Melbourne's Athanaeum Club. Image sourced from Athanaeum website.
Last week controversy erupted around Melbourne ‘Gentlemen’s Club’, The Athenaeum.
For the first time in the club’s 142-year history, honorary membership is not being extended to the some of the highest office-holders in the country simply because they are women.
The club excludes women from obtaining membership. Women are only admitted entry and limited access to the club’s facilities if accompanied by a (male) member, with most instances of women in the club occurring during during specific officially sanctioned (by the old boys themselves) female events, such as annual ‘daughter’s day.’ It is the home of the very rich, and the very powerful, the ‘crème de la crème of Victorian society’…
But as last week’s Australian reported, you might be rich and powerful but if you don’t have a flaccid or protruding member dangling between your legs, the glass ceiling may be broken but you will still be ’stopped at the clubroom door’ or at least made to wait outside in the rain.
I have read various comments on news websites who have argued that if the Athenaeum is a men’s club then why would women be permitted to join?
It is true that the Athenaeum is a ‘Gentleman’s Club’ (aka ‘old men in dark suits’), not a ‘gentle men and women’s club.’ However the real misogyny lies with the Club’s shunning of women in positions usually revered by the club’s; such as new and first ever female Governor General Quentin Bryce, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner, Christina NIxon, Chief Justice of the Victorian Supreme Court, Marilyn Warren, NSW Governor Professor Marie Bashir, Queensland Governor and Penelope Winsley – just to name a few.
