A few months ago we found ourselves sitting under the Southern sky ablaze with stars, on land that has been owned by women for 40 years. We were invited there by women we met at Handsome Her.
These women lived wildly in times very different to now. Whilst we sipped our tea we listened to stories from the 70’s of underground meet-ups to create and distribute newsletters, to organise protests and change the world. We heard about women forming patrols and learning self-defence to protect themselves after they came out and were targeted with brutality. Stories of mass imprisonment, rounding up horses, leaving families and forming new ones, living on the land. We laughed and cried and felt held by this open and loving community as they shared their pasts with us.
It's been a wild journey to say the least. When we opened Handsome Her in 2017, we expected that perhaps we might make a stir through our brazen public discussions of structural inequality and oppression. The man tax blew up the internet, an idea that we didn’t think was all too radical, yet the way the world responded showed us how fragile masculinity is and solidified the necessity for us to confront and dismantle patriarchy. We were just one little tiny shop on Sydney Rd that was trying to carve out a swathe of space to prioritise women and women's issues, and suddenly we became the punching bag of Melbourne and the internet. Yes, we are the evil, discriminatory, man-hating dykes who charge men more when didn't you know the wage gap doesn't even exist!? Meanwhile gentlemen’s social clubs live on and strong around Melbourne and the world over…
We tried to demonstrate ways of doing business more ethically and responsibly by abandoning take-away cups, single use straws and napkins, by shopping locally and supporting women owned businesses. We donated to charities and encouraged community groups to use our space and our platform to elevate their voices. We have been proud to host an array of inspirational causes and events such as Reclaim the Night, One Girl, V-Day, Invasion Day, Sea Shepherd, Waste-free living workshops, discussion nights, film screenings, book launches, the list goes on.
When we learned that it wasn’t only men’s rights activists targeting us, yet people from within our own communities, we encouraged respectful and robust debate (as those of you who attend our Queer Conversations nights will know). We encouraged a range of diverse opinions from all intersections of society and insisted that people critique their inner fear of conflict with inquisitiveness and openness, rather than hostility. We do not believe in the age-old practice of silencing women as a way of stifling debate and avoiding conflict.
For practical and principled reasons, we have not engaged in online nastiness or responded to pile-ons and have instead gone back to the old school, real-life concept of human interaction to tackle big questions and create meaningful and long-lasting relationships. We believe, in the words of Sarah Schulman, that “people need to speak, look, smell, touch, experience vocal tone, facial expression, make jokes, sit back, shift gears and evolve their ideas and feelings in front of each other in order to produce meaning."
We embrace conflict and leaning into the discomfort and think the world would be a better place if people would stop apportioning blame to others and start taking responsibility for their own contributions. If only we approach difficult discussions with a commitment to seek to understand rather than just being understood.
We strived to bring lesbianism back into fashion. What, you didn't know it was out of fashion? Well for many of us, it is. It wasn't that long ago that it was illegal to even publish the word lesbian (fun fact, it was only first published when the “Gay Mardi Gras” became the “Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras”). Now we have a resurgence or resentment for the term (and identity) and lesbians are being erased from queer culture, whereas gay male culture lives on, strong and unscathed. We were taken aback to find that many people in the LGBTIQA+ community have as much aversion to us using the word 'lesbian' as the men's-rights activists who get a kick out of trolling our lesbian events. Lesbians are lovely and they deserve representation, and we are proud to have created a space for women who love women to celebrate their culture once more.
Now, as many of you know, Handsome Her has fallen mostly on the shoulders of Tessa and Alex who plan the events, run the cafe and spend every waking moment working on the business. However, we are off to our next adventure up north where we will be doing some hands-on work, something we have missed sorely whilst being at 206 Sydney Rd, Brunswick.
While it is a shame to lose the physical space (and we understand how essential it is for women and lesbians to hold space), we leave knowing that the communities we have made transcend the trendy vegan café on Sydney Rd, Brunswick. We look forward to continuing Handsome Her in a variety of other, more creative ways and expanding our efforts to drive change with flexibility and mobility throughout Australia.
Come and join us for one last hurrah! With story-telling, dancing, singing, eating and drinking.
Our doors will remain open until the 14th of April so if you haven’t found the time to stop in yet, please do so, we’d love to meet you.
To our community and friends who came and never left our sides, thank you.
