Petit Maghreb cafés: not forbidden to women
A canard has been going around claiming that cafés in St-Michel’s Petit Maghreb bar women from entering. It simply is not true. Quoting Toula Drimonis on Facebook: “Some of the people sharing the post live hundreds of miles outside of Montreal and have never visited these cafes. Online threats are issued against the owners. […] Also, those claiming this is about potential gender inequality and not Islamophobia, walk by any Greek cafe on Jean Talon and tell me how many women you see in there. No one seems concerned about my people.”
qatzelok 09:40 on 2019-04-12 Permalink
And even if it is true, what’s wrong with having social spaces that are mainly for men? Cafes in many North African countries are male-only, and this leads to very interesting conversations and male bonding. Are these things really so bad?
Chris 10:14 on 2019-04-12 Permalink
Deliberately spreading lies is of course deplorable, and knowing what’s true/real is hard in the facebook age.
But we must acknowledge that part of the problem here is that it’s so plausible.
It took just a minute to find an example, in France, of women being disallowed from cafes. Doesn’t look like fake news as it has hidden camera audio/video evidence and was reported by a reputable newspaper:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/17/french-bar-tells-women-isnt-paris-men/
This is, in no small part, due to Islam, and its inherently sexist ideology.
Bill 21 is no solution to this problem, as regulating what’s *on* your head does not fix what’s *in* your head. Bad ideas (Islam) need to be combated with better ideas.
qatzelok: Shall we have whites only cafes too? Would lead to very interesting conversations and bonding I’m sure.
qatzelok 10:34 on 2019-04-12 Permalink
Chris. Gender and skin tone are very différent things. Women enjoy lots of gender specific socialisation, so men could learn a lot by imitating this.
jonathan 11:58 on 2019-04-12 Permalink
qatzelok: I guess the idea is that men have been socializing and congregating together for hundreds of years in places like government, boardrooms, offices, media, pubs, cafés, everywhere really where they have shared some very interesting thoughts and made lots of decisions that impacted women.
That there are spaces often dedicated to women is a direct response to creating spaces where women can have conversation and make decisions about and for themselves.
qatzelok 12:53 on 2019-04-12 Permalink
The story is being framed as “Of course they don’t have male specific socialization institutions!” as if that was a good thing. That is the point I was trying to suggest.
And male and female specific socialization opportunities have probably existed as long as genders have. And what’s wrong with that?
We just feel the need to “improve” everything, even if we don’t really improve anything at all, and just end up following harmful trends.
walkerp 15:38 on 2019-04-12 Permalink
Seriously, Chris? The OP is about how people are sharing fakenews far from where they live and you immediately google up some cafe in Paris as a counterpoint?! The mind boggles.
Chris 13:45 on 2019-04-13 Permalink
qatzelok, how are gender/sex and skin tone “very different things”? They are both minor genetic differences that people neither choose nor can they change (nor should they).
walkerp, I’m not sure what’s boggling to you, and fear you have missed my point. I’ll try again. Fake news is bad, lying is bad, spreading lies is bad, knowing what’s true is hard, sexism is bad, Bill 21 is bad. But, Islam is also bad. The fake news in the example tricks people precisely because it’s so plausible, it is indeed a thing that does happen elsewhere, and it happens, in large part, because of the bad ideas in Islam. Many people seem unwilling to confront the veracity of this last part.
Ian 19:25 on 2019-04-13 Permalink
My barber on Parc will only cut men’s hair, but he’s French and white.
Chris 19:57 on 2019-04-13 Permalink
Ian: your point being? Because it looks like a syllogistic fallacy. I’ve not claimed that Islam is the only route to sexism; there are others paths of course.
Kate 09:43 on 2019-04-14 Permalink
Chris, you also overlook a big thing: even if you don’t like some of the principles promoted by Islam, they are no threat here.
Chris 12:51 on 2019-04-14 Permalink
Kate, “no” threat is an exaggeration (see 9/11), but I acknowledge that Islam is but a small threat here, and our society certainly has bigger problems to deal with. But my concerns extend beyond our little island, to all people of Earth. It’s a larger threat in Europe, and of course a daily threat in the Middle East and northern Africa. It’s a global world these days, and ideas, good and bad, spread easily and quickly. Bad ideas should be called out, even if it hurts feelings.