This bartender's perfect response to a sexist customer will warm your heart
Jordan Gleason, the owner and founder of Black Acre Brewing Company in Indianapolis, went to Facebook on Friday to complain about a sexist customer who continued to frequent Black Acre despite repeated requests to stop. Eventually, Gleason’s long post pivoted from the specific to the universal, as he addressed systemic issues within the service industry and closed with an inspirational plea to more forcefully address sexist behavior.
To every dude out there, we need to fucking combat this disease like its the god damned plague that it is. If one of your friends says something shitty about a woman, tell him to shut his fucking mouth. Don’t just laugh it off or ignore it. We need to listen when our sisters talk about this, and not just blame it on some bad apples. Not just say “not all dudes do that” or “well no one I know would ever do that.” Nah man. This is an endemic cultural problem. If we want to start taking our status as gentlemen seriously we need to do more than just avoiding being a sexist prick ourselves. We need to open our eyes and fight it everywhere we see it, because the only way this thing gets better is to start calling it out for what it is.
Here’s Gleason’s post in full:
Gleason told Fusion he wrote the post immediately after speaking to the man for the third time.
“I just went right to the back to write it,” Gleason said. “I was so angry and I needed to get it out so I could keep working.”
He says the attention is inspiring, but also surprising, because he sees the issue of treating women with basic respect as an unremarkable statement to make.
“It’s not enough to say, ‘I wouldn’t say something,'” Gleason says. “That silence is complicity. If you can’t be down with basic human decency, you’re not welcome here.”
Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.