This Australian cafe that charges a 'man tax' to reflect gender pay gap is closing

A vegan cafe in Australia that charged men an 18 per cent premium to reflect the gender pay gap with the funds given to charity is to close, its owners said on Thursday.

Soon after opening its doors in August 2017, Handsome Her in Melbourne caused an online and media storm when a photograph of a chalkboard outside the cafe explaining its voluntary “man tax” and women priority seating hit Twitter.

While some praised the idea, others railed on social media that this was “reverse sexism” and did little to tackle inequality for both sexes.

Co-owner Alexandra O’Brien said the response went crazy.

“It was like a Robin Hood theory of taking from the rich and giving to the poor,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It helped kick-start some of the strong foundations with the community that were built.”

Described on the cafe’s Facebook page as a “man tax”, the premium was only meant to run for one week each month, but was made permanent after the publicity led to an increase in customers asking to pay, O’Brien said.

Co-owners O’Brien and partner Tessa Plueckhahn said they were closing the cafe — that was also used as a meeting space for women’s and LGBT+ groups — as they wanted to move on to other causes and travel around Australia.