The usual French bashing and Islamophobia.
For a start we are not talking about Paris. Sevran is not in Paris. Not far, but it's not Paris. It's in département 93, Seine Saint-Denis, one of the most deprived regions of France where you'd expect to find the kinds of problems you'd find in deprived areas of any country, even the US.
Moaning from United Statesians is rather ironic, when I remember the countless times I've been told in US cities that I couldn't go here or there because it's Black, it's Hispanic, it's this or it's that and I would be neither safe nor welcome. Not to mention the many off limits places in the US because I was a white woman with a black man.
Women only spaces have been a reality for many years. I've been to many a lesbian bar with lesbian friends, but try getting a male friend into some of them and it's impossible. Is that wrong? Or is it simply a question of safety and preserving a space where women and in particlular gay women feel comfortable? Men have many other bars where they can go, as indeed do I as a straight woman.
Do I in principle agree with men only spaces? Well, it depends. I understand for example, why the only gay men's bar in a small provincial town may want to preserve its gay male clientèle: start letting too many of us fag hags in and it becomes less of a gay bar and more of a hen-party venue, and if the only gay bar in the region is then no longer gay, well, that's a loss of a safe space for gays to go. So I'd understand such a door policy.
Do I agree with muslim men telling women they can't go into "their" bar? In principle no, it smacks of misogyny, but as has been pointed out above, it's actually no worse than the many non-muslim golf clubs, gentleman's dining clubs, cricket clubs etc. which outlaw women. Is this any worse because it's muslim men? Has this story been exaggerated? Just how Islamic is a BAR in the first place? And some of you scream disbelief when we Europeans talk about muslims laeding secular lifestyles?
I don't deny that this bar may exist, but I do get uptight when people who've never set foot on French soil start portraying entire areas as no-go for non-muslims. Total crâp.
As for feminists excusing this kind of behaviour, I don't think so. This idea that anybody left leaning excuses anything an ethnic minority does is total rubbish. Women do oppose Islamic misogyny, including muslim women who themselves formed Ni Pute Ni Soumise, one of the most powerful feminist movements France has ever known.
Should this kind of misogyny be exposed? If it's for real, yes. Is it being over-egged by people with a Francophobic and Islamophobic agenda? Hell yes. Maybe some of the above posters could start a thread on those restaurants in the lovely USA that so did not want to give a table to a mixed race couple? Pot, kettle and black.
