A vegan cafe that charged male customers an 18 per cent 'man tax' to highlight the gender wage gap is closing down.
Handsome Her, in Melbourne's trendy Brunswick, made headlines in 2017 when it announced it would tackle gender inequalities by charging men more and seating women first. But the cafe, run by green activist Alex O'Brien, announced it would shut up shop on April 28, after just two years of trading.
It was not immediately clear why the cafe, billed as a safe space for women and lesbians, is closing, but it has faced widespread backlash for it's perceived reverse sexism. In a farewell post on Facebook, Handsome Her said the man tax attracted widespread criticism online.
'The way the world responded (to the man tax) showed us how fragile masculinity is and solidified the necessity for us to confront and dismantle patriarchy,' the post said.
Handsome Her said they were a small business trying to prioritise women and women's issues but became the punching bag of Melbourne and the internet. Handsome Her concluded their farewell with a vague description of future plans 'up north' where they will be doing 'hands-on work'. The man tax was launched when the cafe opened in 2017 and the owners decided the initiative would be imposed one week every month and the additional money would be donated.
The impending closure has been met by a mixture of emotions, with many blaming the cafe's unusual initiative. 'I don't celebrate businesses going out of business or people losing their jobs, but seriously alienating a good proportion of your client base is not going to end well,' one person wrote on Twitter. 'I'm glad they tried. I'm glad they were vocal about it. I'm glad it failed. There's literally no downside,' wrote another. 'Get woke, go broke,' another quipped.
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