Remember when those ‘Ask For Angela‘ bathroom signs – the ones that offered help to women caught in sticky situations – went viral last year, and a bunch of venues across Australia recreated it? It’s a bloody sick idea, and real quick shout-out to the Courty in Newtown here:
The Courthouse in Newtown has these in the bathroom, hell yeah pic.twitter.com/qAzp90X2rM
— Alex Bruce-Smith (@alexbrucesmith) January 13, 2017
Well, this is how not to do it.
A pub in Newcastle has removed its signs from the men’s bathroom after copping complaints on social media.
Pictures of the sign, from The Crown & Anchor in Newcastle’s CBD, circulated on social media. It offers to help out blokes who found themselves in situations where their date looked “nothing like her photo” or wouldn’t “stop talking about herself” by ordering an Uber or calling the police.
The pub said the signs had been up for around a month, but they’d only received complaints in the last few days after the sign went low-key viral.
When contacted by PEDESTRIAN.TV, a spokesperson referred us to a report in the Newcastle Herald, in which they said the signs were “not intended to be disrespectful in any way towards campaigns that promote sexual violence awareness and personal safety”.
The spokesperson also said it was disappointing that the focus on social media had been on the male signs, when nobody appeared to be aware of the signs in the women’s bathroom.
Here’s the thing about these signs: they don’t just provide a safe option for women to escape potentially violent situations. They send a message that those patrons are valued more highly than some lecherous dickhead who’s making them feel unsafe – which sadly is outside the norm for venues in Australia.
The pub confirmed to P.TV that they’ve since removed all signs.
“It’s a shame as there has been two occasions where those signs have helped women in circumstances where they were not feeling comfortable,” a spokesperson told P.TV. “To avoid upsetting more people though, we thought it safe to remove all signs of this nature.”
When we pointed out that the signs in the women’s bathrooms were great, and unlikely to cause offence, the spokesperson replied:
“Parts of the men’s signs were poorly worded. We take full responsibility for that. We are hoping to reword all signs and reinstate as we believe it is a really great initiative
Essentially: props to these guys and any other venue advocating for women and non-binary folk. Just don’t undermine your good intentions with some troglodyte-level ‘humour’ at the same time.
Photo: Reddit / marszau.
