Judge says controversial women-only art exhibit is legal

BBC News

A controversial women’s-only museum exhibit could soon re-open in Australia, after an appeal judge overturned a ruling that it breached anti-discrimination laws.

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00:00A controversial women's-only museum exhibit could soon reopen in Australia,

00:04after an appeal judge overturned a ruling that it breached anti-discrimination laws.

00:09The luxurious ladies' lounge at the Museum of Old and New Art Mona in Hobart had sought to

00:15highlight historic misogyny by banning male visitors from entering. It was forced to shut

00:20in May when one affected patron sued the gallery for gender discrimination and won. But on Friday,

00:27Tasmanian Supreme Court Justice Shane Marshall found that men could be excluded from the ladies'

00:32lounge because the law allows for discrimination if it promotes equal opportunity for a marginalised

00:38group. The ladies' lounge provides women with a rare glimpse of what it is like to be advantaged

00:44rather than disadvantaged, he said. Kirsha Kachal, the artist who created the exhibit,

00:50called the ruling a, big win. It took 30 seconds for the decision to be delivered

00:56to quash the patriarchy, she said in a statement. Today's verdict demonstrates a simple truth – women

01:03are better than men. Mona has a longstanding reputation for being provocative, and the

01:08exclusive opulence and pageantry of the the ladies' lounge, which opened in 2020 and housed

01:14some of the museum's most acclaimed works, is no different. Ms Kachal said that she had created the

01:20space to highlight the exclusion Australian women faced for decades, such as the decision

01:25to ban them from drinking in the main section of bars until 1965. She described the exhibit as a,

01:32flipped universe, that provided a much-needed, reset from this strange and disjointed world

01:37of male domination.

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