen, 1897); Karen J. Blair, Northwest Women: An Annotated Bibliography of Sources on the History of Oregon and Washington Women, 1787-1970 (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1997); Karen J. Blair, “The Limits of Sisterhood: the Woman’s Building in Seattle, 1908-1921,” in Women in Pacific Northwest History , ed. Karen J. Blair (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001); Karen J. Blair, “The Seattle Ladies Musical Club, 1890-1930,” in Women in Pacific Northwest History, rev. ed., ed. by Karen J. Blair (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988); Nancy Arlene Driscol Engle, “Benefiting a City: Women, Respectability and Reform in Spokane, Washington, 1886-1910” (Ph.D. diss., University of Florida, 2003); Sandra Haarsager, Organized Womanhood: Cultural Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1840-1920 (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997); Shanna Stevenson, Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices: The Campaign for Equal Rights in Washington (Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society, 2009).

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History@Work

Connecting clues on the trail of a century-old black women’s club.

07 May 2019 – Tiya Miles

TPH 40.3 , training , African American history , race , Higher Education , The Public Historian , libraries , gender , Black museums series , teaching , community engagement

Editors’ Note: This post is part of a History@Work  series that complements The Public Historian , volume 40, number 3,  which is about the history of the field of Black Museums.

There are multiple paths to the collaborations we value as historical interpreters and practitioners. Sometimes we bring our burning questions to those eye-witnesses and local researchers who know a topic from the ground up, seeking their input or partnership. At other times, professionals located in schools, museums, or community organizations extend invitations for engagement that we accept although the topic may be far afield from our areas of expertise. And once in a blue moon, community members put forward a project that lights up our imagination.

Students conducting research and taking digital photos, with Professor Tiya Miles, at the Detroit Public Library. Photo credit: Cynthia Long, Detroit Study Club member.

This is how it was when I received an invitation in 2017 to attend a meeting of the Detroit Study Club and present on my book, The Dawn of Detroit , a history of black and Native American enslavement in the urban Midwest.

The Detroit Study Club, I learned from their graceful invitation, was a group of African American women in Detroit whose progenitors had been meeting together for over a hundred years to broaden their minds and aid their community. No less a figure than historian Darlene Clark Hine, the National Humanities Medal winner and pathbreaking scholar of African American women’s history, had written an overview essay in the Club’s 100 th Anniversary booklet. [1] Founded in 1898, the Study Club first met in the living room of musician and teacher Gabrielle Pelham. The Club’s black middle-class women members met to cultivate their minds, pondering the work of British poet Robert Browning (1812-1889). They continued to convene regularly, passing down values and traditions to daughters, granddaughters, and new members even as they broadened their topics of interest to include current events and African American studies.

When I accepted the invitation to speak at their meeting in a beautiful hotel ballroom, I was inspired to share in an intellectual space created by one of the original black women’s clubs from that great era of reform. The Detroit Study Club women of today stressed how they honor and continue traditions (preferring, for instance, handwritten letters and rules of decorum as modeled by their forebears) of yesterday, but they also revealed their desire for one modern thing: a Wikipedia entry about the history of their club . I was eager to offer what I could for this enterprise, most importantly, the talent of my students. I was planning to teach a first-year seminar at the University of Michigan on representations of African American women the following semester. The black women’s club movement was already on our syllabus. I only needed to refashion the final paper assignment into a group research and writing project in order to lead my students in an original production of historical writing about the club.

Of course, you will spot my folly immediately. This “just update the syllabus” approach was much easier said than done. I wish now that I had consulted commentary and how-to guides on classroom writing for Wikipedia before beginning. [2] The kind of writing we expect students to accomplish in humanities courses revolves around the strength of argumentation and interpretation. It is perspectival, layered in terms of sourcing (primary and secondary), and often lengthy. I added relevant secondary source reading on the black women’s club movement, the history of black Detroit, and respectability politics in African American history to the syllabus, a list to which the students added as they did their work for the project. Broad reading to build context was important for our classroom work but an over-reach for Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a platform seeking straight forward reportage based on secondary sources only. The students produced smartly analytical essays bringing in the history of the Underground Railroad in Detroit, black business history in the city, black women’s club development at the national level in relation to white women’s clubs, and so on.

Students conducting research and taking digital photos at the Detroit Public Library. Photo credit: Cynthia Long, Detroit Study Club member.

The actual work of shortening, compiling, rearranging, fact-checking, revising, and polishing the students’ writing took multiple hours outside of class time. Part-way through the project, I hired a former student (a recent prize-winning graduate of the UM History Department) to help wrestle the undergraduates’ pieces into Wikipedia shape over the summer and into the next fall. Wikipedia required two sets of onerous revisions to eliminate the essay-like quality of the students’ writing, whittling our submission down to a nub by the end. And all of this editorial work was paid for by personal research funds that are not always accessible to faculty members and instructors.

Each community engaged project, I find, is a new learning experience—for the teacher as well as the students. My lesson for next time (and I do plan on crafting a Wikipedia assignment again because of the sheer energy it generated and positive contribution it made to a local community) is to start the work earlier in the semester, build in an extra term’s worth of completion time for the project, and, if the material requires more space than Wikipedia will grant it, to share the research on additional  platforms that offer greater flexibility.

Students reading primary materials from the Detroit Study Club papers as present-day Detroit Study Club member Terees Western looks on. Photo credit: Terees Western.

Our research process in the classroom and outside of it was exhilarating. The students bonded with each other by teaming up in small groups charged with different tasks. They expressed feeling energized by the immediacy of the project, which mattered to real people in the world and might be read by thousands. A subset of the students interviewed members of the Study Club to gather oral history and spent a weekend delving into the club’s papers housed at the Detroit Public Library . Together, our class made discoveries that were wondrous. You know those heady moments when you see a student’s face light up with the recognition of a worthy challenge or joy of discovery. I had the chance to bask in such pedagogical satisfactions. One student (from Detroit herself) followed a money trail across several early account books leading the class to realize members of the club had founded and supported a home for aged women in Detroit for decades. Another team (a black woman and white man) realized Study Club members had corresponded with W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) (a fact that contemporary members of the club were thrilled to learn), and two students (both Jewish) discovered that a Michigan Jewish women’s club had been on the Detroit Study Club’s invitee list for a tea with Booker T. Washington (1856-1915). These were all moving revelations that helped students connect personally to this history and see the local, regional, and national threads that tied this single organization to a larger fabric of reform efforts, even as they honed their critical analysis (gleaned from the secondary literature we read) of class privilege in the black women’s club movement. [3]

Students conducting research at the Detroit Public Library. Photo credit: Terees Western.

The finding that most amazed me had emerged in a short line of the club members’ writings. They noted the Club’s sale of spoons for the Frederick Douglass home. This action was, at first, a mystery. But I soon realized it might be linked to a journal manuscript I had read about black historic preservation ( which would later appear in a special issue of The Public Historian , published in August of 2018 ). In it, preservationist Brent Leggs explained that in 1917 the National Association of Colored Women had launched a major effort to purchase and preserve Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass (1838-1882) , outside of Washington, DC. [4] And to their forward-thinking campaign, credit is due for our enjoyment of that National Park Service site today. The women of the Detroit Study Club had participated in this national fundraiser by selling flatware—the strongest evidence our class found of the Club’s ties to national black women’s associations.

The class also saw, through this enlarged window of perception, how Detroit Study Club members used domestic spaces, such as the private living room where the Detroit Study Club first met, to advance their political, social, and intellectual goals in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Detroit Study Club’s most enduring community projects were both houses: the Frederick Douglass home in Virginia and the Phyllis Wheatley Home for elderly black women in Detroit, which was founded by Study Club members and operated through the mid-twentieth century with partial funding from the club. While the Douglass Home still stands and serves as a stage for the telling of multiple important stories, the Wheatley Home is no longer identifiable on city maps and was likely demolished. This speaks to the urgency of preserving buildings from the black past that stalwarts in the struggle for change invested in so heavily.

