‘Male’ Still Implies ‘Better’ in Restaurants

For the second time in my life, I am a waitress. During college I waited tables and made just enough to keep the lights on and my gas tank filled. That was OK . . . then. Now, after seven years of managing a small business, I am back on the floor.

I am older and have more responsibilities, including a family. So, before settling on my current job, I naturally applied first at those local establishments with the highest earning potential. But they hired only waiters--as in men only. That’s what this letter is all about.

Somehow it got to be 1986 and the perceived quality of one’s table-side service is still influenced by the sex of the hands that carry the tray. “Male” still implies “better.” Management attitude toward this bias may range from defensive arrogance to awkward embarrassment, but the intransigence is the same. They must maintain a “classy image,” to use the words of more than one personnel manager. What is so classy about prejudice?

It is no wonder that women still earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by men in equivalent occupations. Here, in one of our most basic industries, an industry commonly considered open and fair to women, the most lucrative positions are still reserved for men.

Consider the connotations of the word “waiter” versus “waitress.” With the first, most of us would visualize an efficient professional, formally dressed, perhaps a little stuffy, who earns a decent living at what he does.

Now what does “waitress” bring to mind? A good ol’ gal at the truck-stop cafe? A poor dear who simply can’t get another job? Why are we just a little uncomfortable or surprised when a man comes to our table at a Denny’s or Bob’s Big Boy?

There are definite stereotype images that ascribe higher status to waiters over waitresses. Our current discriminatory hiring practices certainly perpetrate these images. As in too many other fields, the restaurant business not only reserves the best pay for men, but the status too.

The irony is that the feminist movement has made such progress in fields where there are some rational arguments for preferring men, e.g. law enforcement, yet nothing has changed in this business where discrimination is flagrant and utterly defenseless.

Personally, I have chosen to boycott the offending establishments. But I am a realist. In our self-indulgent society, I don’t seriously expect principle to take precedent over appetite, except among a quirky few. Hopefully, though, this quirk will spread.

LINDA KAAHANUI

San Clemente