I’m one of the Savage Club’s ‘Karens’. The boys can keep their dingy cubby house

1 week ago 3

Opinion

September 30, 2025 — 3.30pm

As a woman, you don’t expect many favours from a men-only club, but that’s exactly what the Melbourne Savage Club delivered – albeit accidentally – when its “Karen”-bemoaning email was leaked recently.

For anyone unfamiliar with this charming local anomaly, the signature club opened in 1894 and took its moniker from the Savage Club of London (named after 18th-century English poet Richard Savage). It describes itself as the “home of bohemian Melbourne” and motivated by “music, art, drama, literature and science”.

The burgundy doors at the Savage Club’s will be closed to women lunchers.

The email in question (“Karen” was the members’ charming shorthand for women like me) proposed ceasing – post-haste – a six-month trial allowing women to lunch at the 131-year-old establishment on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the main dining room.

Sure, you could read the trial as a bold move if you squint. But let’s not rush to conflate profit with progress. According to reports, the decision was driven by both dwindling attendance and finances, rather than a feminist awakening. The club was struggling under the cost-of-living crunch – a burden many of us can relate to, regardless of gender or pronouns.

Still, barely three months of tolerating our presence, and having to explain the unmistakeable waft of the feminine mystique to their (allegedly) trembling wives, proved too much for not just a few squeaky wheels, but the majority of members who voted against continuing the experiment for the remaining three months, in news that leaked out on Tuesday.

Apparently, we Karens were far-too effective at muzzling “the loud and boisterous bohemian behaviour that the club is famous for” (that and putting the old boys off their crumbed lamb’s brains and devilled kidneys, one suspects). Cue what I can only assume was frantic necktie-clutching before the company of women was voted down.

But here’s the twist: what a gift these “Dear Brother Savages” (as members address each other – adorable, isn’t it?) have bestowed upon us.

This was their chance to grab a scarcely revolutionary idea by the horns and come off as vaguely relevant or at least quietly dignified. Maybe even fiscally responsible. Here was their moment to shine the silver, dust off the taxidermy and show the ladies – and not just us Karens – what we’ve been missing out on for all those years.

After all, in its heyday, this was a club graced by some of Australia’s movers and shakers – “prime ministers, painters, actors, legal eagles and corporate heavyweights have rubbed shoulders, recited poetry and quaffed fine wines in the club’s dining room”, as The Age reported earlier this year.

As an old arty-lefty type myself, I get the appeal of hanging out with the elites and the erudite, eavesdropping on the repartee or, even, joining the conversation. Just imagine, the art, the wine, the quips, the name-drops, the stuffed game – all the curated irrelevance that we could’ve nodded along to?

Yes. Imagine that.

Turns out, the club’s resistance to women isn’t just a recent thing – it’s practically tradition.

Back in the 1980s, despite the other half of the population making good use of their formidable shoulder pads, they still couldn’t manage to muscle in. Then, in 2019, human rights barrister Julian Burnside suddenly declared he had pushed for women to be admitted amid criticism of his membership when he ran as the Greens candidate for Kooyong in the 2019 election. He quit the club the following day but lost the election regardless, to a woman nonetheless.

Right now, in the UK – arguably the spiritual home of old-boys clubs – the fairer sex continues to cause headaches for one of London’s most famous clubs, the almost 200-year-old Garrick Club. Despite last year reluctantly reversing its men-only policy, the club has granted only three women membership: actors Dame Judi Dench, Sian Phillips, and Celia Imrie. In June this year, another aspiring club member, broadcast journalist Julie Etchingham, withdrew her application amid claims of “hostile behaviour towards women” and a suspiciously protracted process.

Despite our curiosity for the curiosity apparently growing, one thing’s hard to ignore: Just as we were about to prop up another archaic institution, the big red doors slammed shut on our stilettoed foot. We’re limping away, sure, but now free to fling our lunch money elsewhere. Or to the wind, if we please.

Here’s my take on what went down. They made a choice and that choice was to air their musty underbelly. You know, the kind of thing you kick under the bed and remember only with embarrassment.

Thanks for the memories, Brother Savages – that was three months we’ll never get back. You can keep the nostalgia, exclusivity, taxidermy and misogyny. Truth is, lunch was overpriced (whatever it cost). Our feminism’s intact, and we’re leaving with a lot more than we came with– one hell of a reality check.

Jen Vuk is a Melbourne writer.

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