A Facebook event page appropriately titled ‘No CisHet Men Allowed’ has recently caused somewhat of a stir among South Africa’s classical liberal community – even if just for laughs.
The event, which will take place at the Blah Blah Bar on Kloof Street in Cape Town on 26 November, has the following description on its Facebook page:
“men are trash is an event put together for womxn by 3 womxn in cape town. this event focuses on the safety of womxn within the night life context, allowing womxn to finally let loose without the fear of unwanted male attention. bring your friends and wear the outfit you were scared to wear on a night out. this is a harassment free space.
please join us on the 26th of november and do the most.“
After some freedom-minded individuals discovered this page several hours later, it has been subjected to so-called ‘trolling’, with mostly cis-heterosexual males questioning what ‘cishet’ means, and how the group can legitimately exclude that demographic of the population in light of South Africa’s anti-discrimination laws. Threats of reporting the organizers to the SA Human Rights Commission have also been leveled.
‘
Cis’ within the context of the social justice notion of gender identity is often taken to mean that the ‘cis’ individual in question has the same gender identity (with their corresponding expression of that gender) as their sex at birth. In other words, a man who was born male, and expresses himself comfortably as a male, would be regarded as a ‘cis’ individual. The same applies to women. Within the context of the event in question, cis men who are also heterosexual are excluded, whereas cis homosexual men (i.e. men who identify as male and express themselves as male, but are sexually attracted to other men) are apparently welcome.
‘Womxn’ is also a term used by certain factions of the social justice left to describe ‘women’ with reference to the X-chromozone. Others have described it as a way to separate the ‘-men’ from ‘women’, based on the notion that the patriarchy treats women as ‘the other’ to the ‘standard’ of the man.
Some of the posts made in the event page include the following:
“To classify all party going males as trash and label them all as harrassers is extremely stereotypical and downright discriminatory.”
“Let’s just rename this to be what it’s become: cesspool of white male tears. Pool pardy anyone?!”
“Can admin just block all the cis male trolls now please. Enough. This space is not for you.”
“[the] organisers have made it clear that self-[identification] will be all that’s necessary. They won’t turn people away who [identify] as queer, regardless of how they present, unless they start acting bigoted (which would get you thrown out no matter how queer you present).”
“The comments on this page are exactly why cis het men aren’t allowed. If you wanted to make us change the ruling, then you should’ve acted a little differently to what’s expected of you. Right now, you’re just making us question why there aren’t more events like this. Cause there CLEARLY need to be. So many male tears, so much anger policing, mansplaining, victim blaming, fat shaming, patronising and censoring going on. It’s sort of mind numbing.”
“I think the organisers are being conservative. Cis non-hetero men in general should not be allowed. Specifically homosexual men. We are not immune from the statement “men are trash”. “gay” men are as capable of sexually harassing womxn and being incredibly derogatory to trans humans. “Gay” men are incredibly bigoted and are just as likely to argue about “all lives matter” against feminist ideals. So we see this vommit from cis het men. But cis gay men would have given the biggest bos kak too. This belief that “I too have suffered” runs too fucking deep with those identifying themselves through their dicks. Obviously the the use of non-hetero may be too broad in terms of my explanation. But within reason, cis men should not be allowed.”
“many cismen have come onto this platform and perpetuated violence thus proving why we need a safe space. this event is so important for womxn, queer, non binary and trans people. this is our space to breathe. this event will happen irrespective of what your fragile masculinity has to say. tuck it in, it’s ugly.
see you on Saturday”
This event should be welcomed as a manifestation of the genius of private property and the corresponding freedom of association which results therefrom. Whereas this kind of discrimination by a State actor on public property would be manifestly unjust by using taxpayer funding to exclude taxpayers themselves, as it is done now on private property without the involvement of the State, we cannot help but appreciate it as a strong exercise of private property rights and a resounding endorsement of the Western free market system.
Rory Short
Whew! I was unable to read all the commentary, it didn’t speak to me. But I read your last paragraph Martin and I agree with you.
AdK
I’m sure you’d spout the same tripe in that last paragraph if this was a cis-het male only event, right? How about we all agree that stunts like this achieve nothing other than fostering prejudice and get over this us-against-them mentality.
Zaggeta
Our personal distaste cannot get in the way of principled property rights.
AdK
Using that logic it’s perfectly fine to start excluding people based on race as well. Blatant discrimination is never acceptable, whether it’s on public or private property.
