This 1970s Footage Shows Men’s Reactions to the First Ever Women Allowed in Australia’s Bars

She approached another customer and asked her: “You don’t mind me being there, do you?”

He replied immediately, “I do,” before asking why he should be next to him.

The reporter asked the reporter: “Would you be happy if you could have a man beside you?”

He snuffed on his cigarette, which was legal back then, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

She looked uncomfortable and asked, “Is it just women in general?”

He replied, “Oh, I love them all.” He then explained his dislike for shared public bars by saying: “I can speak Fs and Bs here, where there are only men.”

Man also acknowledged that a public bar should only be public and open to all.

When asked if he believed women would be shocked by his language, he replied: “Let’s put it this way. We put a restraint upon ourselves.”

As she was trying to interview another person, the man touched the journalist’s neck. She described him, with an awkward laugh, as “molesting” her and asked him to move away.

He continued his stomach-churning behavior by arguing, “It’s no my hand, it is my finger.”

He said, “She asked us about what happens when a lady comes in and I’m going to show her.”

While most customers enjoyed the spectacle, one man confronted the “molester”, and asked him to stop.

He said that if female punters were willing and able to tolerate men’s “language”, then he didn’t see any problem with their presence. (Can we consider that progress?

Finally, the reporter asked one of the few women present for her opinion.

She replied sternly, “I would say that a woman enters the public bar at her own danger.”

The reporter addressed ABC viewers at the end of the segment to give her final conclusion. “I don’t know what you think of it all, but it just proves that men still fear women,” she said.

It is sad to say that Australia didn’t pass the Sex Discrimination Act until 1984. This made it illegal to discriminate against someone based on gender identity, sex, or marital status.

In the UK, a equivalent law was adopted in 1975. However, it was legal to refuse to service women in British pubs up until 1982. This was because these were traditionally considered “male environments”.