Woman accuses Rotary club of discrimination
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(www.rotary.org)
A Rotary club in the New England region of New South Wales has been accused of rejecting a woman who wanted to become a member.
The former district governor of the north-west New England region, Jane Bradford, applied to join the bigger Tamworth club 18 months ago.
She has told ABC Radio's AM she believes her application was rejected because all the members were male.
"And then as February approached, I was asked, the president and the secretary came to see me and asked me to withdraw my application," she said.
"A number of members of the club were supposedly very unhappy and were threatening to resign if I became a member."
There are more than 1,000 social Rotary clubs around Australia and women have been allowed into the clubs for the past 20 years.
Rotary International Australia's office manager Frank Pezzimenti told AM that while sexual discrimination is illegal, the organisation does not have the power to intervene.
"We certainly encourage women to be part of Rotary International, and we certainly don't discriminate," he said.
"There are certain cases that we encourage the volunteers to sort of resolve those issues within the club.
"But we try to give advice, we can't direct, we certainly can give advice according to the by-laws etcetera of Rotary International."
Ms Bradford says she does not blame the governing body Rotary International, as each club is run individually.
She says she now faces the tough decision of whether to stay with Rotary.
"I didn't want to leave Rotary, but it was just shattering to have that," she said.
"The final comment was that they didn't like me because I laugh loudly and I wear bright colours."
