After only two years in business the “Handsome Her” is no more. [1]
The Handsome Her restaurant made headlines in 2017 when it announced its rules for seating arrangements: female customers got preference and men had to pay an 18 percent tax to eat there.
The tax was described as a way to “protest the gender pay gap.” It backfired– or fired them in the end.
The general public didn’t like the idea, arguing the “man tax” discriminated against and alienated half the population.
And apparently they are still disconnected from reality, insisting on doubling down on stupid:
“When we opened Handsome Her in 2017, we expected that perhaps we might make a stir through our brazen public discussions of structural inequality and oppression.
The Man Tax blew up the internet — an idea that we didn’t think was all too radical.
Yet the way the world responded showed us how fragile masculinity is and solidified the necessity for us to confront and dismantle patriarchy.
We were just one little tiny shop on Sydney Rd that was trying to carve out a swathe of space to prioritise women and women’s issues, and suddenly we became the punching bag of Melbourne and the internet.
Rather than accept their businesses failure, as a rejection of their myopic politics, they claim it’s proof they were right all along.
Reality, of course, is a little different. As Jeff Goldstein quips, “apparently a Fish does need a bicycle after all”.