Part of the class and guests at the end of a long day’s work in the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Photo credit: Owen Kaufman of Jason Keen Photography

To sample the work of our class, see the Detroit Study Club Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Study_Club . You can also read a longer version of that article at:  http://tiyamiles.com/detroit-study-club/.

~ Tiya Miles is a professor of history at Harvard University and co-president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians.

[1] The Detroit Study Club 100th Anniversary Celebration [booklet] (Detroit, MI: The Detroit Study Club, 1999), Detroit Public Library, Detroit, MI.

[2] See, for instance, Anya Kamenetz, “What Students Can Learn by Writing for Wikipedia,” NPREd, February 22, 2017,   https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/02/22/515244025/what-students-can-learn-by-writing-for-wikipedia ; Robert E. Cummings, “Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing?” Inside Higher Ed , March 12, 2009,  https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/03/12/are-we-ready-use-wikipedia-teach-writing ; and Brian W. Carver, Rochelle Davis, Robin T. Kelley, Jonathan A. Obar, Lianna L. Davis, “Assigning Students to Edit Wikipedia: Four Case Studies,” E-Learning and Digital Media  9, no. 3 (2012), 273-283, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/elea.2012.9.3.273 . Wikipedia.org posts guidelines and directions for classroom assignments, as does Wikimedia.org .

[3] See, for instance: Brittney C. Cooper, Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017), 25-26; Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993); John B. Reid, “A Career to Build, a People to Serve, a Purpose to Accomplish,” in Darlene Clark Hine ed., We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible: A Reader in Black Women’s History (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson, 1995), 312.

[4] Brent Leggs, “Growth of Historic Sites: Teaching Public Historians to Advance Preservation Practice,” The Public Historian 40, no. 3 (August 2018), 90-92.

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Women's Clubs

Women in American History: An Encyclopedia. 2013.

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Feminist ambivalences at exclusive women’s social club.

The critical theorist Nancy Fraser has argued for decades that feminism has lost its way. Once a social movement that fought for equality in its broadest sense, its most vocal ambassadors in the Global North since the ’70s have focused on “cracking glass ceilings” and “leaning in.” These powerful metaphors reflect the concerns of a specific group of women — the professional and upper classes — rather than serve the larger goal, as Fraser and others see it, of creating an egalitarian society.

I found myself thinking of Fraser’s ideas frequently during my short-lived membership at the much talked-about, exclusive women’s social club The Wing , whose DUMBO location I worked from three times a week from March to June 2018. (The club has branches in New York and Washington, DC, and has plans to open at least six more branches.) There, a feminist language is deployed for branding purposes, and the tiring imperatives to “lean in” or “crack the glass ceiling” are championed inadvertently. As Fraser has pointed out time and again, these imperatives may mark a certain kind of gender balance as their objective, but they focus too heavily on questions of representation, prompting everyone to count the number of women in powerful institutions while presupposing, for no good reason, that any woman would defend the rights and interests of all women.

When I joined The Wing, I had hoped to find out that women indeed shared foundational political, social, economic, and cultural goals. Three months later when I left the club, I felt ashamed I had not known better. Fraser had been right all along: too many feminists have developed a disturbing attachment to neoliberal ideas. In the months that passed since I quit the club, I’ve come to see The Wing as an allegory of sorts, a symbol of the individual and collective feminist attempts to reconcile disparate visions of gender parity. The Wing markets itself as “a coven” whose mission is “the professional, civic, social, and economic advancement of women through community.” It is a co-working (and networking) space for people who live and identify as women. Yet above all, it is the manifestation and breeding ground of what Fraser has called “feminist ambivalences.”

“Feminist ambivalences” relates to the vacillation feminist activists have between advocating for the social protection of women and pushing for their full incorporation into the capitalist workforce. The battle for social protection is premised on the notion that unwaged activities, such as care work and home making, should not only be appreciated but also financially endorsed and shared by men and women alike. By contrast, the fight for the full incorporation of women into the capitalist workforce assumes that there is nothing wrong with the neoliberal order in which we live. Instead of marking systemic change as its objective, the latter battle gears itself towards “breaking into” male-dominated institutions, such as big banks, boardrooms, and politics.

Whether or not these conflicting feminist fights can be reconciled is the question many feminists in the Global North have been asking for decades. It is the kind of question that often translates into the language of practical and intimate dilemmas: How to raise one’s children with both parents in the workforce? How to change the culture inside specific workplaces? Could workplaces today be infused with a sense of social responsibility, and should they? On the surface, The Wing offered a space and a community to discuss these dilemmas. But as soon as I joined the club, my feminist ambivalences only deepened.

I heard about The Wing from a friend who described it as a gorgeous workspace that creates opportunities to socialize with smart, interesting women. This friend had often heard me complain about the poor office conditions for adjunct lecturers at the public university where I teach. I scoured The Wing’s brightly-designed website, popular feminist slogans abound, shortly after that conversation. A text by the club’s “in-house historian” recounted the story of the journalist Fanny Fern who, in the 1860s, founded a women’s social club in New York after being banned from a lecture about Charles Dickens in a men’s social club. I imagined a place to write that was not the windowless office at the university; new relationships with contemporary Fanny Ferns; an opportunity to explore feminist questions in the company of “smart, interesting women.”

As I began filling out the membership application on The Wing’s website, I realized that there was a good chance the club would reject me. While the application was not complex, it stressed online presence, asking for my Twitter and Instagram handles and prompting me to type into a special tab the URL of my personal website. With none of these things at hand, I assumed that I was not the kind of person The Wing would accept as a member. When an invitation to set-up my membership landed in my inbox, I was both surprised and flattered. Unlike Groucho Marx, as I discovered, I wanted to belong to a club that has accepted me as a member.

I could afford a membership at The Wing thanks to my husband’s salary and his conviction that I would not be an adjunct lecturer forever. Investing in my networking opportunities struck both of us as a good idea. In retrospect, I suppressed the feeling that the club’s vision of feminism matched the emphasis of its member application: make yourself present, gather followers, lean in. The questions that immediately arose for me, when I started spending days in the hallowed pink halls of The Wing’s DUMBO branch, were ones I could have predicted: Did all the women in the club come from affluent background? Was wealth and status the unapologetic aspiration of most of them? Was I too, eternally and unavoidably, a neoliberal feminist?

The women behind The Wing have managed to fend off any critique of their thriving business since it began gaining momentum. (It did face an investigation by the New York Commission of Human Rights because of its “no men” policy, but The Wing’s spokespeople have defined this investigation as “collaborative,” clarifying that no lawsuit has been filed.) In a 2017 interview with the New York Times , the club’s co-founder Audrey Gelman was asked whether the club catered exclusively to women of the urban financial elite. She responded: “It was never my goal to go into business to begin with and certainly not to go into business to create a product for the uber-wealthy, and I don’t think it is.” Yet a membership at The Wing costs around $2,500 a year and a salad at the club’s café costs around $12. Outside food is not allowed and the use of one of the private conference rooms comes at an extra fee. In the same interview, Gelman eventually displayed some degree of awareness of the limits set by these prices, and the club launched a scholarship program in 2018 for “self-identifying women and non-binary individuals whose work supports the advancement of marginalized women and girls.” It also cited The Wing’s “commitment to building an economically diverse and inclusive community of members.”

Whatever Gelman’s original intentions might have been, The Wing operates as a business. It has raised money from investors such as WeWork, the company that more or less invented the idea of trendily designed, shared office spaces. Unlike WeWork, however, The Wing capitalizes on its association with feminist ideas. What the club sells, in addition to its luxurious décor and amenities, is the fantasy that the different battles of feminism are compatible.

