Brewing Feminism: a History of Women and the Coffeehouse

Originally Published: 9 March 2021

The sky is tucked away in bed, but your caffeine dependent brain needs a refill, so you go to your nearest coffee shop. Upon arrival, the barista tells you that they cannot serve you a drink because you are a woman, unaccompanied by a man. If only pitchforks were made of empty coffee cups.

Originally broadcast in August 1971, a BBC report showed how unaccompanied women were denied their coffee order during late night due to the Refreshment Houses Act of 1860. Part of this legislation was enacted to deter prostitutes and thieves from places that sold refreshments, including coffee. The reporter herself asks the all-philosophical question, if coffee houses “ban all unaccompanied women on the grounds that they may be prostitutes, then they should logically ban all men, on the grounds that they may be thieves. Indeed, if coffeehouses could whisper, they would have intervened in this very moment. A story without history’s warm touch, is like an abandoned coffee cup getting cold. The tale of the coffeehouse began on bitter grounds.

THE COFFEEHOUSE: NO WO-MAN'S LAND

While the coffeehouse is viewed as an archetype for the birth of the intellectual era in Britain, it historically excluded women. This exclusion was not the work of a legal instrument’s dried ink, but rather, was weaved by the socially constructed thread spun through the age-old needle: where there were women, there would be prostitution. This imposition did not taint the inclusion of men who engaged in prostitution but resulted in the exclusion of the entire female sex. In ‘Women, Writing and the Public Sphere, 1700-1830', Markman Ellis writes that the “coffee-women,” women working in coffeehouses, were over-sexualised, with most accounts of their presence mentioning their flirtatious attitude or how they served as a distraction to men who abandoned their business priorities as a result. As Ellis contends, accounts of the coffeehouse propose a “fractured sociability riven by significant gender difference, within which the coffee-woman is figured as a subversive sexual renegade.”

So-called “respectable” women did not dare step into a coffeehouse to avoid such categorisation and instead, remained bound in the domestic sphere, drinking tea, colonialism’s other twin endeavor. If women did want coffee, it would be delivered to their carriage where they could drink it in private, according to historian Jonathan Morris in ‘Coffee: A Global History.’

Can it be said that the coffeehouse functioned within its own societal vacuum? While the mixing of classes within the walls of the coffeehouse was more progressive than the reality outside the windows, the exterior governing the four walls was not immune to society’s handholding with its time.

A SPACE OF ONE'S OWN?

In her renowned extended essay ‘A Room of One’s Own,’ Virginia Woolf argues that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Though controversial amongst feminists themselves, Woolf contended that a woman needed that intellectual space away from men, away from people, away from the disruptions of domestic life in order to concentrate. For this reason, Woolf’s ideal room was one that could be locked as “a lock on the door means the power to think for oneself.” This vision has yet to be universally achieved but it ties into an interesting discussion on the coffeehouse.

An increasing number of studies are finding that working in coffee shops may be more effective than working in silence at home. An article from the BBC, discussing the findings of a 2012 study, said that the “low-to-moderate level of ambient noise,” in a coffee shop can increase your creativity as the slight distraction spurs abstract thinking. This does not necessarily contradict the idea of having a lock on one's door as the atmosphere of coffee shops today is not exactly what it was in the 17th and 18th centuries. For instance, an article by the Telegraph reminiscing about the positively disruptive norm of Britain’s coffeehouses mentions how it was completely acceptable to ask a stranger about the news or randomly sit next to someone and ask for their opinion on the novel you were reading. Today, the table you choose to sit at in a coffeehouse, becomes your temporary room until you leave. After all, doesn’t everyone order a medium-sized latte, only to spend four hours sitting in the same spot, hogging the Wi-Fi?

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place,” referring to public spaces that bring communities together due to their informal settings. If the home is the “first place” and work “the second,” then coffeehouses as a “third place,” act as special environment where people can escape to or even explore their creativity. Perhaps the coffeehouse then acts as a hybrid of the third place and a room of one’s own, for its familiar setting is both comfortable and even without a lock, one can write fiction without being disrupted.

Woolf emphasised how “intellectual freedom depends upon material things.” Such an assertion should be sipped cautiously but at its core, it reflects social attitudes towards work and creativity, especially amongst the newer generations. Studying or working at a coffeeshop frequently costs people a figure in the thousands annually, as the cups of coffee drank accumulate. Had Woolf experienced the modern-day coffeehouse, would she have considered it a room of one’s own? While women were once excluded from the coffeehouse, today we occupy the six-seater round table at Starbucks all on our own.

THE COFFEE REVOLUTION

With a turn of historic irony, it is women who provided the impetus for Britain’s modern-day coffee revolution. In an article for the BBC, Jacqui Farnham explores these latte-stained, hidden pages of history. The company Whitbred, owner of Premier Inn, had a sharp eye for both the glaring and intricate effects of the feminist movement in the 90s, on the demand for a remodeled social sphere. The advent of an increasing female workforce, prompted a demand for a more comfortable “third place.” While pubs where the dominant spot of socialisation, the looming male gaze of such an environment paled its charm for many women. Discovering what was then a small-chain of coffee shops, Whitbred acquired what is now a household name in Britain: Costa Coffee. In 2018, Coca-Cola bought Costa from Whitbred for $5.1 billion Though a point of discomfort may be how feminism still operates within a capitalist arena. While many independent coffee shops suffered economically during lockdown, the nature of big coffee-chains allows them to dominate the market. Big coffee chains are also complicit in driving coffee farmers to poverty, even with the existence of fair trade. The gender pay gap in these less economically developed countries where coffee grows, has a detrimental impact upon women who not only suffer inequality and the effects of colonial hangovers at home, but are disempowered by the capitalist ventures of consumer countries. Therefore, while women being able to buy coffee, unaccompanied at night is a progressive step, much more needs to be achieved in brewing equality.

The coffeehouse has evolved into a unique institution. Once restricted to male intellectuals, with women painted as over-sexualised ornaments, the coffeehouse is now a more equal space of caffeinated energy. A favourite third place, for many writers, it is also a room of one’s own.