How Floozies Flip & Dip flipped the bird to women’s rights

On Sunday 30 August, the day after thousands of women took to the streets nationwide to protest against the dizzying rates of GBV and femicide in South Africa – a staggering five times the global average – a new bar announced its launch in Cape Town. The name? Floozies Flip & Dip.

The venue’s maiden post on its Instagram page was a doozy. It defined Floozies as “women who have many casual encounters or relationships”. Not bad so far; it could have been about sexual liberation and female empowerment, it being Women’s Month and all.

Nope.

Here's that post:

The post went on to outline the ill-conceived concept behind Floozies Flip & Dip, which is located in Kloof Street, Gardens, Cape Town: that you pick a burger off the menu and flip and dip it in the same way you’d choose whatever floozie takes your fancy, flip her over and (the rest is left to your imagination)… because, if you didn’t know, that’s what “flip and dip” means in a sexual context. There were even options for double- and triple-dipping.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with a woman enjoying whatever kind of sex she wants, as often as she wants, with whomever she wants. The problems here are the objectification of women and the promotion of rape culture, in a country sorely suffering from it. 

In case you missed the inference, the tone-deaf post quite literally compared women to pieces of meat, which is just the sort of dehumanising bollocks that makes men feel it’s okay to treat them as such.

What’s more, there was absolutely no reference to the woman in question having any say in the matter, nor taking any pleasure in the act. The opus was centred on the male point of view: taking what he wants for his own satisfaction.

The public outcry on the platform (more than 700 comments overnight) resulted in a deletion of the post and a quick name change for the locale ... to Flip & Dip. So now the idea is just about flipping someone over and buggering them, a mild improvement.

Here's a small sample of the outcry:



As this small win came without recognition of the offence nor apology, the people were not appeased. Like a game of whack-a-mole, the venue’s social media manager had a fine time trying to delete comments across platforms as quickly as they popped up.

You may be wondering, at this stage, who’s behind this PR disaster, and how the hairbrained idea wasn’t smothered in its cradle. Well, Floozies Flip & Dip is the newest addition to the Krugmann family empire, headed up by patriarch Douw Krugmann and including Cape Town Fish Market, Kapstadt Brauhaus and The Fat Fish.

Turns out, Krugmann had every opportunity to correct course. When his intent to apply for a liquor licence was published back in February 2017, the surrounding residents were up in arms. Not only did they contest it on the grounds of the intensified traffic congestion, crime and anti-social behaviour another bar would bring to the area, but they strongly objected to the name.

Inside Floozies Flip and Dip, the burger and pizza joint in Kloof Street Cape Town that received backlash for its offensive name, 4 September 2020. (Photo: Leila Dougan)