New Women and/in Masculine Spaces: The Anti-Feminism of the Pen and Pencil Club of Montreal, 1895–1915.

This article investigates the anti-feminist foundations of the Pen and Pencil Club of Montreal, an interdisciplinary men's club active from 1895 to 1915, where writers Stephen Leacock and Andrew Macphail developed their early ideas on women's roles. Through close analysis of the club's archival materials and members' artistic and literary works—including William McLennan's poem "The New Woman," Edmond Dyonnet's drawing, Kenneth Macpherson's watercolour, and John Try-Davies's novella *A Semi-Detached House and Other Stories*—the study reveals the club's sustained preoccupation with the figure of the "New Woman" and suffragette as threats to traditional gender roles, marriage, and imperialist notions of Canadian identity. The club's exclusive male membership and its promotion of Victorian separate spheres ideology positioned it as a social and cultural bastion opposing women's political and social emancipation, shaping the anti-feminist discourse later articulated by Leacock and Macphail. This research highlights how the club's collaborative and interdisciplinary environment functioned as a crucible for anti-feminist ideas that influenced early twentieth-century Canadian literature and social thought.