If I were younger and had more energy, I would apply for work at every upscale licensed restaurant around, to see what the results would be – not for bartender or cook, but as a server.
Then I would start doing some statistical analysis of the results. I would also love to do some hidden camera work when I was told that, sorry, I wasn’t what they were looking for.
I had this thought a while back when I spoke to the manager of one of these restaurants. I had noted the prevalence of female waiting staff. He informed me he hired only women for wait staff. It was this man’s job to set up new locations.
Hmmm, interesting. I wonder what would happen if I put out an ad to hire a reporter, and then told the applicants I hired only men?
In recent weeks I was sitting at another restaurant of this type, eating a highly overpriced steak, and I noticed my very attractive female server was walking in heels. I questioned her about this, and she replied it was a requirement of the job. Really, I wondered.
The next day I happened to be speaking to a friend of the owner of this establishment, chatting with her in passing at the hotel I was staying at. I pointed out how incredibly sexist such policies were. The older lady with whom I was speaking agreed.
You see, there are social activist issues that get play, and those that don’t. Pipelines, bad. Transgender issues are all the rage over the last three years or so. Climate change? If you haven’t drunk the Kool Aid on that, what type of monster are you?
Yet all around us, in most of the nicer, licensed restaurants, we never seem to question why the serving staff are all attractive young women, and women exclusively. I don’t know if I have ever seen a woman server in such an establishment who weighs more than 200 pounds, but I know there are a lot of women of that body type. Why is that?
These are also, pretty much to a one, the type of establishments where tips are expected, both from the customers, and by the serving staff. Paying someone a proper wage without expecting them to show off their assets in tight clothes for an extra 18 per cent simply is not on.
My late sister, Melanie, had the body type to work in these sorts of restaurants. She got a job at one when she was old enough, and she was told to lower her blouse and hike up her skirt. She worked that day and left, finding a job at a supermarket where they don’t get tips. Her dignity was worth more to her than the extra income.
Why don’t we ever see men in these jobs? Don’t they deserve tips too?
Nope. You see, in the Canadian military, any race or creed can serve. Fitness is an obvious requirement, but not a specific body type. But if you want to serve a noodle bowl and a Caesar in a number of nicer licensed restaurants, you need to be a woman, attractive, no larger than a size 10 and wearing heels.
If that restaurant manager had told me they didn’t hire aboriginals, Blacks, Asians or Jews, and word got out, he would be flailed in the media, lose his job, and possibly his career in the business. But for him to tell me he didn’t hire men? No biggie, apparently. It didn’t even faze him.
Fittingly, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark just announced, “In some workplaces in B.C., women are still required to wear high heels on the job. This isn’t just old-fashioned; in 2017, it’s unacceptable. I agree with Andrew Weaver, MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and the BC Restaurant & Foodservices Association that this practice needs to stop. Government will take action to do exactly that.”
I applaud Melanie for having stood up for herself. It’s apparent few other women feel they can do the same. It’s also clear that those big tips they earn as servers in such establishments trump personal dignity, not just for the individuals, but management as well.
Where are the protesters in front of these places, demanding women not be treated like this? Where are the protesters demanding affirmative action programs for equality in hiring for men? Don’t ugly people, male and female, deserve jobs too?
To paraphrase our august prime minister, “Because it’s 2017.”
— Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