The basic components of The Wing’s vision reveal the club’s principal affiliation with neoliberal feminism. The Wing celebrates productivity and entrepreneurship, serving chiefly professional women. That most women in the world, or even in the large metropolitan areas where the club’s branches are situated, cannot afford a membership at The Wing is a fact that does not necessarily disqualify the club from considering itself a feminist initiative. Still, The Wing configures the fight for gender equality as an obligation to support talented women in their attempts to manage their career, family, and social life. The club’s detailed directory of members suggests that its founders believe in some version of the liberal principle of “top down” feminism. According to this principle, the larger the number of female entrepreneurs and women in key positions is, the better all women are. The former can hire, push and support the latter, and together they can promote a different culture in the workplace while advancing women-friendly policies.

The Wing itself makes sure to meet not just the professional, but also the personal needs of its members. Inside the branch that I frequented, there was a designated room for nursing or pumping (equipped with a small refrigerator and a sharpie to mark bottles or bags); showers; a beauty salon (with a changing supply of creams, cleansers, perfumes, hair brushes, hair dryers, hair ties or pins, and cotton swabs); and a small yoga and relaxation studio. The menu at the café, which offers a signature dish named “fork the patriarchy,” was highly adjustable. It allowed patrons to substitute ingredients indefinitely to make their food gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, or vegan.

With its amenities, The Wing enables its members to cultivate the supposedly outdated fantasy of “having it all.” What women want, according to The Wing, is to work, pump, and shower in one place. Gelman has revealed that she had conceived of the club when she recognized how much schlepping around the city she had been doing, moving between meetings and social commitments. She had dreamt of a place where she could powder her nose, rest and hang out with other women who faced similar pressures to be constantly on the move, but also look presentable. Every day I spent at The Wing I wondered why Gelman had interpreted her dream in feminist terms. It was as if she viewed the existence of an exclusive women’s social club in 2016 as some kind of a basic right. What she really created, however, was another product that wealthy women could now buy. That this product was marketed as a place that advanced social justice and gender parity suddenly seemed ludicrous to me. That this marketing strategy worked, in my case, made me feel both embarrassed and complicit.

My embarrassment notwithstanding, the exclusive presence of women in one large space had an intoxicating effect on me. A friend who came to meet me for lunch at The Wing (members are allowed up to two guests for periods of four hours, as long as the guests identify and live as women) sensed the same. At a moment of involuntary memory, she was transported back to her days at an all-girls school. As we were chewing quinoa, she reminisced about the feminine energy that had filled her life then. It was an energy produced by the gaze of women at women; a gaze that was often full of admiration, but also characterized by a particular type of competition. I felt that, too — I wanted to know what the women around me were doing for a living, what they thought, and whether they, too, had some reservations about the club’s interpretation of womanhood. I looked at them as they used their laptops, drank coffee with oat milk, applied makeup at the beauty salon. Every morning, they secured their seats using piles of colorful, fashionable stuff — scarves and jackets, large and small bags, headphones, chargers, notebooks, pens, lotions, and books.

The books could come from members’ homes, but, more often than not, they were taken down from one of the many bookshelves at the club. Every branch of The Wing has its own library of titles by female authors. The libraries are organized by color (keeping up appearances), and have no accessible catalog. I once asked to borrow Rachel Cusk’s Transit . The concierge had trouble figuring out the library circulation system, and after apologizing repeatedly for keeping me there, she ended up scribbling something on a pink post-it, which she then stuck to her keyboard. I returned Cusk’s novel a month later to a different concierge, and took the opportunity to ask if a library catalog was in the works. The concierge did not know. She pointed out, however, that there were notes at the entrance to the workspace on which one could convey her “feels” about The Wing. These notes were a lighter shade of pink than the post-its at the front desk. I separated three from the stack and used different handwritings to write on each one: “library catalog.”

I noticed, one day, another woman reading academic articles, and started to talk to her. She told me that she had recently begun studying for a Masters degree in organizational psychology. She already owned a small “personal coaching” business, which focused on women. She pitched it to me automatically: “In a society that promotes individualism, it is sometimes hard to find your true self.” I asked her what it was like to start one’s own business. She had saved money, as I learned, from her previous job as a salesperson in a well-known cycling company. She also taught yoga privately, which provided her with the means to take the “leap of faith” required to set in motion one’s own business. As she was talking, the woman at the table next to us turned her chair to face us. Addressing the personal coach directly, she inquired about the specific cycling company where the latter used to work. Incidentally, both worked for the same company. The woman from the table next to us was now eager to compare experiences, carefully shutting her laptop screen. When the conversation about the cycling company died down, I asked her, too, what she did for a living. She had seemed immersed in what looked like a personal blog before turning her chair in our direction. It was her online platform of lifestyle recommendations. It began as a hobby, but was now her main gig. At the moment, she was busy editing an interview with a woman who curates snacks for theaters across the city. Apparently, she had this woman recommend the best snacks available out there, as well as the theaters that sell them.

A couple of days after that exchange, I saw the lifestyle blogger again at The Wing. She told me that a prominent, local newspaper had reached out to her with a proposal. They wanted her to write a weekly column of “things to do around the city” for their local edition. The compensation was meager, but the prestige could be huge. I congratulated her and promised to look for her name in the paper. I could not help but wonder whether she was actually making a living out of her “platform.” Was this kind of work sustainable? Could only rich women do it?

I thought of the friend who introduced me to The Wing. She worked such long hours at the legal firm that employed her, that she barely took advantage of her membership at the club. When I met her for dinner, she chided herself for wasting money on The Wing. She has grown resentful of the “no men” policy at the club because she often needed to have lunch with men and could potentially use her membership then. The problem is, she said, that this club creates a dangerous illusion that the world is pink and safe. “I’ve got news for those women who curate snacks,” she stated, “the world is neither pink nor safe.”

The concept of “a safe space” indeed played a central role in shaping The Wing’s brand. During my time as a member, I attended multiple events that set out to examine aspects of this concept alongside other feminist issues: a panel about the #MeToo movement; a conversation with female politicians; a screening of a film made by female creators. There were clear limitations, however, to each of these events. During a panel about a non-profit organization whose goal is to educate women and girls about finance, the focus remained on the stories of individuals, rather than the effects and implications of a global financial structure. An ex-investment banker told attendees about her current job at a private equity firm. An MBA graduate revealed that, “unlike most girls,” she has always had an interest in economic structures. The panelists shunned questions about class, or an explicit debate around the ties between venture capital and the distribution of wealth across the world.

A few days after I had left the club, I discovered that an event about freezing one’s eggs was scheduled for June. On some level, I regretted missing the opportunity to attend such an event. My mother has been nagging me about freezing my eggs for years, and my in-laws have recently joined her. I knew, however, that if a direct conversation about the interrelations between social and economic pressures had not transpired at past events at The Wing, it would not transpire this time either.

The only event I enjoyed was a clothes swap that, apart from providing me the opportunity to add a new silk shirt and denim shorts to my wardrobe, manifested the modules of feminine socialization lucidly. As the clothes were being hung on racks, or neatly folded on tables by employees of The Wing, members looked around and began eying items they desired. Yet when a manager announced that we may begin, we all made visible efforts to be kind. We treaded slowly towards the racks, checking constantly that we were not the first to snatch anything. I recognized some of the women who were presently trying things on; perhaps from the social media accounts of the club, whose managers took it upon themselves to educate people about women who changed the course of history.

On Twitter, The Wing posted stories of women who were pioneers in their fields, deploying the hashtag “#KnowHerName.” I read the stories, but often found that they, too, corroborated a neo-liberal logic by encouraging women to “rise to the top.” The same could be said about the monthly emails highlighting members’ achievements with the subject line: “Wing Women at Work.”

