Having moved to Shropshire recently, one of my new locals is the Loggerheads in Shrewsbury. A quirky, historic and reputedly haunted (aren’t they all?) hostelry that dates back to the 18th century, I love its excellent beer quality and unchanged appearance. It comprises of four rooms, and the one that interests me the most is the Gentlemen’s Bar. Emblazoned on the entry are the words GENTS ONLY. There is a small addendum, ‘until 1975’, written underneath in an italicised font.

The year is significant because that was when the Sex Discrimination Act came into force. It got an airing against a pub landlord in 1982. Tess Gill and Anna Coote took the El Vino bar on London’s Fleet Street to court. Women were banned from standing at the bar and told to wait for table service in a back room instead. The judge ruled that because the venue was one of the most significant “gossip shops of Fleet Street” the journalists were actually being put at a professional disadvantage by being segregated. The pub’s rule was deemed to be in breach of law.

I was fortunate enough to begin my drinking adventures when women drinking pints were accepted – begrudgingly or otherwise – at the bar. Even so, I know plenty of women my age who won't walk into a pub alone. But the Loggerheads’ ‘GENTS ONLY’ is still a real window into the past for me. Though undoubtedly a wonderful pub, it arguably still balances precariously on the cusp of discrimination. Its outdoor chalkboards advertise the rates for “husband day care” services and what the landlord charges to give your excuses over the phone if you are “hiding from the wife”. Please imagine my eyes rolling.

I met a more mature beer lover and CAMRA member recently at the Salopian brewery tap room. Over excellent hazy pints of Paper Planes, my new friend Angela regaled me with tales of her own experiences of discrimination in the 1970s – not too dissimilar from the circumstances of Gill and Coote v El Vino Co Ltd. She well remembers only being able to use a lounge or snug – certainly not the bar – when suitably accompanied by a gentleman.

“And I got chucked out of the Tiger in York for asking for a pint glass on a stalk,” Angela told me, laughing at the memory. “You can imagine the York accent, he said: ‘You can get out and not come back. We don’t serve women pints in here. And I don’t want any lip from a cheeky young so-and-so’.”

Though times have moved on, at least in theory. Women from the generation above mine are still left with the legacy of this stigma. Angela remembers feeling uncomfortable and then rebellious when she started to go to pubs alone. “I learned to put on a deadpan face and always took a book with me,” she said. “But older women still find pubs uncomfortable.”

The word that really sticks out in my memory from my chat with Angela is “shame”. She talked about the guarded shame she felt when visiting the pub, because she was not acting “respectably”. So powerful was the societal pressure that the shame still lingers, decades later.

As far as I can find, there was never any legal basis for gender segregation in pubs. After all, women have been brewers, publicans and bartenders for many centuries (though what society made of them is another story entirely). They were definitely always in the building. Admittedly licensing regulations differentiating between public, saloon and private bars could have been interpreted in a way that reinforced prevailing conventions from the 1960s. I find it pretty abhorrent that anyone’s freedoms could be restricted by social pressure, but I’m quite sure it happens all the time.

And finally, I get to my point. Everyone should be welcome to visit the pub and order what they fancy. I reckon things on that score are improved. But in the meantime, what we have lost are many, many cosy pub spaces. We do not need lounges for ladies and public bars for sweatin’ and cursin’ working men. That’s just daft.

But what we do need are physical spaces. Sometimes I like a cosy, quiet space in a pub. Most of my favourites retain these now historic features. I love the Princess Louise in Holborn with its series of elaborate booths. I enjoy those rare days when I visit the Globe in Leicester and the snug is free for my enjoyment. And of course, sometimes I make a point of sitting in the Gentlemen’s Bar at the Loggerheads, just because I can.

This seems as good a time as any to remind you that CAMRA volunteers have collated the “definitive guide” to the nation’s most important historic pub interiors. You can find it online at pubheritage.camra.org.uk. They continue to fight to preserve snugs, nooks and booths up and down the country. If you’ve read my book 50 Years of CAMRA, you’ll know I consider this to be possibly the single most impactful piece of work that the Campaign has done. I hope that everyone, of every gender or none, continues to have the right, the freedom and in fact the possibility of exploring these beautiful spaces long into the future.

May sees the seventh Women on Tap beer and arts festival take place. Centred on Harrogate with national partners taking the festival countrywide and online, it is dedicated to promoting equality and diversity in UK beer. Get involved at womenontap.co.uk.