Women’s Spaces

More than simply privacy, dedicated women’s spaces can offer peace, safety, and a mental and physical refuge where one can dream, create, ponder ... and contemplate the delicate sensibilities of disgruntled blokes.

The atmosphere is one of ordered calm and discreet gentility. 

The windows give onto Elizabeth St in Sydney’s CBD, with an enviable view across to Hyde Park.

There are the requisite occasional tables, timber panelling and a chef for the private dining room.

The sofas, it has to be said, tend to the chintzy, but tasteful chintz, as if your elegant, educated grandmother had decorated the place.

But the most distinctive feature? 

There are no male members allowed. 

The Women’s Club, founded in 1901, sought to “fill some of the needs of intellectual and academic women” at a time when women were still excluded from voting (suffrage for non-Indigenous women was only gained in Australia in 1902).

It was the brainchild of 100 powerful women, mostly graduates of the University of Sydney, who came together one October day at The Women’s College.

Were they plotting to overthrow the government? A coven of witches planning pagan rituals by the light of the full moon? 

No. They just wanted a bit of space where they would be guaranteed to be left in peace—“a place where women interested in public, professional, scientific, literary, artistic work may spend their leisure moments and associate on equal terms”, according the Club’s early rules. It is a mandate that has never changed.

And even in these post-feminist days, when many young women purport not to know what the fuss is about, any woman who has tried to go to the loo and been followed in by a toddler would understand the premium women understandably place on a room of one’s own.

Virginia Woolf nailed it when she linked financial independence to creative freedom. Historically, only women who didn’t need to either earn a living or look after a family could spend their days how they wanted—needlepoint for some, seduction for others.

Anyone who has ever played the game “What if Shakespeare had a sister?” quickly discovers that back in the day, mere talent was not enough—women also needed luck, spare time, a place to work, access to materials, and, in a great number of cases, the support of their husbands.

The Women’s Club’s first premises were rented on Rowe St, Sydney, then near Martin Place. By 1925, membership numbers had swelled to 800, and it was decided a more permanent home was needed.

Early membership included such leading lights as Jessie Street (suffragette, human rights activist and Australia’s only female delegate to the United Nations), Louisa Macdonald (first principal of The Women’s College) and Adela Pankhurst (suffragette and political campaigner). 

Yet in spite of the collective personal wealth (and influence) of the women involved, they still had to establish a men's advisory committee, made up of husbands of the Club’s board, who managed the finances and were needed to secure the loan from the Commonwealth Bank to purchase the land and build Beaumont House.

But times have changed, right? So are places like The Women’s Club an anachronism? Surely in countries like Australia, where women don’t need their husbands to sign a bank loan, don’t need to dress like a boy to enter a university, and are allowed to drive their own bloody cars, a women-only club is no longer needed?

 

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Still a relevant concept

According to CEO Danielle Asciak, if anything, these kinds of spaces are actually needed more than ever.

“It’s a question a lot of cultural and heritage institutions are asking: ‘Are we still relevant?’ But we only need to look at what’s happened in the US to know we still need this space. We only need to look at our ongoing battles in the workplace, for gender parity, against domestic violence and for childcare reform—the list goes on.

“Yes, we’ve made progress, but there is still so much work to be done. And I think, fundamentally, this space is safe. It is an oasis, it is private, and women use it for so many reasons. And I’m always considering, ‘Why are we needed?’”

Physical space is one thing. Mental space entirely another.

Even now, women continue to struggle with the demands of a busy household, unpaid vs paid work, tending to the needs of husbands, children, parents, siblings and friends—finding time to paint the Mona Lisa is still a challenge.

And it’s not just about carving out a few hours to do that one thing. It's the time—and space—to get to the point where one has the artistic wherewithal to paint anything, let alone a masterpiece.

How can one truly give oneself over to the muse, to the genius that lies within—how can one practice one’s craft, try, fail, have a moment of breakthrough—when one’s attention is taken up by the daily dilemma of what to cook for dinner?