In May, when my spouse received a job offer in Europe and we decided to relocate, I emailed the billing department of The Wing. I requested their permission to cancel the rest of my annual membership and received a quick response that cordially demanded proof of my relocation. As soon as I sent evidence, I was granted the right to quit the club. The emails from the billing department were always signed “All our best, The Wing Women.”

I felt relieved when I left The Wing for good. My feminist ambivalences did not go anywhere, but I was back to thinking about them without letting the fantasy of having it all take hold of me. The week of my relocation, I began reading Sheila Heti’s most recent book Motherhood and the discussions it prompted. The book has been deemed apolitical by some critics, to which Heti has responded in an interview: “I think there’s this thing in feminism, where you don’t want people to do it differently from you because we have to be united. Can’t we be united in being sincere to ourselves?”

Sincerity is an elusive goal, but, as a feminist imperative, it strikes me as more liberating than the imperative to lean in. Perhaps it is an absence of sincerity that turns feminist initiatives such as The Wing, where female success is both narrowly defined and thoroughly commercialized, into loci of repressed rather than straightforward ambivalences. One feminist truism is that for centuries, men shaped, defined, and disseminated ideas about women. Now that most women in the Global North get to speak for themselves, we cannot afford ignoring the need to openly and sincerely talk about the conflict between disparate feminist battles. The tension between neoliberal and social feminism is probably here to stay. I had to stop pretending that I did not have to choose.

5 Women Empowerment Essays Everybody Should Read

What does “women’s empowerment” mean? It refers to the process of giving women control over their choices and access to the opportunities and resources that allow them to thrive. While there’s been progress, gender inequality remains a persistent issue in the world. Empowering women politically, socially, economically, educationally, and psychologically helps narrow the gap. Here are five essays about women’s empowerment that everyone should read:

Women’s Movements and Feminist Activism (2019)

Amanda Gouws & Azille Coetzee

This editorial from the “Empowering women for gender equity” issue of the journal Agenda explores the issue’s themes. It gives a big picture view of the topics within. The issue is dedicated to women’s movements and activism primarily in South Africa, but also other African countries. New women’s movements focus on engaging with institutional policies and running campaigns for more female representation in government. Some barriers make activism work harder, such as resistance from men and funding, If you’re interested in the whole issue, this editorial provides a great summary of the main points, so you can decide if you want to read further.

Agenda is an African peer-viewed academic journal focusing on feminism. It was established in 1987. It publishes articles and other entries, and tutors young writers.

5 Powerful Ways Women Can Empower Other Women (2020)

Pavitra Raja

Originally published during Women’s History Month, this piece explores five initiatives spearheaded by women in the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship community. Created by women for women, these innovations demonstrate what’s possible when women harness their skills and empower each other. The initiatives featured in this article embrace technology, education, training programs, and more.

Pavitra Raja is the Community Manager for social entrepreneurs in Europe, North America, and Latin America. She’s consulted with the UN Economic Commission for Europe and also has experience in legal affairs and policy in the private and public sectors.

The Key to Improving Women’s Health in Developing Countries (2019)

Because of gender inequality, women’s health is affected around the world. Factors like a lower income than men, more responsibilities at home, and less education impact health. This is most clear in developing countries. How can this be addressed? This essay states that empowerment is the key. When giving authority and control over their own lives, women thrive and contribute more to the world. It’s important that programs seeking to end gender inequality focus on empowerment, and not “rescue.” Treating women like victims is not the answer.

Axa is a leading global insurer, covering more than 100 million customers in 57 countries. On their website, they say they strive for the collective good by working on prevention issues, fighting climate change, and prioritizing protection. The company has existed for over 200 years.

Empowering Women Is Smart Economics (2012)

Ana Revenga and Sudhir Shetty

What are the benefits of women’s empowerment? This article presents the argument that closing gender gaps doesn’t only serve women, it’s good for countries as a whole. Gender equality boosts economic productivity, makes institutions more representative, and makes life better for future generations. This piece gives a good overview of the state of the world (the data is a bit old, but things have not changed significantly) and explores policy implications. It’s based on the World Bank’s World Development Report in 2012 on gender equality and development.

Ana Revenga and Sudhir Shetty both worked at the World Bank at the time this article was originally published. Revenga was the Sector Director of Human Development, Europe and Central Asia. Shetty (who still works at the World Bank in a different role) was the Sector Director, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, East Asia and Pacific.

The Side Of Female Empowerment We Aren’t Talking About Enough (2017)

Tamara Schwarting

In this era of female empowerment, women are being told they can do anything, but can they? It isn’t because women aren’t capable. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. As this article says, women have “more to do but no more time to do it.” The pressure is overwhelming. Is the image of a woman who can “do it all” unrealistic? What can a modern woman do to manage a high-stakes life? This essay digs into some solutions, which include examining expectations and doing self-checks.

Tamara Schwarting is the CEO of 1628 LTD, a co-working community space of independent professionals in Ohio. She’s also an executive-level consultant in supply chain purchasing and business processes. She describes herself as an “urbanist” and has a passion for creative, empowering work environments.

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National Association Of Colored Women's Club Analysis

Leadership abilities are key in being a part of any organization. I believe that in becoming a part of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC), I will be able to bring some great ideas in helping the young women of today, no matter what race or religion. Girls need mentors in their life that will help build them up in becoming respectable young women. NACWC will help me reach a goal of educating the children, holding seminars for young ladies, and serving the community. I cannot do everything by myself and I realize that I need a community behind me that believes in the same ideas and to support me.

Research Proposal On African American Women

My research proposal will focus on the different issues African American women face while trying to advance within society. I will discuss how these women are paid less because they are women as well as African American. I will also be comparing their struggles to Black men, and White men and women. My next topic will include how these women are often discriminated against. And finally I will discuss how these women are often over looked for receiving promotions at work, even if they obtain more experience.

National Black Pre-Law Conference Analysis

On November 10, 2017, the National Black Pre-Law Conference will host a one-day networking and empowerment event at the New York University School of Law. The conference is a premier event that focuses on African-Americans who are interested in becoming future lawyers. The activity will provide aspiring lawyers with information, connection, resources, and support to help them in their decision on joining the legal profession.

Women Of Color Analysis

Women have come a long way. They started off unable to vote or even have equal rights to now it is hope that a woman may potentially be president. People of different races and people with different sexualities faced many many struggles with discrimination and being looked down upon to now being elected for several levels of government.unable

Ncbw Essay Questions

I am a fan of all women especially strong, intelligent, confident black women who stand out in the community. I believe the NCBW’s is not only a small display of our women but a pilot for so much to come. I am eager to join so that I too can stand strong with my sisters and keep the generational dream alive.

Essay On Wf Arizona Leadership

I do lead by example by using my volunteer hours and volunteering constantly on my own spare time. I am an individual who is open to others opinions and to experience. I am very respectful always trying to follow the “golden” rule, of treated others like you would like to be treated. I value diversity and inclusion as we all do not come from the same walk of life, but we all should appreciate each other differences as a blending of ideas lead to greatness. I am non-judgmental to people that I meet or speak with as the outside of someone doesn’t always reflect the goodness that could lie within an individual. I have the ability and willingness to represent the chapter in a positive way, by wearing my Wells Fargo volunteer shirt when I go to events and engaging team members to participate in volunteering. I have the willingness and the ability to be a valuable contributor to the team and be a part of a team to get others more involved within the community. I possess good communication skills verbally and written when speaking to others. Finally, I will be able to make the minimum one year commitment, but hope to be a part of the chapter leadership team for many years to

Hillcrest Hospital Helpers Club

One of the first real leadership positions I ever had at my school was in the Hillcrest Hospital Helpers Club. I became a member my first year at Hillcrest as a sophomore and became immediately interested in their purpose as a school club. While it may sound cliché, the members of the club, and especially the leaders, wanted to make a difference through their service. We would at least monthly participate in creating art crafts and activities for the children at Shriner’s Hospital and then deliver it to them. While it may not seem much to the average person, the happiness on the children’s faces was worth all of our efforts and more.

