Results 1 to 10 of 21
Thread: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
-
18-01-2019, 19:35 #1
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Posts
- 2,598
Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
Guys.....when I still lived in SA, any bar/kroeg anywhere in the country was ‘Men Only’ ......allowed inside. If your wife or girlfriend was pissed off that you were down there drinking rather than devoting all your attention to her......... good luck getting inside a bar to come find you.
But then, if you wanted to go drink at a bar with your girlfriend or wife or cruise looking for female company etc...... you would go to a Ladies Bar. Men and women allowed.
Now, personally and honestly......I used to think that arrangement was great. The bar was a place you could go and let it rip. Men in general, used to never swear in front of women. Men got up when a woman walked in the room, they opened doors for them, would assist them with a chair when she was getting seated at a dinner table etc etc.
In a bar, men could drink, swear like sailors and get rowdy..... and if it came to it......have a good old fashioned barney......a fist fight. LOL!! The bartenders would make you take it outside and those who still had legs, might pile outside to watch.
I’m pretty sure that has changed, I mean by today’s standards....that is sexist as fuck and discriminatory too, infringes on women’s rights on and on.
Anyway.....I had questions.....because when I tried Googling ‘Men Only Bars In South Africa’........or.....’Did Bars In South Africa Used To Be Men Only?’.........the only things that come up have to do with gay bars.
I assume you don’t still have Bars as in men only anymore?
If so, when did that change?
How many of you used to go to these establishments and did you like the old arrangement?
I’m just curious. I tell people here about it they don’t get it and can’t imagine separate bars for men at all.
Oh and I get the whole private club or private bar.....the old colonial English way. But I’m more just interested in regular old bars.
Thanks.
-
18-01-2019, 22:41 #2
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Vereeniging
- Age
- 70
- Posts
- 5,782
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
Many bartenders are now women - tough women, as the guys stil call a spade 'n graaf when they are on the juice. Swearing in front of women is now common place, not just in bars but in work situations as well. Times have change a lot and I do think women's lib has not been good to them. Men are not showing the respect as they used to in the past. I think the effort to make women equal to men has boomeranged to a large extent. Women in rape situations are also not being afforded the compassion and support that they had 25 years ago.
-
19-01-2019, 03:56 #3
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Posts
- 2,598
I figured that the whole chauvinistic, polite etc vibe was pretty much gone by now.
How about those men only bars? Is that a long gone thing of the past? When I left in ‘81, it was business as usual. Again I’m assuming thats over and if it is......when did that change happen?
Did it have anything to do with the country’s new Constitution?
-
19-01-2019, 06:40 #4
- Join Date
- Aug 2012
- Location
- Stella
- Age
- 46
- Posts
- 10,870
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
Back in '81 I was four years old. Surely didn't visit bars back then
The shields were in place in some hotel bars and holiday resorts when I was in primary school, which was until '91. Some places even had two bars: "men only" and "ladies bar".
In our current location I don't know about any "men only" bars, and this is quite the traditional area. From time to time one still hears about brawls or fights; I get the idea that things could have been different if alcohol had not been in the equation.
The "rugged manliness" is still there, although it gets cloaked to some extent. Proof: hang around in a gun shop for a few hours and listen to the discussions. The crime rate is also doing its part because some people are making some choices as to their conduct "just in case it happens to me". There is a subtle awakening of anger which I did not know as a child and teenager.
The new constitution must have had some influence, but society as a whole was already changing before '94.
The answer to the treatment of women will be different according to the part of society at stake. It might also be a personal thing. Many men adhere to "the old rules" of treating women with respect - at least to a large extent. On the other hand, what may happen in public may not necessarily be happening at home. In quite a few cases men (and women) had different faces at home and in public.
Fumbles, another thing to keep in mind is that the ethnic groups each have (or had) their own rules of conduct. With the integration of society, things are not always easy because of a simple question: "Whose rules apply here?"
The fact that one culture does not dominate public life is slowly making people aware of cultural differences.
