Whose Culture is Pub Culture?
The talk of the town is that pubs might be reopening soon.
A pitch the Burum team receive frequently is one of ‘a love letter to pub culture’, one that we have respectfully declined each time. In a year that has been impossible for all those who work in hospitality, in a year which has highlighted how broken our society is, a question that needs asking more often is whose culture is pub culture?
Is it the culture of those who work in pubs, those who work the demeaning and exhausting hours for minimum wage only to be made readily available to be abused by all who drink with them? Is it the culture of marginalised groups, of those who are queer, Black, female who as of mere decades ago were not legally allowed to drink in these establishments? Or is it the culture of men, straight, cis and white, who are free to be their true selves wherever and whenever they please?
Our pubs are not the British havens we think they are, and they have no way of becoming so unless we all put some serious work in, together. Our discussions of support, safety and strength need to be intersectional, real solidarity is the goal here. We are only as safe as our most vulnerable and the work doesn’t stop until everyone can walk through life, through their work and through a pub door feeling secure.
Ellie King approached us with this piece a few months ago, originally just wanting feedback, but it spoke to myself, Helen and the current plans we had for our collaboration brew In Parallel so we commissioned it. It’s Ellie’s first piece of writing and we’re thrilled to be publishing it.
It’s also the start of a much bigger conversation, one that we will not be shying from and that we urge you to join in with.
Helen and Rachel
The pub has long been considered a cornerstone of British culture.
For the last year the simple pleasures of a pint have been stymied by covid as the crisis has wreaked havoc across the food and drink industry. Many of us are eagerly counting down the days until pints can be shared with loved ones, or enjoyed alone.
However there are many people for whom a trip to the pub is not an enjoyable, comfortable or safe experience. Whilst I am hugely looking forward to that first pint of cask ale when pubs reopen, there are some never-to-be-forgotten anxieties I am not keen on facing again.
As a woman drinking and working in pubs over the last 2 decades I have been patronised, ignored, gawked at, subjected to unsolicited physical interaction and been told to smile and wear something shorter/lower/tighter.
Having just listed all of that, it seems incredible that I could possibly find anything to enjoy in such a toxic atmosphere; why would I go back time and again when the experience was so unpleasant?
Well, for one it wasn’t all unpleasant. Some of the best times of my life have been behind or in front of a bar. I’ve met some wonderful, and weird, people, made friends for life and learnt more about myself, and others, than in any other environment. I also realised that the discomforts and microaggressions I was subjected to were not my fault; it was the situation that needed to adapt to my presence, not the other way around.
Pubs have a long standing diversity issue, across employees and patrons; it is not all that long ago that segregation among drinkers by gender, ethnicity, race or sexual preference was standard practice with separate entrances and bars within pubs for women, and separate establishments entirely for people of colour.
Homosexuality was a punishable offence in the UK until 1967; from the 18th Century the gay communities of London had to create separate venues of their own so there would be safe spaces to drink and socialise.
Until 1965 pubs could refuse to serve someone on the basis of their skin colour; the Race Relations Act that came into force in December 1965, made this illegal, but practically little was done to enforce it and fresh provisions had to be made to enforce the law in the 1976 Race Relations Act.
Women could be refused service in pubs or bars on the basis of their gender until 1982. It was in that year, only 39 years ago, that two women finally won a case under the Sex Discrimination Act against Fleet Street bar El Vino who refused service to women at the bar and required female patrons to be seated at a table, or find somewhere else to drink. This landmark ruling had been a long time coming as several cases had been bought against El Vino since the Sex Discrimination Act was made law in 1975. El Vino’s owners claimed this discriminatory policy was ‘out of chivalrous concern lest their posteriors [sic] be jostled’ by male customers, as Gillian Linscott of the Guardian wrote, tongue firmly in cheek, in 1977.
The veil of chivalry has long been used to mask misogynistic attitudes and behaviours. The expulsion of women out of the bar and into a back room under the guise of ‘for our own good’ only serves patriarchal attitudes and perpetuates the narrative of victim blaming; we ‘should have known better’ than to drink there/wear that etc etc.
The forced segregation of drinkers on the basis of race, gender or sexuality does not address the problematic and antagonistic behaviours that, as a society, demean us all. We all have a responsibility to challenge behaviours and attitudes that perpetuate exclusion. By advocating for, listening to and standing with those most at risk we can create safer spaces for everyone.
At a Dignity at Work training session I attended recently, we were presented with a series of work based scenarios and asked if we felt the actions presented were ‘ok’ or ‘not ok’. One involved a guy, Greg, who gets drunk at the pub during a team away trip. Greg and some other male colleagues start boasting about how strong they are. Greg proceeds to unbutton his shirt and, to prove his strength, attempts a few push ups. Most of my male colleagues struggled to see the problem with Greg’s behaviour, saying that the only person affected would be Greg himself when he wakes up with the worst anxiety hangover ever having embarrassed himself in front of his colleagues.
I was ‘not ok’ with Greg’s behaviour - his macho display of virility, far from being attractive and impressive is intimidating, aggressive and dominating, taking over the space and every conversation in it. A female colleague said that she was also ‘not ok’ with Greg’s behaviour and would probably just leave if it made her uncomfortable. She explained that she has left pubs and bars before under similar circumstances, before catching herself and saying, ‘hang on, why should I leave because of his behaviour? His behaviour is ‘not ok’. The problem is Greg’s behaviour, not our discomfort with it. I’d like to believe that Greg’s behaviour would not be tolerated in most reputable drinking establishments, and there are many wonderfully inviting, inclusive and inspiring pubs out there.
The Morning Advertiser reported in February last year that of 2000 women surveyed, 34% feel the pub is male dominated in a negative way, and 55% said sexist behaviour was the ‘most intimidating conduct’, and 37% citing men showing off as an ‘unwanted characteristic’. Not cool, Greg. ‘Not ok’.
Traditionally, pubs were at the heart of their communities; important social lifelines and spaces for engagement and respite from the troubles of the world. In a beautifully written piece about the Prince of Peckham pub featured in Pellicle magazine Tutku Barbaro interviews landlord Clement Ogbonnaya. Ogbonnaya talks about pubs as ‘public houses’ and places that are ‘championing people’. For him, The Prince of Peckham is a ‘champion for the marginalised and I implore other pubs to do the same’.
Society has come a long way since the Race Relations Act of ‘65 and ‘76, and the Sex Discrimination Act of ‘75, but it is still well documented and reported that minorities continue to be exactly that when it comes to representation in positions of patronage, management, ownership and leadership across the beer world.
Representation and visibility is everything, which makes the existence and work of pubs like The Prince of Peckham, breweries like Crown and Hops in the US, brewers like Sophie De Ronde, Jaega Wise and Lily Waite, and beer educators like Ren Navarro and Natalya Watson so important and radical.
But it cannot be left to minorities to do the heavy lifting. We all have a responsibility to make the environments we enjoy safe and accessible for everyone and there will always be more work to do to keep these spaces open to a wider range of drinkers and encourage new ones.
I guess my point is, I hope we are moving in a direction where everyone agrees Greg’s behaviour is not cool, where his friends will tell him as much, and where none of us have to put up with it or leave. As we look forward to drinking in public again, let’s all try to Be Less Greg.