 

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A simply irresistible space

Of course, sometimes the space itself becomes the artwork.

The Ladies Lounge at Hobart’s Mona is a conceptual artwork that itself contains artworks for viewing, and (male) butlers to serve champagne.

Conceived by artist Kirsha Kaechele, as the name suggests, the Ladies Lounge was created for women only. In fact, speaking to the ABC, Kaechele asserted that “the rejection of men is a very important part of the artwork”.

Predictably, a bloke complained, taking Kaechele and the Ladies Lounge before the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT), arguing that he’d paid good money ($35) to enter the museum and expected to be able to see every single exhibit. (If you’ve visited Mona, you’ll know that it’s several levels of some quite mediocre art—no one in their right mind would want to see every last skerrick of it).

The case was heard by TASCAT deputy president Richard Grueber, who equally predictably found in favour of the complainant, saying “The refusal to permit Mr Lau entry to the Ladies Lounge was direct discrimination.”

Here’s where it starts to get interesting.

Kaechele turned up to the one-day hearing with 20 women, all dressed in conservative business suits. Throughout the trial, the women sat still, shifting their posture every few minutes “in unison in a coordinated manner”. Some, Grueber noted, were “pointedly reading feminist texts” during the hearing.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the women left “in a single line in a slow march led by Ms Kaechele”, walking out to the accompaniment of Robert Palmer’s Simply Irresistible.

Grueber criticised their conduct, describing it as “some sort of performance”.

“At the very least it was inappropriate, discourteous and disrespectful, and at worst contumelious and contemptuous,” Grueber wrote.

“If observed by Mr Lau it might well have been perceived by him as harassing and intimidatory.”

(“If observed”. Touching, really, how concerned Grueber was for Mr Lau’s delicate sensibilities for an act he didn’t even witness.)

In response, Kaechele consulted both section 27 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 (Tas) and Galatians 3:28 and decided to turn the Ladies Lounge into a) a place of education, b) a religious institution and c) a toilet to circumvent the Act and reopen the Lounge on her own terms.

In an interview with Mona, she said, “I actually think the lawsuit is a blessing in disguise. The verdick [sic] encourages us to move beyond the simple pleasures of champagne and expensive art. Thanks to the ruling, we have no choice but to open ourselves to a whole range of enriching experiences—spiritual, educational ... To discover fascinating new possibilities, and to become better.”

In speaking about the verdict, Kaechele says she felt it laid bare the “competing conditions of wife and artist”.

“The court ruled that it was largely Mona’s intention for the Lounge that mattered, rather than my intention as the artist who created it. At the same time it suggested that because I am David Walsh’s wife, I can reasonably be considered an intimate extension of Mona and my husband’s will.”

This assertion was something Kaechele had pre-empted in her witness statement when she said:

‘As seen throughout history, the wife’s work is attributed to the husband. There is no malice here—having been born into and immersed in a society ruled by men, it is natural, logical really, to assume male leadership and initiative. However, I wish to state for the record that the Ladies Lounge (designed by women) was born not of a man’s mind, but of my own; the mind of an important man’s wife. The question is whether section 104 applies to the intentions of the artist, the museum owner’s wife, who is not an extension of Mr Walsh’s will, but is in fact an independent entity with ideas of her own, which, in keeping with historic tradition, have been repackaged and presented as the work of a powerful man.’

“For the record,” she added, “David is an extension of my will, not the other way round.”

And yet, Grueber appears to have missed the point entirely, unconsciously becoming part of the artwork through his performatively pompous ruling and sententious scolding of the artist and her feminist-text reading cohort. As Kaechele says:

“I can’t be certain that his ruling isn’t performance. His judge-like ‘comportment’ in the court, the flourish of his language in the ruling ... He’s clearly a man interested in art. In his ruling, he compares me to Caravaggio—a great artist, but he also murdered someone. I just served ladies champagne.”