Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

[crazygringo]

Wait -- the Magic Circle didn't admit female members until 1991?!

I thought the 1960's and 70's were when all the all-male universities and other organizations opened up to women. And that mostly groups left after that were those that had a functional reason for being all-male, i.e. male tenor-bass choirs. Or certain male "fraternal" organizations.

But magic obviously doesn't have any functional reason for being male, and it's about an activity (magic), it's not a fraternal organization. So how the heck did they go until 1991 before admitting women? That sounds crazy to me.

[astura]

Doesn't surprise me even a bit.

I was born in the early 1980s. My entire childhood was filled with people[1] explicitly telling me I can't do this-or-that because I was a girl. Other things I wasn't explicitly told I couldn't do, but I just thought weren't for me because they were zero women doing them.

I badly internalized some of it. I think I've gotten over it now though.

My first job was explicitly sex segregated, this was the late 90s. It was in a kitchen and they only had men do certain jobs even though literally every person in that kitchen was perfectly capable of doing every job, physically. Just some jobs were considered manly and given only to men. My female friend begged to be allowed to wash pots and pans, which was a "man's job" in our kitchen. She was told no, because she didn't have the correct genitalia to wash pots! She was eventually allowed to, after being persistent enough. Guess what? she could wash pots just fine, lol.

[1] the people included everyone but my parents.

[potato3732842]

We're talking about a niche professional organization with annual membership in the mid to high hundreds at the time. Based on what wikipedia says about the process of getting in I assume churn is stupid low. I would find it unlikely but not at all unbelievable that the rule was never actually tested from the mid 1970s until 1991.

Considering the subject matter of the organization it wouldn't surprise me if there were some other women pretending to be men who weren't kicked out. With really turnover being only 18mo in probably made her a boat rocking newb in the eyes of leadership at the time.

[morkalork]

This reminds me of a rumor I heard long ago about how there was an awkward impasse when Ginni Rommetty became CEO of IBM. Apparently one of the perks of the job was an annual membership to some golf club but it was men-only, literally an old boys club. I forget what the conclusion was though.

[MrMcCall]

'Functional' reasons are in the eye of the beholder. Most people work at a far lower level than what a compassionate person considers functional.

Nearly all organizations are intrinsically discriminatory, but the only valid (indeed, necessary!) discrimination is, "Does the person accept the unity of humanity and the need for a compassionate world society?"

One must always remember the importance of considering the paradox of tolerance.

[navane]

Sounds like the magic circle needs the closure more than her indeed

[fiftyacorn]

I like to think that prior to the ban the meetings were like the stoning in life of brian

[MrMcCall]

I agree that that would be great, but -- as a man -- I'm painfully aware of the knuckle-dragging nature of most of our fellows.

Unfortunately, our daughter has learned that many women are crap, too, just not nearly as horrible overall as men.

Men (and many women, too) have long complained that women are not fit to be, for example, the POTUS, to which I say, "How much worse could a woman be than all those men?"

[AdrianB1]

I don't understand the story, can someone explain? What I got is they try to track someone who was expelled for misrepresentation. Why? What is different today vs 30 years ago?

[diggan]

The organization first was male-only. A woman disguised herself as a man, and managed to join the organization. 18 months later, the organization stopped being male-only and would start accepting women to join too. The disguised woman undisguised herself, and the existing members got shocked enough that even if women were now allowed, they were so angry at her "deliberate deception" that she got kicked out regardless.

Now the organization wants to allow that same woman to join again, but they cannot find her apparently.

[Timwi]

I didn't know Mulan was a magician.

[MrMcCall]

"I would never join a club that would have me as a member." --Groucho Marx

The pity is that most people are naive enough to believe that most other people are decent human beings. It took me nearly five decades to understand that I shouldn't project my basic sense of decency on others, which is a grave mistake as most people are just selfish, exclusionary morons who think they're on the 'expert' side of the Dunning-Kruger scale.

Selfless compassion in the small and in the large -- that's the solution to all Earth's problems.

[bryanlarsen]

Most people are both decent human beings and moderately selfish. It's just the nature of being human. Humans have flaws.

But some people definitely are not decent human beings. Just like if you have a couple apples in the barrel that are spoiled you have to treat the whole barrel as spoiled, we have enough evil human beings to spoil the whole barrelful.

[JKCalhoun]

Are you suggesting we should be compassionate for the "selfish, exclusionary morons"?

Not quite following your gist.

I disagree with you to some degree. Maybe I'm a slow learner (I've had 6 decades to learn my lesson) but I still find that most people do in fact want to be and do good. I find this often when I travel on the road, make myself a stranger in strange parts.

To be sure, I have been called Pollyanna, but I do wonder sometimes if in fact it isn't cynicism that is the problem with the world.

[poincaredisk]

>The pity is that most people are naive enough to believe that most other people are decent human beings

If most means "over 50%", isn't that a contradiction? (people who assume others are good are probably good too)

In truth by far most people are good, but:

* we are held back by out human nature - tribalism, xenophobia, fear of things that are different

* there are indeed some bad actors who use this to their advantage

People are good by nature. Don't anyone let you convince you otherwise.

[booleandilemma]

I used to believe the same thing. The covid era opened my eyes to how many selfish assholes there are.

[Tabular-Iceberg]

Magic Circle, is that something everyone is expected to know what is?

[cpcallen]

Folks in the UK are likely to: it is the professional guild for magicians.

[lynx23]

This sounds like borderline stalking. I am not a woman, but I have my experience with getting treated unfairly/getting patronized. And I never felt like I wanted to give a bad actor a second chance to talk down to me, even if they pretend to have good intentions. If you fucked someone over, you dont have the right to run after them. Leave them alone, stop confronting them over and over again with your own stupidity.

[627467]

It's stalking and it's objectifying the person for publicity decades later. Failing to locate her privately and now doxing her name in a major paper

[lukan]

I think the new circle is somewhat different from the last one?

Also I don't think it is stalking, when they did not even found her. If they did and she said go away, and they pressured on - that would be stalking. As of now, it is likely she does not even know about it.

[nimbius]

“We’re already in talks about making a movie of her extraordinary heist.”

So that's why we suddenly had a change of misogynists' heart after thirty three years.

Magic Circle needs this expelled members written consent to use their likeness in film.