Zaggeta
Yeah. Rather that than the slippery slope of destroying our freedom of association and private property rights. We all discriminate every day. Do you let anyone outside into your house? If you do, then kudos and good luck not getting home invaded, otherwise – even if you aren’t barring people based on race and gender, how is the law meant to know that? They just see a guy of X race not letting a person of Z race into their house. Get’s really tricky.
AdK
Ah yes, the old slippery slope fallacy. Do you not have the ability to distinguishing between a right to privacy and association and not having the right to exclude based on race or gender in a publicly open event?
Johan VD Merwe
You misunderstand what discrimination rights mean. Rights are not hierarchical, they exist in equilibrium with each other. The right not to be discriminated against is limited by privacy, right to association and property rights.
Take the church for example. Public open place, but due to their right to associate, freedom of religion they can exclude for example the right of homosexual couples to get married or be a pastor, which is clearly discrimination.
You can discriminate against who you want to so long as you do it in exercising your own rights, or it is not to a stringent limitation on the rights of others.
The “CisHet” party goers have the privacy association rights upon which they can discriminate.
It does not offend any other rights as the CisHet men can go have a party somewhere else.
Anti Discrimination is not the be all and end all of rights, it is limited by the other 26 rights in Chapter 2 of the Constitution.
garg
As long as it’s private property, it’s perfectly fine to exclude people based on race or whatever arbitrary criteria you want to employ.
Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of principled property rights is that people can reinforce their bigotry. But it’s just a side effect and it’s not the main idea behind it. It very much depends on social norms. Take for example the paradox of the Occupy Wall Street protestors who
could not protest on public property. They had to protest on private
property, with permisison from the owners (Zuccotti Park).
There was a case of a gay couple being shown the door at a privately owned bed and breakfast. The gay couple sued and won the court case against the private ventures on constitutional grounds. And strangely, by the same precedent, a cishet male (I think I got the term right) would be able to sue these event organisers on the same grounds. It was widely celebrated as a victory for gay rights, but to me, this is a violation of private property rights and the right of assocation and probably the right to freedom of religion too, given that the owners were objecting on religious grounds. I’m not supporting their bigotry, I’m just saying for the sake of consistency there are ways of dealing with bigotry without resorting to compromising the underlyilng principles of private property.
I had no problem with being excluded from the event based on my gender. I merely poked a bit of fun at the soft headed logic of holding an event to try and combat gender discrimination which excludes an entire gender based solely on the gender of that group. In short, I gave them hell for being bigots. I fear it hasnt’ done much to remedy their bigotry, they’ve taken it as a confirmation that their persecution complex is not just an elaborate fantasy.
Batia Efrat
A few things, Martin:
1. This event isn’t created to appease “liberals.” Precisely for the reason you mentioned. Liberals can come to giggle at the lived experiences of marganilised individuals without empathising or having experienced these things for themselves. This event is for the far left, though liberals took it upon themselves to enter the space and dominate it to the point that it was so grossly uncomfortable for those invited, they had to leave.
2. Note the enormous privilege you have to write on subjects you have a very shallow textbook understanding of. I say this because it’s apparent through your dictionary defined descriptions of what certain terms mean. For example “womxn.” Womxn is an inclusive term that refers to all people who identify as womxn including trans and non binary individuals. It has nothing to with X-chromozones.
3. You’ve tagged your aritcle with “social justice” and “sexism.” Yet you have not mentioned misogyny on an individual nor institutionalised scale which is why this event was born in the first place. How can you have a narrative about something while standing on the outside of it? Do you mean to tell us you really believe men were harmed in the making of this event? I hope you realise that there are plenty of male-only spaces and activities in the world, and in Cape Town, yet I don’t see anyone attacking them. Because misogyny is systemic whereas misandry is not hence why it’s not a social issue.
4. The premise you write on is focused on white Capatilism. As an intersectional event, this does not concern the organisers nor the attendees. An event like this could never exist with the involvement of the State because the State does not acknowledge that it is an active cog in the kryiarchy – which is a term used to describe a social system that exists to keep oppressive systems in place. This is the social system that we live under.
