Looking at today’s sitemeter, I can safely conclude that someone with a certain readership in the Netherlands must have written a little something about about the latest development in gendered catering that I mentioned in a quicklink on October 14th: The Maennergarten, a place where women can leave their men so they can shop without him wondering about the intrinsic value of the 130th handbag or the 52nd pair of shoes.
That was the executive summary. And as a service to all my newly google-acquired Dutch readers, please find below what I wrote a month ago – ah, and don’t forget to have a look at a fistful of euros for creative coverage of other interesting developments from all over Europe.
“Frauenparkplatz is German for one of the usually well lit and extremely conveniently placed discriminatory parking spots in car parks reserved for female use. A few weeks ago, I saw a comedy programme on German tv take the word literally: Husbands about to run errants parked their wifes on a “Frauenparkplatz”, leaving them holding the parking tickets in their mouths…
Well, maybe it was because of this gag that the Nox Bar in Hamburg has now started a “Maennerparkplatz”, or rather, “Maennergarten”, as in Kindergarten for men: “[f]or $11.80, [they are] offering boy’s games and home-improvement coaching as well as a meal and two beers for men left there for a Saturday afternoon, leaving women free to shop in the city’s swanky boutiques.” I don’t know if this will survive in the long run – but they had 27 parked guys there on the project’s second saturday… who said the German service industry isn’t sufficiently innovative? [via Papascott, noted by AP last week.]