The late 20th century is impinging on London's club scene, a world of leather armchairs, smoking rooms and very few women.
Oxford and Cambridge universities on Wednesday issued a joint statement disassociating themselves from a private club that bears their names but denies full membership to women.The statement was signed by the heads of most of their colleges - including many who had resigned from the club or had pledged to do so.
The Oxford and Cambridge University Club, in a handsome 19th century building on club-lined Pall Mall, is an independent organization whose members are graduates of the famed universities.
Women graduates, however, must settle for Lady Associate membership. They pay a smaller fee and are not allowed to use the members' bar, the marble staircase or the club's fine library. And they cannot vote on club matters.
"It becomes too embarrassing for this non-militant male to remain a member," said David Butler, a political scientist from Oxford's Nuffield College, in an open letter of resignation in The Times last month.
Butler, whose great-grandfather was a founder of the club, argued that with 40 percent of the universities' undergraduates now being women, the membership policy had become distasteful "even to a moderate, middle-of-the-road" man.
Peter North, vice chancellor of Oxford University, was quoted by The Times as saying the universities were likely to press the club to change its name.