Women Of Color And Non-White Women: Article Analysis

This article comes from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The title of the article is A Comparison of Women of Color and Non-Hispanic White Women on Factors Related to Leaving a Violent Relationship. This study compares women of color and non-Hispanic White women regarding the influence of socioeconomic status, family investment, and psychological abuse on leaving a violent relationship. Women of color and non-Hispanic White women did not differ in their length or rate of leaving, although women of color left more frequently when they did leave. Women of color with higher socioeconomic status were less likely to leave, which was not the case for non-Hispanic White women.

A Research On African American Girls

A disparity is a great inconsistency, difference , or a lack of equality. As a consequence of studies researching the educational experiences of boys dominating the academic realm of African Americans, the educational disparities that their female counterparts face are overshadowed and/or discounted. The purpose of this paper is to address the inconsistency, or lack of extensive research on African American girls by examining the ways in which gender plays an adverse role in the education of African American girls, how much awareness there is on the issue of educational disparities in AA girls (specifically the faculty and students), and what the future

Women Of Color Research Paper

Everyday Transgender Women of color are mistreated and repressed by society, they face constant ridicule and mistreatment. They face a constant issue of society judging them and putting them under a microscope. Societal repression is a constant issue these women face just because of their gender identity. Transgender Women of Color are one of the most least mentioned groups in society. This under shadowed group of women is struggling. They face constant abuse and repression, society is destroying these women. These women who are just like everyone else are one of the most mistreated societal groups around. They face things like mistreatment in the health field that should be helping them through one of the biggest transitions of their life.

The American Branch Of The United Negro Improvement Association

After the end of slavery, blacks were free and had the right to vote, but they were oppressed by white supremacist and state laws that restricted their voting rights. Many great minds rose from the shadows and spoke against these injustice, but the one that stands out the most is Marcus Garvey. Garvey created a huge impact in the African-American history, but his stubbornness and ignorance lead to his self-destruction. As a young boy, in Jamaica, Garvey was inspired by the works of Booker T Washington especially by the book “Up from Slavery”. From a young age, Garvey believed that is was his destiny to speak in front of millions this was one of the many reasons why he became an activist. Throughout his lifetime he made enemies with other African- American activist, like W. E. B Du Bois, who criticized Garvey and his ideology. The first American branch of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) was established by Garvey in September 1917; the main causes of this association was to improve the lives of African Americans around the world and to take back Africa from the grasps of the white men and claim it for the Africans that were scattered around the world. Marcus was put on trial on May 18 1923 this marked the beginning of the downfall of Garvey’s empire. In general, Marcus Garvey was an activist who wanted the best for his people but his downfall was cause by his own stubbornness and because he surrounded himself by incompetent people and his enemies.

African American Group Research Paper

Black Americans groups are extremely diverse in a number of ways. Black Americans groups include people areas and this diversity affects their behavior in different racial backgrounds (American Indian, Black, and White) and includes people of Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Spanish, and Central or South American origin. Each of these different cultural groups share a common language and some cores values that result in their being classified together, yet another group also carries its own unique culture, traditions and perspective. People from these different groups also have different immigration histories that further contribute to the diversity within the African group.

A Comparison Of Three Groups: Women, Native Americans And African Americans

Out of the three groups, women, Native Americans and African Americans, I believe that the Native Americans gained the least in comparison to the women and the African Americans from the American victory in the Revolutionary war. During the war women had gained a lot more than the Indians or the African Americans. Some went to fight with the men others stayed home, ran farms and businesses, raised children and kept the household together. They gain more responsibilities that was usually meant for men.  This helped to grow a new confidence within women, they even stated a group called the Daughters of Liberty , just like the Sons of Liberty the joined in on harassing those who opposed the rebel. Women gained more freedom, power and recognition.

Personal Statement: Moscrop Human Library

During my high school career, I have immersed myself in numerous clubs and committees, empowering my development as an avid leader. I have been involved in my school’s poverty club for four years. Currently as club president, I direct meetings and the implementation of our events and fundraisers for local homeless youth. Additionally, I am co-president for the organization of Moscrop Human Library, a school-wide event that breaks down stereotypes through dialogue. Being involved in the planning since 2015, I was in charge of finding speakers, gaining sponsors, and more. This year, I will be leading the event, delegating tasks, coordinating volunteers, and more. Furthermore, I have been an active member in graduation council for two years and

Nsc Essay Examples

An organization that prides itself in upholding pillars such as scholarship, leadership, service, and integrity, like NSCS, will, without fail, create a space for people to grow into the leaders and the movers and shakers they dream to be. The space that this society provides for people to pursue righteous goals in the name of service and social justice gives a chance for leaders to rise. Whenever we hold events, I am never afraid to lead the group, input my opinion, or suggest something. Whenever we hold a general body meeting, I am never unsure whether or not to tell everyone about a local church’s volunteer event coming up or any service event I have in mind. For many people who are shy and do not know how to speak up, NSCS provides an inclusive environment for people to be themselves and become passionate for serving others. Giving people the ability to become the people they want to be is a beautiful thing and that is exactly how NSCS has helped me find all the success I have found in college. I have no doubts that I will only learn more about myself and about leadership the longer I am a part of this wonderful

Women's Club Analysis

Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Jane Cunningham Croly worked hard to fight for rights. Even though at the time women could not vote, they became active in movements to influence politics. In the course book on page 589, it describes the activities of women’s clubs as extraordinary. I did some research on the history of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and found an article tilted, “General Federation of Women's Clubs International”, written by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. In this article, it mentions how the General Federation of Women’s Clubs was founded when Jane Cunningham Croly issued an invitation to other women’s clubs to form an umbrella organization. As you can see women were fighting for equality

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Book Club Series — Women & Power: A Manifesto

“You cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male; you have to change the structure.” ― Mary Beard, Women & Power: A Manifesto

Welcome to the  Women for Women International Book Club!  This month we’re reading Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard. 

This duo of essays “The Public Voice of Women” and “Women and Power, explores the origins of misogyny through ancient records and modern memory. It highlights the consistent efforts to silence women’s’ voices in the public sphere and is the perfect addition to celebrate International Women’s Day as we unleash our voices and use our #PowertoChange!

Don’t forget to join the #WFWIBookClub Facebook Group…

We’ve launched a space for passionate readers like you to dive deeper and connect with each other while exploring women’s power. We hope you’ll join the discussion online!

Join the #WFWIBookClub Facebook Group

Why Women & Power: A Manifesto  is important...

Celebrate International Women’s Day with us by reading Women & Power and sharing your thoughts on this feminist manifesto. This concise and thought-provoking collection looks back on how women’s voices have been silenced throughout the centuries. From ancient Greece and Telemachus’ dismissal of his mother, Penelope, in the Odyssey to the Roman world in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which silenced women in the process of their own transformation.

Honor the women who used their voices in the public sphere then and now… Women who faced ridicule, who jeopardized their reputations and paved the way for women to lead. Question your own unconscious biases of women in power and gender roles that have remained consistent through time, then unpack what needs to be done to dismantle them. 

Beard explores what it means to be a woman in power, and why that is such a threat to cultural norms. As she puts it:  “Public speech was a—if not the—defining attribute of maleness. Or, to quote a well-known Roman slogan, the elite male citizen could be summed up as vir bonus dicendi peritus, ‘a good man, skilled in speaking.’ A woman speaking in public was, in most circumstances, by definition not a woman.”

Mary Beard’s manifesto proposes that we’re each being called to redefine the power dynamic to be inclusive and collaborative – a dynamic that is designed to serve the many rather than serve its leaders. It’s long past time to reclaim our public voices and take our places as women in power. 

We hope you’ll join us in reading Women & Power and celebrate International Women’s Day as we harness our #PowertoChange !    

