Anarchoblogs

Some outrage elsewhere, in a comment thread on Roderick Long’s blog:

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Unlike that Bed & Breakfast in Cookham, the case of the Greencoat Boy, a pub owned by Punch Taverns whose manager refused to serve the Labour Party's LGBT group recently, seems clear cut.  You may remember that I argued in the Cookham case that people operating their own businesses with their own capital should be able to deploy that capital how they chose and on whatever grounds, prejudiced or otherwise they wanted.

Punch Taverns is in a very different situation, however.  Whilst it is undeniably a private company, the nature of the business it is in means that it is strongly dependent on state privilege for its position.  It has enjoyed, over the years, massive "scarcity rents" - extraordinary profits and indeed property values by virtue of the state taking into its head that it should licence establishments that sell alcohol.  

Punch also grew out of a section of Bass Inns & Taverns, and so was tied closely to the fortunes of another heavily regulated sector - that of alcohol production and a brewer's tied estate went along hand in hand with its market penetration and so how big it grew, at least until the last Conservative government tried, and only partially succeeded, to break the "tie" between a brewer and its tenanted estate such that tenants and leaseholders were not allowed to offer beers from other suppliers.

And whilst arguably the Beer Orders of 1989 led to the decline of the big British brewers and their eventual disappearance to even larger international firms (often similarly privileged by their own governments), it enabled some of these big formerly tied estates to be hived off into very serious property companies.

In other words, the state's fingerprints are all over the reasons for the success (even if such has faded more recently) and dominance of these large pub chains, to the detriment of customers over the years (by enabling them to make scarcity-rents which are paid for ultimately by customers).  Since we all pay for the activities of the state and their consequences, in this case taxes for the bureaucracy involved in maintaining these privileged positions for the pubcos and brewers before them and in the higher prices the resulting scarcity rents have created, their operatives have no right to exclude anyone.

This is not about equalities legislation.  It's about the fact that these businesses are, or have been, created and sustained acts of state patronage and policy and market manipulation.

[I have a slight interest in this: my best friend's family were the then private owners of Atkinson's Brewery and its tied estate, which reversed into Mitchell & Butler's and his grandfather was the last "family" chairman of Bass when in the sixties M&B effectively reversed into Bass]

_{Image taken from the aptly, perhaps, named "Dead Pubs" website: Fair Use Claimed}

• This Is the Modern World. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2009-11-06). This month's edition of Cato Unbound tackles one of the most interesting questions historians have: Where did modernity come from? Stephen Davies leads off with a revision and synthesis of several classical liberal theories about the issue; his essay has attracted a friendly critique from Jack Goldstone, one of the... (Linked Friday 2009-11-13.)
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• Uncle Sam Goddamn by Brother Ali. Kelly W. Patterson, Las Vegas Anarchoblogs (2009-11-12). This might just be the most kick ass song ever recorded. It's a show tune, but the show ain't been written for it yet. Hopefully, a team of writers somewhere is working on that. (Linked Friday 2009-11-13.)
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In my recent encounter with sexism, one argument was often put forth by the males of Reddit. It went something like this:

If it is discrimination to setup male-only poker tournaments, then it follows that it must be discrimination to setup female-only poker tournaments. Therefore the guy did nothing wrong to use anti-discriminatory laws in order to take part. And if you would root for a female taking part into a male-only tournament and winning, so we are justified in rooting for a the guy in this case.

This is actually an argument that makes sense, unlike the rest of the misogynistic strawmen, and thus deserves a more detailed counter.

The short answer is no, it’s not discrimination when women do it. You’re not justified in rooting for a male crashing the women’s tournament. No, this is not a double standard. Why? Because of privilege and existing domination.

You see, we do not live in a gender equal society and many many sports and hobbies are male-dominated without particular logical reason (ie unlike some physical sports where the male physical build gives a distinct advantage) but rather as a historical continuity. This changes the environment and thus the ethical considerations we have, with which to decide if the label of discrimination can be assigned. You see we cannot judge as if the environment was already equal and so act as if we’re simply trying to maintain this equality. The environment is not equal and men are the privileged party in this case.

How are they privileged? In this particular case by dominating all such events (ex: poker tournaments). Why is this privilege? Because of a few things. First, a man playing in such an event, is not automatically assumed to represent the whole of his gender. If he wins or loses, he’s a good or bad player respectively, while women are treated as if they represent every other woman. Second, they don’t get to feel like an external no matter the event. There will always be a majority of males which act and speak in manners comfortable to other males. This by default makes it an uncomfortable environment for women, instantly putting them on their guard and accentuating their alienation. Finally, and this follows partly from the previous point, there will be a natural hostility of males, who now have to conform more with mixed-gender social standards, and thus will feel bitter that they cannot be as relaxed as they were. I believe it will manifest as a subconscious attempt to turn attending women off the sport.

So these are all effects that any woman entering a male-dominated hobby will face, something I’ve seen personally from my RPG/Tabletop gaming groups to the IT sector where I work. Even when there are people who wish to have more girls involved, their eagerness can inflame the problem rather than help (think of the awkward sweaty gaming geek trying to be nice to a shy girl joining the group, while leering at her boobs half the time.)

So all of these constitute the privileged position of males in a sector and thus an inequality that will remain until sexism is abolished. In this situation, someone who strives for equality, cannot simply act as if equality already exists. This is simply living in a dreamland and giving your silent consent to sexism at best, or actually acting like an unwitting apologist to misogyny at worst. Rather, someone who strives for equality roots for the weakest party until such time as equality has been achieved.

And this is the ethical aspect that determines that a women-only event in a male-dominated hobby is not discrimination.

You see women do not host such events in order to avoid losing to their “natural superiors” as sexists like to imply, they do it as a reaction to the fact that it’s impossible to avoid the male privilege in all such events. It’s impossible to avoid the subconscious hostility, patronization or over-eagerness that exists in male-dominated events and thus a specific event needs to be organized for fans of the hobby in question in order to play in a more relaxed environment. To call this setup discrimination is wilful ignorance which serves as an excuse for asshole-ish acts against it.

So to put it plainly, when there is a male-dominated hobby or job, any attempt to restrict entrance to females can rightly be called discrimination as the reasoning behind it is simply to maintain “purity.” On the other hand, when in the same male-dominated hobby or job, an attempt by the few females that exist to organize a female-only event cannot by any strain of imagination be seen as an attempt to restrict males, since they already dominate. Rather it is an event of solidarity which serves to avoid the very real effects of the male domination.

The same reasoning just as well applies to other marginal groups in different settings. Blacks setting up black-only events in a society dominated by whites and crypto-racist sentiments is also an understandable reaction. And not only that but when the roles have been reversed, when say you have a women-dominated hobby/job, in that case any attempt to restrict entrance to men can rightly be seen as discrimination against males.

In closing, things are not simply black and white on the issue of discrimination. It is the whole of the environment around any such act which provides the ethical considerations we need to in order to decide on the issue. Those ignoring them and simply looking at one such decision in isolation in order to jump on the high horse are simply using intellectual dishonesty in order to hide their sexism.

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Insightful? Funny? Informative? Interesting?