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Too Fat for Clubbing?

bar.jpgAs someone who's been "shown the door" at nightclubs before, this article really annoyed me. A club in Australia faces hot water for barring heavy set women, but admitting men of similar size.

Yeah, because we all know how appealing fat dudes are! The bar's actions prompted protests and 1,000 people to join an internet-based campaign demanding a boycott of the nightclub.

Georgina Mason, 23, one of the barred women, said this to the Jersey Evening Post:

"I told them not to be ridiculous and asked to speak to the manager. When the manager came out he would not look at me directly but said they had received many complaints about fat people and he told me, 'Go and lose some weight before you can come in - fat people are bad for business."

Regardless of size, sex, color or creed, a paying customer is a paying customer and given the INSANE price of drinks nowadays, this joint should be happy SOMEONE wants to come in.

Dealing with fat discrimination

While mean-spirited and wrong, "fat discrimination" is an all too common issue. This despite the growing worldwide obesity problem; according to the World Health Organization, in 2008, 1.5 billion adults were overweight and 500 million of them were obese.

EHow.com has some suggestions for dealing with fat discrimination:

  • Do not laugh at "fat jokes"
  • Talk to employers about providing larger seating for fat people
  • Send complaint letters to businesses or restaurants that cannot accommodate fat individuals
  • Educate young children and young adults not to tease fat people
  • Change doctors if you dislike your doctor's attitude about your weight

However, if you are overweight or obese, the best piece of advice is the most obvious one, seek help losing weight; being overweight or obese increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and early death.

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35 Comments

Mark

What a awful thing to do mind you there is fatism in the word some people are unbelievable mind you there loss.

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Lauren

This night club should be boycotted by its customers.
Today they don't let fat girls to get in, tomorrow they will decide that red heads aren't spending enough money on drinks.

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jkd

This isn't exactly news--clubs have always discriminated on appearance (weight, age, clothes, "beauty", social status, etc.). Personally, I don't get why anyone, regardless of appearance, would want to stand in line and pay an outrageous cover charge for the privilege of buying overpriced drinks and attempting to scream conversations to your friends over crummy techno music. Let them have their pretty-only policy.

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Laura

I too am not very surprised at this. Most clubs will look you up and down and decide if they want to let you in. You might be too fat, not wearing enough makeup, or not wearing a short enough skirt, but people always get denied. As much as it sucks when all your friends get in and you don't (believe me, I've been there), eventually it happens to everyone - you just have to laugh it off and go somewhere else. It's their right to decide who they want in and who they want out.

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staci

that's just as bad as being denied a flight for being too heavy. its rediculous and embarrassing. i just can't believe its because people complained about fat girls. its because woman are not discriminant. if we were, then there would be no one but women at bars, according to this story.

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Jessie

Maybe they were a fire hazard? :p

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Trent

I have no problem with this. If you want to talk about unfair, we can also discuss why men often pay cover charges and women don't.

The best solution is to just avoid going to these ridiculous places altogether. Go to a good bar instead where you can actually have a conversation.

Reply
Gerry Pugliese

Hey Trent-

I agree with you on the men paying cover charges--drives me insane!

Peace.
-Gerry

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Kailash

It's one club. Go to another. If you can't get into any of them, start your own.

Simple as that.

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Claire P.

This isn't news to me either. As someone else said, clubs will discriminate based on if you're "too old," not pretty enough, not thin enough, whatever.
I'd rather go to a bar and skip the whole club scene altogether. So unappealing to me.

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NeoVitin

This seems like a terrible thing to do. If I owned a business I can't imagine excluding people from entering like this.

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Jade

I can understand why the manager had such a policy - good business must not be the only reason, I believe. I wonder why those protested for.

Yes, it's unfair. But we all know that life is not fair - so get used to it. (as said by Bill Gates recently on his speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. It's the first rule he mentioned-Life is not fair-get used to it! And the second is The world won't care about your self-esteem.

The barred women should have gone back to high school dan listened to Gate's speech. :)

Reply
Fatno

Urban legend. Bill Gates never gave any such speech.

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Jade

To my curiousity, who then used his fame and passed in the speech? The 11 rules in his speech were discussed in one best private high school in the city of my country. (I got it from a friend whose kid study in the high school) Shame on the school??? (of course, if you're right)

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Jade

Thanks a lot, Fatno, for informing me such a great website. I have never been there before. Will be visiting there often.. I wonder if it's just a coincidence you know this issue while in another part of the world there happened such false information told by an institution over a thousand high school students.

Reply
Meg

That is really sad! Like others, however, if you look at the business side...not to be sexist, but guys often seem to value the looks of women over actually getting to know them. Well, I don't mean ALL guys, but definitely the types that frequent nightclubs. They want these seedy guys to come one, come all to spend, and one way to get that is sex appeal.

This is why the bar/club scene is a totally incompletely way of meeting new people. It's not about forming new relationships, it's about sex.

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nodietneeded

I am having a hard time to compare this with not accepting people based on the outfit. There more cases where you have to dress to the occassion. For those who are married, would you like to see your maid of honor or best men in flip flops ?

Also, the fact that men at the same weight are being accepted don't mean much to me either because if they weren't, that would have been equally wrong and couldn't justify this action.

As a last note; I think these kind of desicions are driven by the demand rather then evil spirited business owners. Why would a club executive not want heavy set women in her club? Most likely because she assumes that their presence will make the club scene less attractive for other prospect guests. Hmm, I wonder where she gets that idea? Of course they have a responsibility to make a desicion that doesn't violate any rights, but, to me, the underlying issue is that the demand (from the clubbers) is in support of such an action. Thank God there are still sensible people that protest this.

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Yongho Shin

"Bad for business"? Fat people order just as much drinks as other people. (Actually, probably more.)

What a horrible policy. Even if people don't boycott that club, they'll slowly lose customers.

Reply
lynn

heck. i guess this bar doesnt sell overpriced food along with the overpriced drinks or fat people would be welcome.

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Lila

Ugh.. that makes me cringe.

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Created / Updated: November 8, 2011

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