Eradicating the gender bias: Is it time for Mumbai to get 'women only' bars?

When two unaccompanied women visited a Mumbai restaurant for a drink, only two glasses of water were placed on their table, and then the steward and the waiter ignored them for over 15 minutes. They summoned the staff to ask what’s up. The response came as a surprise, to them, even shocking: they thought the duo was waiting for their male companions to arrive for placing the order.

This gets their goat, the staff get a dressing down, including asking them the basic question of whether, in the management’s view, there was a ban on women drinking and especially unaccompanied by men. Since there isn’t such a law – we can ignore the other aspect of if the customers had a ‘permit’ as enjoined by law in Maharashtra – the steward was asked to serve them quick.

The drinks named – by brand and quantum as in pegs – they ordered their starters and lo and behold, it was not one waiter but a succession of them came with the orders. It was an excuse to get a better look at the upstarts who broke the social taboo of venturing out on their own to get a drink. Not only then, but earlier and thereafter, the pair of women have had searching glances towards them, whenever they wanted to go for a drink.

This is a reality faced a while ago by a Vasai-based Marathi author, Kavita Mahajan and narrated on her Facebook wall triggering responses from women who asked, don’t the women have their own space? Was a male companion de riguer in a modern city, which boasts of independent women, making their careers, some as single women by choice?

Mahajan has a naughty suggestion to wreck this notion. She advocates all-women bars, but the staff to be men, just like the Mumbai’s noted “Ladies’ bars”. Women waited at the tables, and men folk flocked and literally showered cash on those gyrating to Bollywood songs. Though hardly any women, except for those in business there, would step into these “ladies’ bars'.

“Ladies bar” did not mean a bar for women. It was the raunchy place for patronising men where more they drank, raunchier they got. It was a descriptor of the kind of place it is, and who worked there. Even after bans and raids and court rulings and time cut-offs, some exist under the pretence of being ‘orchestra bars’ where only music is played. Don’t be surprised if you see a police van outside, keeping vigil, except when to tote up statistics, an occasional raid is carried out.

Why are these bars not exclusively for women, she asks on the post. That would spare the women the need to have a male in tow if they wanted to go for a drink. Her view may startle the orthodox but some women have batted for it. She seems to have a kind of social revenge on the male-dominant society. It can’t be that only men have fun, the women’s bar would be a leveller.

Has the time for such a bar(s) arrived, especially in a city where, despite the trappings of modernity, the mindset is orthodox?

There have been violent incidents against Valentine’s Day to the extent college going students almost put an end to it. The late RR Patil, as Home Minister, had ordered the bars shut, and emerged as the premier moral police officer. They morphed into ‘orchestra bars’ but with women serving but the suspicion that they served only liquor and food could be mistaken. Even today, police on raids find hidden cavities where women staff are concealed.

The “it is not our way” argument — much as the extreme Right votaries say on TV and politicians blaming womens’ clothing as provocation for sexual assault — has gripped political mindsets. Imagine their wrath, which goes impotent when men go berserk with a woman. Probably, such bars may not survive an evening. But it is worth a thought as a revenge against prevailing attitudes: women can come in groups for kitty parties.

Two points before ending this. One, decades ago, seeking to target women smokers, a cigarette company promoted a particular brand, which I think was Four Square by offering to deliver them to their doors if ordered by phone. Women may want to smoke, the marketing strategy seemed to think, but are squeamish about walking up to the local paanwallah to pick up their cigarette.

The strategy didn’t work, and women do pick up their cigarettes or send the domestic help or the office attendant.

Two, there are a substantial number of women who like a snifter but they are not seen visiting the neighbourhood liquor store. Which does not mean they are on the wagon. It is also true that not all of them venture out on their own, but the Facebook post makes a telling point: in a society where gender bias exists, there ought to be an attempt to eradicate them at all levels.