The Boys’ Club: The Many Worlds of Male Power

Acclaimed Québec feminist Martine Delvaux turns her sharp eye and even sharper pen on the history of gentlemen’s clubs and male fraternity in this wide-reaching study of patriarchy. Delvaux lays bare the brazen misogyny of boys’ clubs across many fields, including politics, entertainment, technology, law enforcement, architecture, and the military. Examining popular media produced by men about men, The Boys’ Club exposes a culture of consumption which profits off female experiences while disregarding female voices.

The Boys’ Club is both an activist text and a work of cultural scholarship deeply informed by Delvaux’s long engagement with the work of feminist scholars, film critics, historians, writers, and journalists. Identifying a pattern of contempt, exclusion, and patriarchal violence, Delvaux names misogyny’s circular, self-propagating systems, undermining social, cultural, economic, and political mechanisms in order to break up the boys’ club.