Why They Don't Let Women Into The B.S.I.

(From The Air-Gun, Vol. 3, No. 1, June 1987. Historic note: A few years after this was written, the Baker Street Irregulars did finally start allowing many women into their meetings -- just not all women, as they don't let all men in. Perhaps for the reason you'll find below.)

It’s easy to blame Sherlock for starting the whole mess. After all, wasn’t he the one who said, “Women are never to be entirely trusted — not the best of them”? With such words coming from the master detective’s lips, it seems only logical that his foremost followers, the Baker Street Irregulars, should bar women from their annual banquet — that is, if you completely ignore the last hundred years of human history. Since Holmes’s time, remarkable discoveries have been made about the fair sex, such as the fact that they’re not really inferior or mysterious versions of their male counterparts. Women, at least in the more enlightened portions of the world, have gained some semblance of the equality with males that they have so long deserved. Yet at the tables of the Baker Street Irregulars, the words of Vincent Starrett still hold true: “. . . it is always eighteen ninety-five.”

As a Sherlockian raised in the ‘60s, when feminism was at its most active, the ban on women at B.S.I. dinners has always both bothered and fascinated me. Why, in this day and age, would such a tradition be kept up? When my invitation to the dinner came this year, it seemed that I was finally going to have a chance to find out.

The basic silliness of this ban on women came to me early in the proceedings of the B.S.I. dinner, with the tradition of “the woman.” “The woman,” you may have heard, is one woman selected to be honored at the cocktail party preceding the dinner by being toasted as a surrogate Irene Adler. Following the toast, “the woman” is retired for the evening; she then attends a dinner of previous years’s “the women.” This year’s “the” was Edith Meiser.

If you don’t know who Edith Meiser is, then you haven’t been paying very close attention to things Sherlockian. As a scriptwriter for radio, she worked with both William Gillette and Basil Rathbone, among other radio Holmeses. She also did a Sherlockian comic strip, and also has some impressive non-Sherlockian credits. The silliness of it all is that Edith Meiser is probably more interesting than 90 percent of the people attending the B.S.I. dinner (or more, but let’s be kind) — and they’re bustling her out after the cocktail hour? One begins to wonder if somebody doesn’t have some warped priorities.

The dinner itself and the program that follows contained nothing that would have offended delicate feminine ears (outside of an accidental pun by Tom Stix in describing James Cleary’s slide show). It’s basically good, interesting Sherlockiana of a sort that one might find at any Sherlockian gathering where women are allowed. Isaac Asimov’s traditional vocal selection was a bit bawdy, but as it was delayed until the next day’s reception for Julian Wolff, a goodly number of women were present for it anyway.

As I pondered upon my experiences there in the days that followed, it was hard to see just why women were restricted from the B.S.I. Could it be that the Irregulars are so hen-pecked that they need that rule as the only excuse to keep from being forced to bring their wives? A general ruling against non- Sherlockian spouses might accomplish the same thing. After days of pondering, only one real reason presents itself for the continued ban on women, and though it seems trivial, I suppose it does have its merits.

When a break is called in the middle of the B.S.I. program, this gathering of 150 or so fellows who have been toasting all evening have pretty much one thought among them — they would like to get to the facilities before the program begins again. By not inviting women, the B.S.I. have access to two restrooms instead of one, and that, I have decided, must be the true secret the Irregulars have been keeping from us all these years. Now that the truth is out, I am sure the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes will want to follow a similar course and start prohibiting men from their gatherings to expedite their breaks.

Of course, holding the dinner in a restaurant with four restrooms might work, too.