In places around the world that haven't become ultra-PC this is still the case as well. When the Hash House Harriers was created (somewhat by accident) in 1938 the world was a very different place than it is now and women were seen as a bit of a hindrance to getting things done in the world. There are a lot of people (and cultures) that still believe this to be the case but obviously I am not one of them. However, there are still many places that have male only Hashes, and one of the runs we do in Chiang Mai each week follows the same rules. It is merely tradition
src
In Chiang Mai at least, we are not restricted by equality laws that would probably land us at least on some sort of cancel culture list in the west, but we still allow women on our runs a majority of times. The only exception being the Monday run, which is when the original Hash House Harriers met each week to "get rid of the weekend's excesses" via sweating and then drinking a reasonable amount of alcohol afterwards.
In order to counter and criticism (that we wouldn't listen to or care about if it came our way anyway) we have a "Bunny Hash" which is for women only as well. With rare exceptions, men are not allowed to attend these events and they have their own management, trails, and participants. Some of these women don't generally participate in the "mixed runs" that happen on Thursday and Saturday every week in Chiang Mai.
our Bunny Hash logo
There are other parts of the world, such as in Singapore and Malaysia that I have attended where they ONLY have a men only run - IE, there is no women's division. I find this to be quite cruel but it isn't up to me or anyone else. There is no central management for HHH worldwide and each chapter functions as its own entity. They do not answer to or pay fees to some sort of central organized command. In one funny exchange that I heard about recently, someone contacted the Kuala Lumpur Hash House Harriers, which is considered the "Mother Hash" for every Hash chapter in the world (since they were the first) to see if they could have permission to start their own hash in Taiwan.
Kuala Lumpur's response was
"It aint got shit to do with us, do whatever you want! On On!"
In certain parts of the world I can see people getting sued for trying to have a men only event for just about anything. This seems particularly true in Twitter and PC-obsessed USA where it seems just about anything can land you in legal hot water especially if discrimination is right there on your website.
The Hash House Harriers are not a politically correct group at all. In all actuality, if you are the kind of person that feels as though PC is a good aspect of society at large, you probably wont fit in very well with HHH and should probably avoid it. You will not have a good time if you take things too seriously. For us, it is an escape from the real world and an opportunity for all of us to act like jerks (in a joking manner) with impunity and any attempts to change that would be met with laughter and mockery the way that it should be.
Keeping this in mind, a vast majority of the HHH chapters around the world are for men and women and in our Hash we even have one lady-boy in our crew and this was a difficult situation to handle and I don't want to get into details about it but let's just say that he/she is still part of our ranks and doesn't have any problems with the way things are set up.
We are all there to just have a good time with good pals after all.
If you are in the Chiang Mai area and would like to join us, we run 3 times a week and all are welcome. Check out the full schedule and details at our official website HERE. Just keep in mind that the Monday Hash is, and always will be, men only.
Thanks for the interesting and informative post.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit