Beer Magazine Sparks Outrage In Michigan With Apparent #MeToo Mockery
The owner of a magazine called Great Lakes Brewing News is getting heat after an article was published this week that made several controversial remarks related to the #MeToo movement. The angry response it has generated has many calling the article blatant gender shaming and extreme sexism.
The Metro Times reports that Bill Metzger, co-publisher of the bimonthly magazine, published a beer review that had a lengthy, first person introduction.
Here is the first part of the article that caused the angry eruption:
Like most men, I struggle with my primal self. It’s genetic. Put in Freudian terms, the battle between my id and my superego can be epic. And in the age of #metoo, the dilemma has grown. The pendulum has swung too far. One aggressive move and a man’s career can derail. I feel the walls closing around me, my room to move shrinking. My instincts to bed every woman I see are reducing from a king-size mattress to a cot, the size I can only remember during a tour of Iraq. Today's rules put men like me in the equivalent of a feminazi re-education program instead of ceding to my genetic make-up and behaving like the great seducer, Don Juan. I'm not boasting here, but there are times I gave the legendary womanizer a run for his money, especially in the days of internet dating.
Reaction was fast, including other beer writers, calling for people, breweries, and advertisers to ditch the publication. A Change.org campaign was established as well and over 2,200 people have signed a petition as of Thursday afternoon to end their support for the magazine.
The latest issue of Great Lakes Brewing News contains an article written by the owner of the publication, Bill Metzger, that goes way over the line of good taste into just plain insulting, gender shaming, sexist garbage that one would expect to read in a men's magazine from the 1960's, not in a craft beer enthusiast publication printed in 2019.
This type of stereotyping and blatant disrespect has no place in craft beer. - Megan Dooley of Kalamazoo (Change.org)
Metzger said that these particular stories are parodies and this one was "erroneously published without a disclaimer." He also said the article was “a simple parody of a disgusting attitude I have seen often.”
“As the narrative was in the first person, I overlooked how this article could have been taken literally and that the offensive views of the character could be considered my own. I sincerely apologize.”
Great Lakes Brewing News distributes free issues of their magazines to breweries in the Midwest, including Michigan. They also have publications for other regions in the United States.