Discussion Questions

Check out the discussion questions below and connect with readers on Instagram to share your reactions, thoughts and questions by using the hashtag #WFWIBookClub, and tagging us with @womenforwomen. We want to hear what you think—share your take on the book with us! 

• After reading Women & Power , did you become aware of any unconscious biases you may have of women in positions of power?
• Can you share an example of “the mechanisms that silence women” in politics, the workplace, home life, and/or everyday encounters?
• Beard argues that ignoring misogynistic remarks allows the people making them to continue to think it is acceptable to do so. What are barriers to speaking out against everyday misogyny? What are ways to break down those barriers? 
• Have you ever felt pressure to present yourself according to a certain gender norm based on the role you were fulfilling or the audience you were addressing?
• What did the author mean when she said, “Women, in other words, may in extreme circumstances publicly defend their own sectional interests, but not speak for men or the community as a whole”? What impact does it have on a society if women in leadership are relegated only to speaking on so-called "women’s issues”?
• In the novel Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, what problems are introduced into this all-female society when men enter and explore the island?
• Mary Beard challenges us all to redefine power by “thinking collaboratively about the power of followers not just of leaders.” How can women play a vital role in creating a new power dynamic? What ways can we promote a new, more collaborative vision of shared power in our daily lives?
• What do you think the author meant when she wrote: “To put this the other way round, we have no template for what a powerful woman looks like, except that she looks rather like a man.” What does this mean in terms of how women in power have historically presented themselves and positioned their views?

Essay by Caitly Reynoso, Founder’s Scholarship Winner

Being a junior and learning about different colleges and careers makes it hard for me to only be interested in one field, but in my eyes business is one of the few majors that will allow me to explore most of the careers that I am currently interested in. Ten years from now I want to be able to say, “because of the choices I made as teenager I am a woman who has a career that she loves and enjoys,” right now studying business is something that makes that seem possible.

“This opportunity is a perfect example of what Sandberg is saying women need, learning from each other benefits us a lot more than just trying to be the best on our own.”

I am currently taking a microeconomics course at City College of New York as a part of my early college studies. Through my professor I have learned that even though the world operates as a global market, it is dominated by men. This scholarship will give me the confidence that I need to believe that I could actually be successful if I were to join the business field, it would be amazing knowing that women aren’t inferior in the business world.

Receiving this scholarship means gaining the opportunity to travel across the world and learn about how women are being supported to partake in the business field. This scholarship, unlike other scholarships that are offered to us, offers a real exposure to how women work in the business world and what their job is like. Receiving this scholarship will give me an advantage that most young women that are planning on pursuing a business career won’t have.

This scholarship gives young women like me the chance to be introduced me to a group of working business women. Women working together with the same interest is something that should be happening everywhere. Sheryl Sandberg said, “The more women help one another, the more we help ourselves. Acting like a coalition truly does produce results.” This opportunity is a perfect example of what Sandberg is saying women need, learning from each other benefits us a lot more than just trying to be the best on our own. This is one of the many reasons why receiving this scholarship will make me feel beyond fortunate.

About the Scholarship The inaugural Founder’s Scholarship supported by the New York Women’s Bond Club in honor of Michaela Walsh goes to two New York City public high school students who won an essay competition writing about their hopes for the future of women and girls worldwide. Winners of this scholarship will travel with Women’s World Banking to Amman, Jordan this November for our biennial gathering of our network members . Rosaisha Ozoria from Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers and Caitly Reynoso from City College Academy of the Arts are this year’s winners.

Women's Club Research Paper

Show More New Opportunities Higher Education Most states had refused to grant women licenses to ______________ and ____________ in the past. In 1877, _______________________ granted the first Ph.d. to a women. Women began to earn ________________________ . Clubs and Reform At first women’s clubs focused on advancing _________________________________________ . The focus of many switched to social reforms: raised money for ______________________ , _____________________________ and __________________________________ . pressed for laws to __________________________________ , to ________________________ and to _______________________________________ . Racial barriers forced ___________________________________ to form their own clubs.

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‘Making history’: Duke’s first women’s flag football club team plays inaugural game

Football season came early to Durham. Amidst a record-breaking year for women’s college athletics, Duke’s inaugural women’s club flag football team competed in its first game against North Carolina Central University Monday night.

The Lady Devils, founded in spring 2024 by sophomore Chris-Ann Bennett, is the first women’s flag football club team in the school’s history. Despite having no flag football experience before creating the team, Bennett said she was inspired by seeing other women’s teams on TikTok.

“I used to run track in high school, and I just missed being active and competitive … the sport looked really fun,” she said.

Bennett leads the student-run team alongside sophomore coaches Niles Luke and Caleb Dudley.

Luke joined the team due to his love for all things football, calling the opportunity “a great way to re-engage with the game and with people interested in just learning more.” 

Bennett described creating the team as a learning effort. To gain more experience with flag football, she looked to the internet for tutorials.

Bennett also benefited from the guidance of Amber Clark, a former defensive back on the 2023 U.S. women's flag national team and current head coach of the University of St. Mary’s women’s flag football program. Jaquan Milliam, head coach and offensive coordinator for the NCCU team, also advised Bennett.

Junior Katherine Wiest, a member of the Lady Devils who joined with little football knowledge, agreed that her experience has been an opportunity for growth, praising her coaches and the supportive environment her teammates created. 

However, forming the team did not come without its challenges.

“At first, it was a little rough and discouraging because only three girls [were] showing up, and they were my friends,” Bennett said.

To increase engagement, Bennett held information sessions, emphasizing to prospective players that they would be joining a community and would “be a part of making history.”

Currently, there are around 20 members of the team who participate intermittently. The Lady Devils do not require players to have prior experience — according to Luke, many “just want to be active and engage with the sport.”

Bennett hopes the team can cultivate a supportive community of women and build awareness around the sport.

“A lot of people are paying attention to women’s sports now … and so I think this is going to be the next big thing,” she said. 

There was nervous excitement in the air as the Lady Devils warmed up for their first game. “We’ve been practicing a lot, so hopefully our practice reflects that today,” Bennett said.

Luke echoed this sentiment, adding that he was “more nervous than [he] would like to admit.” Nonetheless, he was confident based on the hard work the team has been putting in over the past few months.

The pre-game looked much like any regular-season Duke football game, as both teams lined up in their respective end zones and ran practice drills.

Even though the Lady Devils did not come out on top for their first match, the team was able to celebrate the community it built as a new program, regardless of the game’s outcome. 

It was clear from the opening snap that the team would face a tough challenge in its first game. Although their opponents boasted over a year of experience, the Lady Devils had only had about a month and a half to prepare for their inaugural game.

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NCCU got off to an early 21-0 lead, following two costly interceptions from the Lady Devils that their opponents expertly converted into points. Despite being down early, the team never lost their spirit, encouraged by a small group of Duke students assembled on the sideline enthusiastically cheering them on.

“The crowd was so energizing,” said team member Maddy Perez, a junior. “I just fed off of that, and then it kept me going throughout the rest of the game.”

The crowd’s energy certainly enhanced Perez’s performance. Right before halftime, as it looked as though the Lady Devils would go scoreless in their first outing, she intercepted a pass. Immediately taking off into a sprint, Perez returned it down the field for a pick-six as her teammates and supporters ran down the sidelines alongside her, cheering along the way. 

Perez’s pick-six served as a crucial momentum shift for the Lady Devils, re-energizing the team as they headed into a halftime huddle led by their two head coaches. 

At the start of the second half, the score was 26-6. The Lady Devils carried much of the momentum they gained at the end of the first half into the second, making impressive plays on defense. Perez continued her stellar gameplay, earning another interception which her teammates quickly converted into six, bringing the score to 26-12. 

