El Campanario, an exclusive country club in Querétaro.
The bar at a country club in Querétaro has decided to stick with a new rule: no women allowed.
The Campanario announced this week that the Hoyo 19 bar will remain closed to women, despite pushback from club members.
The Querétaro city club first announced the controversial men-only policy on September 7. In response, a group of members gathered more than 200 signatures on a petition requesting that the decision be reversed.
In addition, the chairwoman of the board of directors resigned her position in protest and issued an open letter expressing her disagreement with the board’s values.
Critics say denying female club members entry to Hoyo 19 violates women’s rights as well as local, national and international laws and treaties that guarantee equality for women.
In light of the outcry, El Campanario partially reversed the decision, saying that both men and women would be allowed on Hoyo 19’s outdoor terraces, though women would still be prohibited from entering the main area of the bar. In the same statement, the club said the Hoyo 20 bar will be a women-only space after 1 p.m. every day.
While the introduction of a women-only space was satisfactory for some critics, others said the issue of discrimination was not resolved by giving women a separate area of their own.
Now when women enter Hoyo 19 bar, they are “jeered at and not served, which constitutes discrimination against women,” some members said.
One report said the measure was introduced in response to complaints the club had received over the use of foul language by men inside the bar.
With reports from El Universal and Diario de Querétaro