5. Oppressive systems exist to empower one group of people and disfranchise others. One cannot properly explore the situations that occurred on this event page losing sight of this. You have failed to mention in your article that men are the dominant group in this scenario and in general, based on our social system, and that the only real damage done by this event and its policy is hurt feelings. While hurt feelings are upsetting, they are not nearly as upsetting as infringed human rights which womxn and LGBTQI people are subjected to every single day. It’s a great show of privilege to be able to narrate the toxic and damaging on-goings of yesterday implying it was “just for fun.” For those who are actively oppressed by men with unchecked privilege and ever-lasting entitlement, it’s deeply uncomfortable. While you may feel alienated by the policy of “no cis het men,” please know that the culture of the patriarchy alienates us not only personally but institutionally.
Zaggeta
Why would Martin (or I) want to go to this event? Martin would not be able to go regardless, as he does not live in Cape Town, and I find Cape Town’s party scene really boring. So no, we don’t feel alienated by this policy. We find it amusing. As Capitalists, we recognise your right to host such an event and don’t care who you include or exclude. The reason that the event page has been flooded with “trolls” is that you guys set an easy target on your back. Your ideology is intrinsically flawed and self-contradictory and many people find it funny seeing you contradicts yourselves and spout fanatical crap as an excuse. None of us want to go to your party – we just wanted an excuse to see you fail to construct a coherent argument. You have us just that.
Pastor Jim
Liewe fok! Who can keep up with all these buzzwords that keep popping up? Kryiarchy (let me *mansplain* by pointing out that it’s actually Kyriarchy)? WTF.
Thank fuck every chance you get you folks much such fools of yourselves that nobody takes you seriously. Good luck with your event. I’ll be laughing in white cis-het privilege.
Harald Sitta
that is satire!!! well done !!
garg
1. Nobody claimed that the event was created to appease liberals.
2. Note the enormous privilege you have to write on subjects you have a very textbook understanding of. I don’t see how that is relevant either.
3. That is called whataboutery. You just change the topic without addressing the concerns raised. If you want to address concerns, you should address them directly. You will fare much better against people who aren’t indoctrinated into the same ideology.
4. Actually, events like this did exist with the involvement of the state. Except the state decided some events were ‘slegs blankes/whites only’.
5. Nobody is feeling alienated. People just told you that you’re being assholes.
Poeslippies
It’s wonderful how the ‘liberal left’ have become the most blatant proponents of outright bigotry, hate speech and discrimination. Please help me understand how this treatment of so called CisHet men is in any way, shape or form different from the Whites Only ideology of the Apartheid regime? Discriminating against a group because of race, sexual orientation or gender is a very dangerous game to play in South Africa. These liberal idiots are directly responsible for the rise of Trump in America. Be careful that you don’t encourage an even worse backlash in South Africa.
Harald Sitta
free space for the hushi-hushi ….
Melissa Sparrow
This is really a ridiculous article. The party was created because cishet men have a tendency to be sexual predators at clubs. Last night I was out and I spent my entire night fighting off men instead of enjoying my night. I watched at least 3 womxn experience the same thing. “I have a boyfriend.” “I’m not interested, bru.” “I’m a lesbian.” “I’m not interested.” “Please just fxxx off.” The guy did not listen. This is a common experience for womxn. You do not understand sexism nor do you understand what womxn go through every time they go out to a club. You only care about your own experiences. So a group of womxn decided to throw a party that didn’t invite you, so you decided to not take no for an answer and invite yourself anyways. You only reinforce the idea that cishet men cannot take no for an answer. Do you not see the irony in the above? You are complaining because womxn just want to feel safe for one night? I am so sorry that you felt excluded. We feel that every time we have to leave a club because that fucking douchecannon won’t leave us alone at the club. Maybe if you actually fought that we would not have to organise parties just to feel safe for one night and we could feel safe every night at every party. Then you would not have to have a pity party about not being invited to a party. You don’t even want to come to the party but you just had to ruin the one good thing we were all looking forward to. Cishet trolls ruined this party for womxn who were rape survivors. Who wanted a night of safety. Please think about this and enjoy your victory.
Zaggeta
Think you actually need to read the article.
1) None of us want to go to your stupid party.
2) The article is saying that you have a right to your party.
3) We just wanted to point out the internal logical fallacies inherent in your ideology. Blame the bar, not us for caving in.
I repeat – actually read the article. We are defenders of private property. We think you have a right to a party with discriminatory policies. We don’t care.
garg
The point of the article – if you’ve read it – was to glorify private property. That’s one of the side-effects of a capitalist system, which endorses and supports private property: You can have a party and exclude whomever you like, even if you want to exclude them based entirely on their gender.