Club intends to keep women out

Press, 8 February 1985, Page 19

Club intends to keep women out

PA Auckland Women are excluded from Papakura’s Cosmopolitan Club, and to keep it that way the club has abandoned its association with other working men’s clubs. The club took the step after complaints that it refused to grant reciprocal visiting rights to the women members of other working men’s clubs. The Otahuhu club complained to the National Chartered Clubs’ Association after woman members were “embarrassed” at Papakura and another workingmen’s club at Manurewa.

The complaint prompted the withdrawal of reciprocal visiting rights for Papakura and Manurewa club members.

Manurewa changed its policy but the Papakura club stuck to its guns. Now its members are barred from sports contests and

reciprocal visits, for which the clubs were formed. The National Chartered Clubs’ Association had to reject the Papakura club’s affiliation after a Human Rights Commission ruling banned affiliations of allmale and mixed clubs.

The Papakura club’s chairman, Mr James Richardson, refused to explain why the club rejected women members.

“Why should we tell. It is our business, not yours, and we will do things our way,” he said. The Otahuhu club’s secretary, Mr Malcolm Cordukes, said his club complained after a number of its women members were “kicked out” of the two clubs.

He said Auckland clubs were also having to take women out of their sports teams for contests against Papakura. One woman member of the club said she com-

plained to the Human Rights Commission after she was refused entry to the Papakura club unless she was signed in as a guest of a male member. She and another female member said they were refused drinks at the club bar because of their sex.

The women were also refused entry to the Manurewa club (also allmale) for a darts tournament, but after complaining to the manager were made “special exceptions.” One of the women reported that signs in the club said pool tables were out of bounds to women. She said she was later told women could not hold pool cues properly and it was more likely they would damage the cloth. Neither women would be named after what they described as vicious calls from the male club members.