Melbourne’s elite gentlemen’s clubs must dispense with discrimination and join 21st century
IT’S time for Melbourne’s elite gentlemen’s clubs to dispense with their discriminatory practices and enter the 21st century.
Rita Panahi
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IT’S time for Melbourne’s elite gentlemen’s clubs to dispense with their discriminatory practices and enter the 21st century.
The Neanderthal notion that women should be barred simply because they are women is as absurd as it is asinine.
How can any club in 2015 justify excluding members based only on their gender?
On what parallel universe is it OK for women of the calibre of Marilyn Warren, Chief Justice of Victoria, and Linda Dessau, Governor of Victoria, to be deemed unworthy of joining the Melbourne Club, Australian Club, Athenaeum Club or Savage Club?
Indeed, as Justice Chris Maxwell points out, this is “the first time in Victorian history that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has not been offered membership of any of these clubs simply because she is a woman”.
Incredibly one club, displaying an extraordinary amount of chutzpah, asked Chief Justice Warren to speak at their exclusive fraternity despite failing to offer her admission into their ranks as a member.
Justice Maxwell should be applauded for taking a principled stand and refusing an invitation to speak at an all-male club.
It would be refreshing to see the members of these clubs show similar strength of character and demand change at their tired old institutions.
It’s perfectly okay for clubs to be discerning in determining who they admit, but discriminating against potential members based on their gender, race, religion or sexual preference is not only antediluvian, it’s offensively foolish.
Surely these archaic institutions recognise that they would benefit greatly from having accomplished women join their ageing ranks.
Six years ago a Labor-dominated parliamentary committee failed to bring the exclusive male-only clubs into line and force them to comply with Victoria’s anti-discrimination laws.
The comparison between these men-only societies, and gyms and pools that cater only to women, is one that is often made but it’s a fatuous argument.
It’s clear why some women prefer female-only gyms; they do not want to be leered at by testosterone-filled men.
One wonders what possible objection the old fossils at gentlemen’s clubs have against the presence of women.
Do they expect we’ll disturb their peace by cackling like maddened shrews? Or that the atmosphere will be thick with French perfume?
Surely any learned man worthy of membership to a select club would welcome the presence of equally capable women.
Modernisation need not mean a lowering of standards.
In fact, by doubling the pool of potential members, it will mean a far better class of person will join the erudite ranks of our city’s most exclusive clubs.
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