Long story short: over the summer, UK wine writer/tv show host/“personality” Joe Fattorini anonymously wrote and circulated oft-misogynist and toxic WhatsApp missives under the pseudonym “Wine Bitch” targeting and bullying wine writers, tradespeople, Instagram influencers etc under the guise of satire (including many of his colleagues). These messages got out and Fattorini tried to stem the bleeding by contacting the targets privately and apologizing. Blogger & wine writer Vinka Danitza then wrote two blog posts; the first was her personal experience with misogyny in the wine world, and then the second exposing Fattorini for his role in the messages.
Obviously, the world of wine is predominantly male both in sheer numbers and in the people who wield power and influence. Women have been more and more public about the roadblocks, glass ceilings, and barriers to entry in the industry that they’ve been experiencing, and hopefully things will continue to change for the better as a result. If nothing else, this shows how pervasive these attitudes are, even amongst those who pretend otherwise and should know and be better.
I was excited and anticipating when the second part of Vinka’s essay would come out. I was not aware that Part II of Vinka’s essay had come out and was taken down. Thanks for sharing.
Part One was definitely incredibly disturbing to read when you realise the level of BS women have to deal with.
Following Part One of Vinka’s essay, Laura Donadoni posted a similar article relating some of her experiences. Worth a read as well:
back when i was selling wine in Manhattan – expensive wine to very expensive restaurants, 2002–2014 –
solidly more than half of the buyers/wine directors i encountered were female
perhaps the situation is diff in Jolly Olde… more hidebound, less progresss
and my other activities focussed on Austria, which most likely leads the world in female-managed wine estates, per capita
Some of the most talented people I work with ITB are females, most of the best tasters i work with are females, and many of my favorite wines are made by female winemakers.
We not only need more females ITB, we need diversity among those females, and males for that matter. The amount of creative thought you get from a diverse pool of people isn’t able to be replicated.
These kinds of behaviors aren’t acceptable and need to be outed.
I think it goes beyond even that. Vinka sought to start a conversation that goes beyond simply encouraging women to band together in support of each other. Equally important, if not more so, is the need to encourage women to feel comfortable speaking out not only when they encounter sexism and misogyny in the industry, but also to make it acceptable for them to do so without the ever present fear of any retaliatory repercussions they may face in doing so.
The fact that a woman who chose to put herself out there to speak out about her and other women’s experience in dealing with sexism and misogyny only to be faced with a cease and desist letter in an attempt to silence her is extremely disturbing. That fact that those intimidation tactics worked (Vinka took down Part II) is even more troubling. It is not OK.
Women should be free to speak out about these BS situations they encounter without either the fear of retaliation and actual retaliation.
The unfortunate reality is that these types of experience are exclusive to the “Old World.” They exist in all corners of the world regardless of how progressive the city you live in is. You need only look at some of Victoria James’ accounts of the sexism she has faced in NYC. Indeed Victoria’s experienced are from from the outlier and there are countless other women who have faced similar experiences in all cities, even NYC. The unfortunate reality is that we men often don’t even see some of what women deal with. It’s everything from us men being unaware and not noticing it (or closing to ignore it; to things happening when women are alone with a particular perpetrator of these acts; to women not sharing those experiences they face with either men, or even other women, for either fear of having their experienced dismissed or faced with retaliation.
there was a woman to whom i was a sort of a mentor –
half my age, African American, former USAF sergeant –
given the culture of the late former decade in NYC
i could solidly assure her that moving forward in the biz,
being female would not be a hindrance, and
(pardon me for noticing) being Black would not be a negative
The number of women in the wine and spirits business has increased greatly, which is wonderful, though there’s still more that can be done to increase diversity. The number of women in the serious wine buying/collecting community is much smaller and has changed only marginally, from what I can tell. I believe this imbalance is reflective of the overall inequality of men and women in our society, and the separation of roles and “appropriate” pursuits which we still struggle with every day.
There is a somewhat large and active Facebook group of mostly ITB people I belong to. There have been a decent amount of clearly misogynistic posts and comments. Luckily the women in the group have felt strong enough to call it out. More luckily the group has been generally responsive. The is a large number of women who are part of the group which is a positive. And they are very active. I still feel badly that so many men feel so emboldened as to show off their attitudes in public that way. Progress is being made but there is much work to be done. I can never get over how fragile so many egos are that they have to discount a person for what they are before they can consider who they are.
Well, for example, there is at least one poster her with a barely clothed woman as an avatar. In the context of a wine board, I find that to be sexist (since the name of the poster is male).
Just today, I read a post where the author misgendered another poster and referred to her as “he.” This may seem like no big deal and simply and accident, but to some people, this is a microaggression. I am not suggesting it was done on purpose.
And if you are in doubt, search for “buxom” on the boards here. You’ll find it used often simply as a adjective for a large, showy wine, but look closer and. you see it paired with all sort of sexualized contexts that are, frankly, sexist. Of course, it is easy to pretend things like this don’t happen on WB, but they do.
While I understand the sentiment, I think it is incumbent upon the rest of the wine world to self-assess, call out, and break down those barriers rather than putting the onus on women to do yet more of the work.
+1. To be fair, some of us more “mature” WB-ers are fighting against our upbringing and generally against society’s former norms, so our mistakes are mostly unintentional, but that’s not an excuse.
If you are unaware of the number of previously active posting women that refuse to come here anymore, you either haven’t been paying attention (which I will be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt), or a real part of the problem.
While there are many social justice topics worthy and in need of discussion, this one included, this thread is typical of how quickly they drift into finger pointing, with a tad of sanctimony, which makes it nearly impossible nowadays to have substantial and meaningful conversations either live or on-line. Unfortunate, because I’ve learned the much in life from those I disagreed with but learning stops when attacks on the person begin.