Imagine wanting dairy free ice cream, tofu pad thai, or gluten free waffles — but having to wait until all the women customers were first seated. Once you finally sit down and eat, you’re handed a bill with an automatic 18 percent tax, just because of your gender. Apparently males with a vegan palette are experiencing just that at a restaurant in Melbourne, Australia.
In an attempt to close the pay gap, Alex O’Brien, a raging feminist and owner of Handsome Her Eatery in Melbourne, has created what she calls a “reverse sexist” eatery which focuses on female empowerment, social responsibility, and environmental justice.
A chalkboard near the front counter has enshrined three “reverse sexist” policies.
The first, “women have priority seating.”
The second, “men will be charged 18% premium to reflect the gender pay gap (2016) which is donated to a women’s service.”
Third, “respect goes both ways.”
While business owners should retain abundant freedoms in running their companies, their policies are still subject to scrutiny. Even if O’Brien donates those forced proceeds to charity, she should be forewarned: in a free market economy, intersectionality based discriminatory policies serve as a danger to the very businesses that enact them.
This sweeping generalization about the gender pay gap can be debunked when analyzing career preferences, tenure, and hours worked per week between the sexes. While some women prefer to open their own feminist-fueled, vegan bakeries, men favor to be mechanical engineers. It isn’t surprising to learn the engineer typically goes home with fuller pockets.
“I like that it is making men stop and question their privilege a little bit,” O’Brien told Broadsheet. “[W]e’ve had this (pay discrepancy) for decades and decades and we’re bringing it to the forefront of people’s minds.”
O’Brien’s virtue signaling to her feminist base will be a detriment to her business’s success as well as possible supporters of equal rights. Not everyone will enjoy the “gorgeous vulva stones and… period sticker packs” which are prominently displayed at the cash register, nor will they enjoy the odd anti-male policies.
Let’s say a young, very poor male has to spend a lot of money on vegan food due to dietary limitations. He is just scraping by and walks into the Handsome Her, hoping to get his hands on a vegan meal. Because he is hungry and out of options, he buys the meal with the 18 percent premium. He promises not to come back because it is too expensive. He goes and takes a seat by the window.
Behind him in line is a very wealthy female who likes eating trendy, vegan food. Her meal is exempt from the tax. Because women are prioritized in seating, she has the young man hand over his window seat.
It isn’t hard to imagine a scenario like this playing out at Handsome Her. Is the young male still more privileged than his female counterpart? Of course not; his socioeconomic status, not to mention required dietary restrictions, is much more limiting than simply the sex of the wealthy woman.
Regardless if Handsome Her’s male customers believe in equal rights for both sexes, penalizing men with heavy taxes will lead to backlash.
A Harvard study found that forced diversity training backfires, actually promoting prejudice. Frank Dobbin, a professor of sociology at Harvard noted in the study that “people often respond to compulsory courses with anger and resistance.”
In this scenario, that principle surely applies.
While most consumers probably support the equal pay notion O’Brien claims to be fighting for, the feminist movement has lost strong support because radicals implement practices that put men down instead of elevate women to places of equality. While O’Brien’s third rule is “respect goes both ways,” men can hardly feel respected when being treated as a second class customer.
Polls agree; Huffington Post concluded 82 percent of people identify as supporters of equal rights, but only 20 percent identify as feminists.
The rules set forth by O’Brien should be deeply troubling to her employees as well as potential customers. Treating any demographic as second rate will result in less revenue. And in the foodservice industry, the average profit margin is only around 2 to 5 percent which is much too small to be advocating for these types of policies, even when the proceeds are going to charity.
If O’Brien really wants to close the gender pay gap, she should stop virtue signaling through her restaurant and start making smart business decisions so that her income will increase. There are plenty of outreach programs that don’t alienate more than half of her possible customer base, but it seems like the radical feminist movement is no longer interested in actual progress.