Even with the shift in momentum favoring the Lady Devils, their opponents' experience was too much for them to overcome. The game ultimately ended in a loss for the Duke players, with a final score of 40-12.

However, the team members were all smiles as they ran to hug friends and snap pictures from their first game. Morale remained high, and many team members were reminded that they joined the team for these moments of camaraderie and friendship.

“I like the competitive atmosphere,” said Perez. “This is a way for me to do that with a bunch of fun girls, so it's been the best experience this semester.”

“[The] main feeling right now is just pride,” Luke said after the game.

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Michelle Brown is a Trinity sophomore and an associate news editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.

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Women’s football in England enters NewCo era amid promise and risk

Championship promotion race is absorbing but amid reform comes a risk of financial divides widening between clubs

“I t’s like a start-up tech company in Silicon Valley,” says Baroness Sue Campbell, recalling Michele Kang’s description of NewCo, the independent company that will take over running the Women’s Super League and Championship from next season.

It is the start-up that drew Kang, one of the most recognisable businesswomen in women’s football, with a portfolio including ownership of Washington Spirit and a majority share in Lyon, to acquire London City Lionesses, who sit mid-table in the second tier of English football. That is the same independent club whose players, at the end of last season, warned the previous owner, Diane Culligan, the “very existence” of the side would be under threat without more investment.

The Women’s Championship showcases the wider picture of women’s football in England: the post-Euros boom and the challenge to sustain it, professionalisation, increased competitiveness, and the potential for commercial growth and all the threats that poses. NewCo’s creation was overseen after the Euros in 2022 by Campbell, who is retiring from her role as the Football Association’s director of women’s football this year. She talks of having a “missionary zeal” to grow the game.

“I have this famous expression that everyone repeats back to me,” Campbell says. “It’s” ‘I don’t want the head to leave the body.’ To me, one of the greatest strengths of the English game is the pyramid. If you cut that off, you cut off the dream. We’ve done a lot at the top and at grassroots, but the ladder in between is a bit squeaky. Some of the rungs are missing.”

The Championship title race is as thrilling as they come: four points separate the top four sides. “The league is more competitive than it has ever been,” says Marieanne Spacey-Cale, the manager of Southampton, who are third. “The table doesn’t lie.”

It is also the highest level at which you find clubs without an association with a large professional men’s side. And if the table doesn’t lie, it hints at a divide forming. London City Lionesses, Durham, and Lewes – the three Championship clubs unaffiliated to a big men’s club – will finish in the lower half. Relegation remains a possibility, for second-bottom Lewes in particular.

“The challenge with the Championship is that the level of investment required is starting to grow,” Campbell says. “Kang is a classic example of taking on a club finding its own way with no parent body. I don’t think without [that] those independent clubs will survive.”

Lewes’s fan engagement officer, Shreyans Nilvarna, says: “Put simply, if big clubs in the Championship suddenly decide to invest £5m more to build a team, it puts clubs like us out of the competition. We don’t have a massive men’s club which can put money in to keep us going. It is a constant challenge to raise those funds.”

At Lewes, who have a fan ownership model and rely on bespoke brand partnerships, an existential threat is never far away, compounded by their relegation fight this season.

“The whole landscape of women’s football has grown quite well,” Nilvarna says. “But the Championship has struggled this season. After the Euros, the whole league had about six or seven games with attendances of 2,000 and above. This year it has only been one or two games. I hope NewCo takes the leagues together. Not just the Championship being tagged along as a little sister because the bigger sister is going somewhere.”

The women’s game continues to figure out its audience, and Campbell says that has to be “thought out in a new way … It’s not a tribal, historical connection to a club, it’s a new thing.” It is one clubs such as Lewes perhaps have some head start on.

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“We use it to our advantage in building a fanbase just for the women’s team,” Nilvarna says, “We think there’s a massive audience which other clubs in the league might miss.”

There are other advantages to more independent setups. Kang said acquiring London City had been easier without having to deal as well with a men’s team setup.

“We don’t have to get things signed off,” Nilvarna says. “It’s just us and what we want to do. It gives us a lot of creative freedom.”

The looming new broadcast deal for both leagues for next season will be NewCo’s first large demonstration of how it disperses funds. It will begin a new commercial era for women’s football, where the learning curves could be catastrophic for some.

The Championship is full of teams with growth opportunities enticing to investors but it also has England’s best independently run clubs, whose vulnerabilities will be tested in the next few years.

“There might be some casualties,” Campbell says, “but that’s going to be the reality.”

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Living the Volunteer Spirit

First Place: Mickey Coonfare, GFWC Iowa Five Season’s Women’s Association (Iowa) “Rockin’ the Hairnet”

Second Place: Linda Leatherman, GFWC of Muluane (Kansas) “Clean the Statue”

Third Place: Louise Tucker, GFWC Battle Ground Woman’s Club (Washington) “Pinwheels for Prevention”

Newsletter Contest

State Category 1: GFWC West Virginia Category 2: GFWC Georgia Category 3: GFWC Iowa Category 4: GFWC Louisiana Category 5: GFWC New Mexico

Club First Place: GFWC The Woman’s Club of Clayton  (North Carolina) Second Place: GFWC Tampa Woman’s Club (Florida) Third Place: GFWC Northwest Suburban Woman’s Club ( Illinois)

Website Contest

State Category 1: GFWC Pennsylvania Category 2: GFWC Georgia Category 3: GFWC Mississippi Category 4: GFWC Wyoming Category 5: GFWC Oregon

Club First Place: GFWC Brown Deer Junior Women’s Club (Wisconsin) Second Place: Bradenton Women’s Club (Florida) Third Place: GFWC Dominion Women’s Club (Virginia)

Writing Contest

Short story.

Youth  Category 1: Ava Eichberger, Decatur Woman’s Club (Texas) Category 2: Lily Trentacoste, Junior Women’s Club of Bellerose (New York) Category 3: Riley Jae Johnson, GFWC Rhinelander Woman’s Club (Wisconsin) Category 4: Caitlin Carrigton, Lexington Woman’s Club (Virginia)

Winner: Lauren Bates, Jackson Woman’s Club (Kentucky)

Honorable Mention: Patricia Boshears, The Monday Club of Johnson City (Tennessee)

Category 1: Layla Koebbe, GFWC Murray Women’s Club (Kentucky) Category 2: Alice Petersheim, Woman’s Club of Spring Township (Pennsylvania) Category 3: Jessykay Stuman, GFWC Achieving by Reading Club (Missouri) Category 4: Alyssa Mireles, Covina Woman’s Club (Missouri)

Winner: Patricia Mertens, GFWC Mina Sauk Club  (Missouri)

Honorable Mentioned: Tina Lambert, GFWC Woman’s Club of Hamlin (West Virginia)

International Liaison Participation

GFWC CreSer GFWC American Women’s Literary Club GFWC Belmopan Woman’s Club GFWC Taipei International Women’s Club GFWC National Federation of Women’s Clubs of the Phillipines GFWC Belize City Juniorettes

National Clubs

GFWC Brockettes Missi’s Shining Stars GFWC Marian’s Luminaries GFWC Pierce Arrows GFWC Jolie’s Jigsaw Juniors GFWC Past State Directors of Junior Clubs GFWC Sheila’s Leading Ladies GFWC Babs’ Inspirations GFWC Laister’s Phoenix Firebirds

Volunteers in Action: GFWC Woman’s Club of Raleigh (NC)

Read the Blog

Featured Member

Cindy Rasmussen

For more than two decades, Cindy Rasmussen has been an active member of the GFWC Salem Woman's Service Club.

Success For Survivors Scholarship

Each year, GFWC awards scholarships to help intimate partner abuse survivors obtain a post-secondary education that offers a chance to reshape their future by securing employment and gaining personal independence.

