The Australian Club: should it modernise and allow powerful women to join?
It’s members say it’s not “all about secret men’s business” – but the controversial push to open up Australia’s oldest exclusive male bastion has put the spotlight on the idea of dividing us by gender.
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Its members say it’s not “all about secret men’s business” – but the controversial push to open up Australia’s oldest and most exclusive male bastion The Australian Club to women has put the spotlight on the idea of dividing us by gender.
In this day and age, is it an anachronism to have single sex clubs and institutions – or is it merely reflecting age-old needs for the sexes to spend some time apart from one another?
While feminists spent decades fighting to be given access to male only spaces such as open bars of pubs – as well as creating their own spaces like the McIver’s Ladies Baths at Coogee – has the tide turned with the trans debate and the push for unisex spaces?
Many current feminists are concerned identity politics are now erasing women’s hard-fought spaces.
With the onset of men being able to “self-declare gender identity”, UK feminists in particular have been campaigning to save women’s shelters, gyms, pools, prisons, change rooms and toilets as female only spaces.
Likewise, recent years have seen the growth of Men’s Sheds and a revival of old-style men’s barber shops, while Sydney still counts 34 single-sex public schools.
But should the most powerful club in the nation — designed for the elite to network — bar women?
There has been a long fraught history around segregating the sexes in Australia.
TV producer Gerald Stone famously recalled in his memoir how he made the mistake of chatting to female reporters at a Daily Mirror Christmas party in the 1960s, when he first arrived in Australia.
He was berated by the police reporter the next day over his “inexplicable” decision to mix with the “sheilas”.
“My transgression was the talk of the party,” he said. “ … at house parties where males gathered around a keg in the backyard, speaking of sport and Holdens while the young women were consigned indoors to fend for themselves.”
The “Women’s Lib” movement of the 1960s and 1970s smashed down arcane rules limiting female participation.
As recently as 1971 women students at Sydney University spent Orientation Week gatecrashing pubs around Sydney which had refused to let them in public bars.
Up until the 1970s NSW government jobs were advertised as “men and boys” or “women and girls” – meaning women had fewer choices. That’s if they hadn’t already been forced to resign upon marrying as was the case in the public service until 1966.
But over the decades the march of women through the professions and into executive levels opened up the playing field.
However some spaces remain firmly rooted in their traditions. That includes the 183-year-old Australian Club in Macquarie Street and the similarly elite 108-year-old The Queen’s Club, a ten minute walk away in Elizabeth St.
Both are extraordinarily secretive, with little published about their facilities and the membership bar is set very high.
The Australian Club boasts guest rooms, fine dining, harbour and Botanic Gardens views, a barber, a library and a bridge room with chess sets.
Strict dress codes are enforced, including visiting female guests being required to wear skirts, dresses or tailored trousers with a jacket. Men have to wear long sleeve jackets and ties.
At the Queen’s Club, heavily into chintzy Royal styling, lamps and comfortable lounges, members can stay overnight in bedrooms if they want, or enjoy afternoon teas, excursions, musical evenings and guest speaker lunches. But men can’t join.
While the Sydney Tattersalls Club opened its doors to women back in 1963, these two institutions have remained impervious to calls to “get with the times”.
After Tuesday’s vote to allow female members at the Australian Club was resoundingly lost, businesswoman Lucy Turnbull, wife of former PM Malcolm and a part of the famous Sydney Hughes family dynasty whose men were members, lamented the fact her granddaughters could never join.
“They can aim to be premiers, prime ministers, High Court judges … whatever, but not members of the Australian Club.”
It’s a point echoed by social commentator from The Demographics Group Simon Kuestenmacher: that the very essence of these clubs is about networking with powerful and elite people and women are now a part of that.
“It’s really to facilitate networks between the rich and powerful, that’s the purpose,” he said.
“A Men’s shed is about men’s issues, men’s health per se.
“There’s also a clear role for women-only lunches or support groups for breast cancer or mother’s groups.
“But to keep a business club men’s only, it’s hard to argue why this should be restricted.
“We’ve had decades of ever increasing women in workforces. Doesn’t it strengthen your networks to let them in?”
One insider at The Australian Club says business is actually not discussed when visiting.
“For me personally it’s a place to be with like-minded people with varied business backgrounds with … varying points of views on everything from politics, social preferences, business, sport and economics,” he said.
“Unlike what the media is saying, it’s not all about secret men’s business but more about having a lunch or drink with friends and having a good laugh … in fact it is club policy not to talk about business.”
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