-
19-01-2019, 08:08 #5
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
- Location
- West Rand, Gauteng
- Age
- 75
- Posts
- 2,648
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
How times change. When I was still at school I and friends used to frequent the Mowbray Arms in Cape Town to have, literally, a couple of beers and
play snooker with the old timers. Not legal even then but no one caused any trouble so no interference from the cops. No women and they probably wouldn't have tolerated the smell of old booze, searing and the waft of odours from the toilets. Was fun as a lighty though.
-
19-01-2019, 09:48 #6
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- port elizabeth
- Age
- 60
- Posts
- 2,509
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
No,it has gone Fumbles,and with it a whole host of other things. The days of men were men and so were women is past .
I did my 2 years in the army,'81 and '82 and then spent 11 years in Natal,purchasing a house on the Bluff in Durban. The Bluff was nearing its end of being known as '''you are rough and tough,smoke that stuff,and come from the Bluff''' era.
The local hotel was the Wentworth and the mens only bar had all the bar stools chained to the floor,i kid you not.It took only 5 minutes of puzzling this out to realise that the chains prevented them from being used as weapons.
-
19-01-2019, 11:12 #7
- Join Date
- Jul 2008
- Age
- 46
- Posts
- 29,307
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
We let women vote now too.
-
19-01-2019, 11:26 #8
-
19-01-2019, 11:50 #9
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
- Age
- 75
- Posts
- 1,484
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
I have to say that I sometimes hear women swearing in a way that would put an old time army corporal to shame. Or envy. I don't want to get used to that.
-
19-01-2019, 12:30 #10
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
- Location
- BFN Freestate
- Age
- 45
- Posts
- 12,152
Re: Bars. The kroeg. Boozer.
I think the terminology is something that confuses most, because "bars" means different things to different people.
The 4 types of scenarios I personally would classify them through :
Hotels, pubs, dance-pubs, and clubs.
In the very olden days, most towns had a hotel, and the hotel had a bar, most people would sit at the bar and drink, this was not a men only thing, though I expect the woman that frequent the place was called some "names" by those yelling at their husbands when they came home too late. For hotels this was not the main source of income, rather another department of the hotel, later on nobody went to hotels anymore and the bars also closed down. Such a hotel in a bar would normally have a snooker table, a darts board etc, and the immediate smell could be described as an old smoke smell.
A pub is a thing you get these days, it's a place where you go to get a few drinks, to sit and "kuier". Now you can sit at tables put there for this specific purpose, or you can sit at the bar itself, within the pub. This is definitely not a gender thing all people go there.
A dance-pub is something more popular among young people, it's a pub with a dancefloor and louder music for said purpose. It will also have a bar, where many people would sit and drink. Obviously this is gender neutral, well unless stipulated otherwise, in SA mostly I mean.
A club is something designed for sports, I personally still know such places, bowls for the older folk, snooker tables(out of fashion these day), etc. At clubs many people are members, now this I see more as a men only place, old toppies sitting and having a drink. Precious few young people pay club fees, and as such many members feel they are entitled to choose whom they mingle with. This of course is almost gone, since people are moving away from such type of activities. One must understand in the olden days you did not have TV, you did not sit on the couch the whole day watching 300 channels. People went to their hotel/club to have a drink and relax, to chat and mingle. Also most clubs had members sections, and open bars, but economical times forced almost all to make the whole section open bar, to bring in more income. This in turn chased away many old customers, which did not want to mingle with the general public in the first place.
That is the structural side of things, as far as gender interaction goes in such places, well that is just a f@cking mess. It's a sickness being a man these days, the problem is what those advocating this madness not realize is that you are NOT allowed to be a woman if a man is not allowed to be a man. It seems there is a public perception of how it must be politically correct in theory, but on the ground people need to find a middle way, make things work. There is obviously still a distinct biological difference between a man and a woman that MUST be acknowledged, people must just realize that humans are of the same worth, despite these differences. That is the part humans did not get, men were men, they got drunk and had fights, but those raised correctly was taught to respect woman, and treat woman like woman. Now being a man is classified a sickness(there is a thread on that), and everybody is equal, now it must be fair game, right? Nope, woman will never compete against men in physical sports, why, ask them, why the special treatment now, are we not all equal, in every regard?
But anyways, don't want to go into that right now, just saying people have their own idea what a bar is, hence before debating it some clarity must be given.
Bookmarks