(Picture: Getty/ Ella Byworth)

Last Saturday The Maple Bar opened up in Canberra, Australia.

It’s your average fancy bar, with posh cocktails, a dress code (shirt, trousers, and a jacket for men, an ‘elegant’ dress for women), and chilled out interiors.

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There’s just one thing that makes it a little different: a hard rule that bans men from approaching women.

At The Maple Bar, men are not allowed to initiate an interaction with any female guests. If any communication across the sexes needs to occur, the women have to kick things off – and once they do, the man has to speak to the woman ‘as if he would speak to his mother.’




This isn’t a new concept.

You’ve probably been to a uni event where it’s up to the women to make the move. Or you’ve used Bumble, a dating app where men aren’t allowed to start conversations with women.

The idea behind these rules is simple: women often have to put up with unwanted approaches from men, which can become at best inappropriate and at worst, dangerous. So why not protect women from creepiness, discomfort, and the annoyance of constantly getting hit on when you’re not interested by telling men to back the f*** off?

I get the intention, I do.

I’m pretty fed up of getting approached by men who quite clearly can’t pick up the signals I’m giving out.

Signals of ‘I’m genuinely just here to catch up with a friend’ or ‘I don’t find you attractive’ or ‘I’m just not interested in dating right now’, given in the form of all my attention being focused on my mates, a lack of lingering eye contact with any nearby person, and a resting ‘don’t f*** with me’ face.

It’s frustrating, and I can definitely imagine how lovely and peaceful it would be if my favourite bars had an outright ban on men starting conversations with women.

Never again would I have a conversation interrupted by a guy strolling over to ask what I do for a living (NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS, STRANGER), and ignoring my blunt, one word answers to bravely continue onwards. Never again would I be yelled at for saying that actually, I’d rather they didn’t buy me a drink.

Sexual harassment is a serious problem, especially when it comes to the world of dating and bar culture.

But the answer isn’t banning men from approaching women outright.

When you instate rules such as ‘men can’t initiate contact with women’, you’re putting natural, easygoing interactions to a grinding halt.

For a long time, the standard idea that men have to approach women has held women back from making the first move, scared of looking ‘desperate’ or being too forward.



And that’s sh*t.

If someone wants to talk to someone else, and that someone else has expressed interest back, they should feel free to go up and talk to them.

Rules – whether they’re socially imposed or implemented by a bar – make basic human interaction feel stilted and complicated, when it should be easy. They make actions feel like obligations. They get rid of meet-cute stories and people acting on a spark.

Surely after you’ve made eyes at someone across the bar for a 10 minutes or so, they should feel free to come over and chat. And you should feel free to go over and chat too.

That bit’s about my love of rom-coms and the dream of an adorable ‘this is how we met’ story.

The next bit’s more important.

When we ban men from talking to women, we encourage exactly the kind of nonsense thinking that I hear from entitled, creepy men all the time.

‘We can’t even say HELLO to a woman without getting in trouble,’ they say.

‘How are we supposed to date someone if even approaching them is a grave offence?’ they ask.

(Picture: Ella Byworth for Metro.co.uk)

When we ban men from approaching women, we encourage the mindset that all approaches are the same. And they’re not.

There’s a big, big difference between an appropriate approach and an inappropriate one.

An appropriate approach happens after at least some interest has been established. Eye contact has been made and held. The woman the man is approaching isn’t invested in an intense conversation. She’s not so drunk she can’t stand. She’s sober enough to make her own decisions, she’s deliberately catching someone’s eye, and she seems open to chatting.


An appropriate approach starts with a friendly, non-sexual greeting. It’s not pushy. It doesn’t involve touching without the woman’s consent.

If a woman rejects an appropriate approach, the man accepts that and walks away. He doesn’t get angry or defensive. He doesn’t keep questioning why. He doesn’t try to keep the conversation going when she’s clearly not interested.

And inappropriate approach is one where no signals are read, no responses are listened to, and the man feels entitled to the woman’s attention and time.

Clearly, men who profess the ‘we can’t even say HELLO to a woman without getting in trouble’ don’t see a difference between a polite, appropriate hello and a pressured, pushy perve-fest.

So they need to be taught. They need to be shown that there’s a right way to approach women and a wrong way, and that the difference is essentially boils down to: ‘are you able to actually understand whether or not a woman is interested, and accept it when she’s not?’

When we ban men from approaching women, we don’t fix sexual harassment or creepy behaviour.

In fact, we can sometimes make it worse. When a woman is made to approach a man who’s been waiting to approach her, he can feel like that’s a sign that he’s now entitled to her time and able to take things to an unwanted level.

Basically, if a man doesn’t have respect for women, banning him from approaching them won’t fix anything – it just gives him a different way to be a creep.

The answer, I reckon, is educating men about that difference. Educating them about consent. Explaining to them that they are never entitled to a woman’s time or interest.


Let’s not fix the problem by adding a ban, equating all ‘men approaching women’ as inherently bad, and acting as though the only way we can expect a healthy, appropriate conversation with the man is if we’re the ones initiating it.

We need to expect better from men. We need them to learn how to be better. And banning them entirely isn’t the way to do it.

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