Been reading a few things about whether beer festivals are fit for purpose in terms of making sure attendees feel safe and welcome.
This post from Boak and Bailey pretty much brought all the threads together for me. It led me into a breakfast rabbit-hole following all the links.
I'm an introvert but no longer overly shy, as such. I'm a part-time pensioner, still part-time working - I'm of Hobbit-like proportions and, not unlike one of the writers down that rabbit-hole, scruffy (jeans, t-shirt, slightly unkempt hair, you get the idea). However, I did also inherit my mother's withering "I beg your pardon?" look. Let's face it, I was never someone who men would have looked at as a "first choice pull". I'm also (now, at least) immensely glad of all of this.
I'm mostly disappointed that sexism when it comes to drinking establishments is still a thing.
A good few years back, when I still lived in Bristol full time, I was coaxed into being the Bristol Beer Festival set-up manager for a few years. My pal from work was the treasurer, and said
"look, you're a good project manager and that's what set-up needs".
What he meant was
"no one else likes doing that job because you have to tell people what to do, and they don't like it much"
It meant going to regular planning meetings with the rest of the committee. Thankfully, the Bristol and District group were, on the whole, a good bunch and there were some brilliant women in the group - some alongside their partners, others on their own. I was single at the time I started doing the role and, to be honest, it was a manageable way to at least pretend to be sort of sociable.
I mean, obviously it was still a bit of a boys' club - but I never really felt anything other than part of the team. I also had my pal looking out for me to an extent.
Also, for context, I should say I worked in insurance in a niche area and project-managed with the IT dept. Sufficient to say I had to deal with all sorts of men A LOT - some in positions of power, others in sales, others in roles junior to me - also straddling that "project manager" can mean something very specific an with a slightly grudging "you're not my line-manager, you can't tell me what to do" stuff.
Insurance was (I've been out of it for 15 years so who knows, now) a very patriarchal, hierarchical industry so women do have to learn techniques for dealing with stuff.
Anyhow - my first day on-site for a 3-day set-up was hard. I had a checklist and my pal had given me a list of "here are the documents you HAVE to make sure you get".
All that said, I really didn't know what it took to set up a medium to large festival and the timing that was needed to get everything on site in the right order - with getting the beer ready being the highest possible priority.
In retrospect, I would have done better if I'd volunteered without a specific role before taking that on - but hey, I didn't and I'd agreed to do the job - so I just had to get on and do it.
I think I was pushing 50, at the time. Even so, a little younger than the mean age, I would guess.
Several of the folk who were actually doing the set up tasks had been doing the role for a few years and that made some of it a bit easier but there were far more "general helpers" who are there to do whatever is needed and it was my job to point them to an appropriate team to help, whilst fielding the "when is the xxxx arriving" questions and chasing suppliers, etc.
The vast majority of the folk in the room were really fun to work with, it was impressive they were willing to give up so much free time to put the festival on. Most were also gracious when asked to explain a particular thing when we were trying to work out how to overcome problems. They also liked my willingness to get my hands dirty and help move the casks in when they were late arriving.
There were a few, however, who seemed to mostly be there for the "free staff beer" and staff t-shirt - they were less than ideal, I remember general irritation (on both sides).
Only one incident really sticks in my mind: a bloke a few years older than me and an almost CAMRA cliche, when I'd had to ask him more than once to finish a particular job in a particular way because he was holding other people up, did a bit of a "what do you know about any of this, anyway - you're a woman".
I can't actually remember what I said but I definitely channelled my mother in my "I beg your pardon?" look and he got on with it. No one stepped in (in either direction) and it left me shaking.
There was no one in the room that I knew well - my pal wasn't on duty that day, so there wasn't anyone I could go and let off steam with, or ask whether that particular person was always a bit of a dick.
I found out after, via my pal and one of the blokes who witnessed it that the other guys were impressed how I'd dealt with it and that he got on and did it, since no one else had managed to get him to do so. And, yeah, everyone knew he was always a bit of a dick.
Younger me probably wouldn't have gone back. I might even have left there and then - being single at the time, with only a recently empty home to go back so no one to talk it over with, might well have put me off doing anything similar ever again.
This is the thing. An incident like this can stop someone ever participating again - in whatever it is. You probably won't know, as an event-organiser or pub landlord, that it ever happened.
Whether it's someone in your personal space (an insurance colleague - much taller than me - sniffing the top of my head and asking what shampoo I used - oh, do fuck off!); or a bloke in a pub trying to start a conversation with you by saying "what you reading there, girl?" (an ebook on microcontrollers for electronics and , no, I'm not explaining what a microcontroller is); or someone not getting out of your way when you're carrying three pints through a crowded pub because they think it's amusing (it isn't). It's tiresome.
I'm lucky, I've never felt threatened or in danger and I think my age now gives me a weird form of protection but were I still younger and shyer I'd just stay away from your venue/event and I'd take my economic power, my project management skills, and volunteering effort with me.
Single-gender dominated spaces are always difficult - you ask any bloke whose first job in a large company back in the 70's/80's was to take stuff to the typing pool (yeah, I told you I was old).
This means if that space is under your control, or your livelihood depends on people using that space - then it's in your interest, as well as your responsibility, to make it fit for purpose. Why would you choose to do otherwise?
I'm probably repeating myself when i say I work with young people - mostly young men, most of whom are socially somewhat awkward and at risk of missing social cues. We have an extensive "Code of Conduct" which everyone has to read and understand.
"So what you're saying is - don't be a dick - in essence"? Said one lad.
Yeah, that's it - and everyone knows really what it means - they don't really need a list. I don't believe any poor behaviour is because they don't understand the rules. They understand, but they choose - for whatever reason - to ignore or flout them.
So, is that the reason I don't go to beer festivals any more?
Nah, it's much more mundane - I prefer pubs and there is more than enough really good beer available to me in Bristol (and to a lesser extent in Sussex) to try whenever I want. I no longer need the festival to serve that to me.
