In a bizarre twist to the ongoing gender debate, a museum in Australia is fighting to keep its latest exhibition as women only – by becoming a ‘church’.
This is after a court ordered that men should be allowed entry under anti-discrimination laws. Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has appealed the ruling.
Artist Kirsha Kaechele says she will challenge the verdict by making the space ‘compliant’ with regulations. She plans to turn the velvet-clad lounge into a women’s toilet that would be ‘the greatest toilet, and men won’t be allowed to see it’.
Kaechele also wants to describe the lounge as a ‘church’, which she claims will allow it to continue operating as a women-only space under legal exemptions, perhaps by offering Bible study. She is quoted locally as saying: ‘We will discover many inspiring perspectives expressed in the Bible and open up to new ideas by reading verses together, such as Galatians 3:28: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’
