Pubs and Social Segregation
Perhaps the most striking functional difference between Australian pubs and drinking establishments in other countries is that, for most of their history, Australian pubs were strictly segregated along gender and racial lines.
As author Diane Kirkby has observed: "Masculinity and national identity were ... interwoven with pub culture and the ethnic and sexual exclusivity of that culture was celebrated."
In a controversial move in 2007, a Victorian court granted a Gay Bar in Melbourne the right to decline entry from heterosexual men and women, stating that their contribution was not positive and that heterosexual men would come to cause trouble in the bar.
Read more about this topic: Australian Pub
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or segregation:
“The prime lesson the social sciences can learn from the natural sciences is just this: that it is necessary to press on to find the positive conditions under which desired events take place, and that these can be just as scientifically investigated as can instances of negative correlation. This problem is beyond relativity.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!”
—George C. Wallace (b. 1919)