Featured Club

GFWC Millington Junior Women's Club

Each year April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Kathleen Sweeney, Executive Director/Forensic Interviewer of The Child Advocacy Center of Tuscola County (CACTC), spoke at GFWC Millington Junior Women's Club (Michigan) monthly meeting and told members that 10% of the 235 reported cases of child abuse in 2017 in Tuscola County were from Millington Township, including Millington. It inspired them to take action with the "Color Me Blue" Project.

Hot girls love book clubs

• Gen Z women have reclaimed book clubs.
• Data from Bookclubs, a club-organizing platform, shows young women flocking to build their own clubs.
• But behind the trend is something else: A deep-seated longing for human connection.

In the past few months alone, Gen Z women have reimagined the most unlikely things in their image.

The alternative metal band Korn has been declared " girly pop. " F1, historically a male-dominated sport, is officially an adrenaline-pumping hobby for the girls . Now, book clubs are getting the hot-girl treatment.

All the "It Girl" celebrities have their own book clubs, from model Kaia Gerber to Kendall Jenner. TikTok is flooded with "book recommendations for hot girls," and young women are flocking to apps like Bookclubs to start or join a reading group.

But in an age when people are lonelier — and more chronically online — than ever, book clubs have taken on new meaning. It's deeper than the optics of a TikTok slideshow or an aesthetic grid post . They're a salve for social isolation, successfully rebranded as an activity for, and by, the girls.

Business Insider spoke with four Gen Z women from around the country, each of whom said they'd joined a book club after the pandemic in an attempt to make friends or strengthen relationships.

"During Covid, and even post-Covid, people are really craving meaningful connections," said Anna Ford, the founder and CEO of the club-organizing platform Bookclubs , adding that reading groups are "surging" among young people.

"Books have long been kind of a central conduit for that," Ford said.

A salve for loneliness

Making and maintaining friendships as an adult has always been challenging, even before factoring in several years of mandatory social isolation. Without the structure of college classes, young, working people can feel siloed after graduation.

For Isa Tomlinson, 26, that feeling came to a head in 2021 after moving back home to Austin after college. Having grown up in the city, she had plenty of friends. But with a hectic schedule as a night-shift nurse, she said she felt like she was constantly missing out on those connections.

Enter: The Twilight Fan Club.

Related stories

Cheekily named after Tomlinson and her friends' shared love for the teen drama series, the Twilight Fan Club quickly became one of her core experiences.

What started with just a few friends quickly spread to coworkers and mutuals until the group grew to more than 20 people, Tomlinson said.

"It was just a cool way to get a lot of people that might not have been in the same room or been friends initially to get on the same page and have a common place to meet up," Tomlinson said.

Of course, with 20-plus people in a group, it can be hard to have any sort of book-focused group discussion. Amylynne Siroin, one of Tomlinson's longtime friends and a Twilight Fan Club member, told BI that some people don't even read the book. But the club is less about the books and more about the connections, she said.

"They come because it's a girl gang, and we love to hang out and spend time together and drink wine," she said. "It's kind of like a reason to hang out — with a side of book discussion."

Book clubs on the rise

Book clubs are nothing new. Celebrities like Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey might have made them more mainstream, but ardent readers have been congregating to talk about their favorite novels for centuries. "Reading circles," some of the first iterations of book clubs , became popular in the late 1700s.

What is new is the environment in which the book clubs are being created. Americans are lonelier than ever, to the point where the US Surgeon General has declared loneliness an epidemic . People are searching for connection —  Gen Zers have invested in gym memberships and social clubs, and post-retirement boomers are building their own communities .

For Gen Z women, book clubs are just the latest iteration of that search.

According to Ford, young women, in particular, have been flocking to the Bookclubs app since the pandemic.

Ford said that when the platform opened to the public in 2019, only 15% of users were under 34. That number has since jumped to 25%.

"Book clubs are surging in young people — young women," Ford said, adding that 90% of Bookclubs' users are women. "We have seen rapid growth in the past couple of years and a shift in the age and demographics of who's using the platform."

Bookclubs' data show that younger people really are working hard to make friends. In the company's 2023 survey, 50% of users between 18 and 34 said they had joined a reading group to make new friends. In older members, Ford said, that number is just 30%.

"It's just such a good way to connect with people," said 25-year-old Micaela Primoff. "Especially post-grad, I feel like it's just been such a good hobby for me to fall into these stories after work and to have something deeper to talk about with friends."

Primoff, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, started her reading group last spring as a way to deepen her relationships with her girlfriends. So far, she said, it's been working.

The same is true for Vivien Shao, a 25-year-old living in New York. Things are slightly different at Shao's book club, though — instead of choosing a book for the group, she and her "club" bring their own books to a café or restaurant and read in each other's company.

"We call it book club, but we're not actually doing a traditional book club," Shao said.

Each club differs in its intensity, group size, and rules. But each girl's club was invariably made to strengthen her relationships with friends — a testament to forging friendships in an increasingly lonely world.

"Discussing a piece of literature," Ford said, "whether it's fiction or nonfiction, is just a great way to get to know someone better and form personal connections and bonds."

Watch: The 10 most challenged books in the US

• Main content

An Insider's Guide to Moscow Nightlife

As a city that never sleeps, Moscow is known for its vibrant nightlife as much as for its stunning architecture. Having a plethora of choice, you may need someone to guide guide you through the club scene of Russia’s capital. Read on for the best places to take you through the night.

One of Moscow’s oldest nightclubs, Propaganda is an iconic spot that’s been around since the 1990s. Featuring deliberately shabby interiors, Propaganda, affectionately called “ propka ” by regulars, still gathers crowds even on weekdays. The club is particularly favored for scoring world-class DJs, hosting gay parties on Sundays and offering tasty and inexpensive food .

7 Bolshoy Zlatoustinsky Pereulok, Moscow, Russia , +7 495 624 5732

Another legendary spot, frequented by the cool crowd, this bar was founded by celebrated Russian designer Denis Simachev. Fancier and pricier than Propaganda, it’s worth a visit if only for eclectic interiors and salmon pizza.

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12 Stoleshnikov Pereulok, Moscow, Russia , +7 495 629 80 85

Nauka i Iskusstvo

Tiny and nondescript, Nauka i Iskusstvo (‘Science and Art’) is all about the music . Although there are no fancy cocktails, glitzy interiors or bohemian entourage, the club hosts some of the best electronic parties, hip music gigs and cool designer shows.

13/15 Nastavnichesky Pereulok, bld.3, Moscow, Russia

One of Moscow’s quirkiest nightclubs, Squat ¾ occupies the basement of the former Central Baths building. Instagrammed by Moscow’s it-girls, the club is famous for gothic techno-balls and bohemian raves. Apart from the club and a bar, it is also home to a Greek cafe, barber shop and fashion store.

3 Teatralny Proyezd, Bld. 4, Moscow, Russia , +7 967 162 6062

The newest venue on the list, Pluton is located on the premises of the hip design center Artplay. Despite the high ceilings of a former industrial building and tiled walls, Pluton feels strangely homely and comforting. Opened in 2017, this is not a nightclub in the traditional sense. Pluton promotes all kinds of events: from cathartic ambient, to jazz music to art-performances.

8A Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya Ulitsa, Moscow, Russia , +7 903 254 2669

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc17o50FqNO/?taken-by=plutonplace

Another Artplay resident, Rodnya is a rooftop club that hosts resident DJ sets and international bands on tour. In summer you can dance until sunrise on the club’s rooftop terrace.

5/7 Nizhnyaya Syromyatnicheskaya Ulitsa, bld.7, Moscow, Russia , +7 925 003 559

Aglomerat is a multi-purpose art space, housed in the former Mars factory. With a spectacularly dystopian interiors, it plays host to all kinds of events – from movie screenings and art exhibitions , to metal band shows and rave nights.

3 Kostomarovsky Pereulok, Bldg. 12, Moscow, Russia , +7 968 450 8760

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