At the end of 2020, Tasmania, Australia’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) introduced an exhibit titled The Ladies Lounge. The lavishly decorated space is an exhibit of some of the museum’s premier artworks, including a few Pablo Picassos, that has been set up to be a ladies' only club. Attendants are encouraged to dress to the nines to enjoy high tea crafted by the museum’s own Chef Vince Trim. Visitors will also be assigned their very own butler in the space to fully immerse themselves in an indulgent experience.
The only catch being to enjoy this space and all of its amenities, visitors will have to identify as women. This move was done to create a woman’s version of the gentlemen's club. To equalize the scale by creating a safe space where women could enjoy themselves without inhibitions, as men do in gentlemen’s clubs, albeit in a patriarchal world where very few spaces cater to women’s needs and desires. This is why The Ladies Lounge is relevant to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality.
The decision to exclude men from The Ladies Lounge was soon met with a lawsuit, claiming that The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) was deliberately discriminating against cis-men based on gender, keeping them from enjoying the luxuries inside The Ladies Lounge. After spending years locked in a court battle, in early 2024, MONA officially lost the case and was ordered by the court to allow cis-men into The Ladies Lounge.
However, exhibition curator Kirsha Kaechele has been very open about wanting to fight back the verdict. Aside from submitting a court appeal, Kaechele will also be challenging the ruling by coming up with creative solutions that will keep the exhibition women only while also complying with the court’s orders. One solution she has come up with is to transform the exhibition space into a ladies room, installing toilets right in the gallery space that will deter men from entering.
After all,, The Ladies Lounge was created to give women a safe space to enjoy themselves, to reward women for simply being women, something that does not happen very often in a patriarchal society. The OECD Better Life Index found that only 60 percent of Australian women felt safe when walking alone at night, compared to nearly 80 percent of men. A survey compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) also found that 35 percent of women are likely to experience some form of violence at home, the most private of spaces. Meanwhile, another survey by YourGround in New South Wales, Australia also found that 3 in 4 spaces on their public safety app have been marked as unsafe by women and gender non-conforming people.
The backlash and the hubbub that Kaechele has created only further go to show just how imperative it is to create safe spaces for women, since even efforts by an art museum were met with backlash. This goes to show that despite progress being made to achieve gender equality, cis-men still find ways to encroach on spaces made and designed for women, although spaces made to exclusively cater to cis-men have existed for centuries.
Find out more about The Ladies Lounge at Tasmania, Australia’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) and their other initiatives by checking their Instagram on @monamuseum.