PETALING JAYA: After 139-years, the Royal Selangor Club (RSC) is finally letting women into its bar.
“The Long Bar at the Royal Selangor Club was off-limits to women for 139 years,” said Ms Lorela Chia, founding president of the Malaysia Association of Sustainable Supply Chain and Innovation, in a Facebook post.
She explained that the women were not allowed in as “men would drink and get very excited when they watched the games and they didn’t want the ladies to see their exuberant behaviour”.
The club was founded in 1884 and home to the oldest cricket ground in Malaysia, a key fixture in Malaysian cricket history.
Cricket fans would gather at the RSC Long Bar to watch the World Cup cricket matches on television. The women who wanted to watch the match would have to sit along the club’s corridors.
There were a few exceptions to the rule, made for New Year’s Day as well as occasions such as the 1998 World Hash Run at the birthplace of the Hash House Harriers.
“It’s a mixed bag of emotions when I heard the news. There is triumph, of course, that’s 139 years late! But it’s also a reminder that despite the many achievements of many of us, the quest for equality and equitability continues,” concluded Lorela in her post.
