There’s a difference between serving one at a bar v. table, and being refused service.
Circular logic. I’m sure there was plenty of working class women who would have liked being able to drink in a bar but weren’t allowed to. “Respectable women” was only a subset of women, even in the 1940s / 50s.
My mother (brought up in rural England in the 1950s and 60s) took a lot of convincing that it was acceptable for my sisters to go to pubs unescorted.
Note on the following: Totally not picking on you, just finally getting on a particular soapbox I’ve been putting together recently.
Here goes:
Y’all know what? Screw “the mores of the time”. Recently, I’ve been seeing this kind of temporal relativism pulled out to defend everything from rampant misogyny, racism and slavery, to child abuse, wife beating, wartime atrocities and everything in between.
The past is a fucking appalling place. It’s not all cuddly, because relativism. It should be all right for us to be outraged. It’s the sensible reaction.
OK, I’m fine now. Just needed to get that off my chest.
In Australia, it was quite acceptable for the ladies to drink in the saloon bar, or other parts of the pub. It was also acceptable for them to be accompanied there by their husbands or boy friends. And women could work in the public bar as a bar maid: they just could not drink there. The main disadvantage suffered by the ladies was that drinks were (by law) cheaper in the public bar.
I think you phrased that very well. I note how you said “screw the mores of the time” and mentioned specific things like wife beating. What you did not do is attack the actual people who lived during that time. I think that’s a sensible and reasonable way to look at it.
I hate it when people condemn such and such a historical figure for doing something that was normal and expected st the time for people of that time.
The distinction is important and I like the way you make it.
I’d hate to think that people would hate and condemn me personally 100 years from now because I drank water from a plastic bottle and threw the bottle away… Or somesuch thing that is innocuous by today’s standards.
Around 1980 I attended a professional conference in Toronto at the Royal York Hotel. I was 32 years old. I went into one of the bars–I’m guessing there were several (as the hotel had 13 restaurants on the premises), don’t remember the name of this bar, but it was dark-paneled, plush sofas, library-ish, very nice-- to order a drink and read the newspaper. It was the middle of the afternoon and there were very few people in there. I sat down on one of the sofas and took out my paper, anticipating that a person would come to take my order. Instead, the manager came over and told me that I had to leave, that women were not allowed in there on their own. I absolutely could not believe what I was hearing. I went to the hotel general manager’s office and frankly I don’t remember the details of that conversation but I remember being furious because it was like talking to a rude brick wall.
Which has nothing to do with wha the OP is asking. Those bars would not serve women even if they were escorted.
Yeah. You know, I didn’t actually go out of my way to make that distinction on purpose, but I do think that’s how I feel about it. 'Cause I also tend to defend individuals from the past, when people pull them out of their context and judge them by our standards. Mostly because it’s so easy to get into selective prosecution.
For instance, I’ve been posting a bit about ancient Rome recently, and sometimes people mention some terrible deed done by some ancient Roman. And then I do point out that if you want to paint individual X as some kind of mentally deranged mass murderer, you really have to do that with an awful lot of people in that society. And that can get absurd.
In other words, judge them by the standards of their time. But it’s also OK to say, sometimes, that those standards were absolutely horrible. The discrimination, the violence, the slavery, the rape, whatever you want to point to, was real. It wasn’t fun and games for those on the receiving end, any more than it would be for us. Realizing that is a step towards making sure that our standards are better.
Or, anyway, I guess that’s my point.
When I went to high school, boys took wood shop, girls took home economics. The changes these old eyes have seen give me great hope for the future.
They didn’t want prostitutes and B-girls (bar-girls). Yes, it was sexist and thankfully, it’s dated now.
Well, “nice girls” didn’t go out drinking, except sipping fancy cocktails in night clubs or restaurants with a date. So of course the assumption was that the single female patrons were on the clock. (Just as “nice girls” didn’t smoke or curse. That was the man’s job…)
One of my favourite quotes:
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there…” -L.P. Hartley.
I am so amused at some of these “did they REALLY do that?” questions.
They go well with the “they couldn’t have gone to the moon - they didn’t have the technology!” arguments.
In some cases, current is much, much better. Car safety, for instance.
But then there is the little voice: is it really progress that now, even the women are…
I’m not certain the the “right” to go bar crawling and get into drunken fights is actually progress.
Just how many women do you think go bar crawling and get into fights? The right for women to go out with a female friend and have a drink or two in the same venue as men is certainly progress.
Hausner’s, a popular restaurant in Baltimore up until the 80s, had a men-only bar. The clientele were elderly married men whose wives had them on a short leash, but were okay with them going to a bar where they wouldn’t hook up with any younger women. This is the only such place I’ve ever seen up close.
When I was a twentysomething, I was one of a large peer-group who were perfectly straight but also perfectly happy to go to the pub for a lot of beer, maybe a vulgar sing-song and a closing time curry, none of which needed female company (which on the whole would only have meant we needed to clean up our act a little). Not everything comes down to sex even though all of us liked getting laid as much as the next guy.
None of the places we went to barred women, escorted or otherwise (they probably wouldn’t have been overly worried about prostitutes although it was the wrong part of the city for that to be at all likely) but the clientele was largely male especially on a weekday evening.
I don’t see the logic to keeping pros and easy’s out. The reverse will happen. If not allowed to pay, they’ll be forced to cadge more free drinks (and other things besides.)
Welcome to the history of sexual discrimination. This is the least of the discriminatory practices that have been exercised against women since time began. Hardly an eye opener.
I visited several Working Men’s clubs in the 1990’s (north-east of England) in which there were “men only” bars. Rigorously enforced. Not sure when those rules were relaxed.
It’s only surprising if you don’t know your history.