Women are slowly breaking the traditionally male-dominated environment of Robert Burns clubs, with the first woman delivering the toast to the immortal memory at the Bachelors' Club Burns supper in 2015. While female inclusion has improved, there is still progress to be made in changing entrenched attitudes.
For years, the clubs set up to preserve and celebrate the rich literary legacy of Robert Burns have been traditionally male environments. They followed the lead of the Bachelors' Club, a men-only debating society set up by Burns and his brother in Tarbolton, Ayrshire in 1780. It was only in 2015 - more than 200 years later - that Prof Kirsteen McCue became the first woman to deliver the toast to the immortal memory at the Bachelors' Club Burns supper.
Women like Prof McCue, Isabel Lind, and Kerry Burley - leading figures on the Burns circuit - say female inclusion has improved, but there is still a long way to go to change entrenched attitudes. Prof McCue, the former co-director of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, said her "That was a big deal, it was a really big thing to be asked," she said. "The night certainly warmed up, there was definitely a tension in the air but it ended up being one of the best Burns experiences I've ever had
Robert Burns Clubs Women Inclusion Tradition Attitudes