A letter to beleaguered female waitstaff everywhere

A former bartender at West Hollywood's Foxtail nightclub is filing a sexual discrimination lawsuit against Foxtail parent company SBE for allegedly telling her she needed to lose weight if she wanted to keep working in the front of the house.

The story gained traction today as blogs like Eater L.A. reported that self-dubbed feminist lawyer Gloria Allred has signed on to represent the bartender, Virginia Tzortzos. Allred, whose clients have included Paula Jones and Nicole Brown Simpson's family, is known for catching the media's attention, and she did it again this morning with a feisty appearance on CBS' "The Early Show," where she chided SBE and asked, "How thin must a woman be to keep her job?"

SBE would not comment, saying, "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on pending or threatened litigation."

It will be interesting to follow this story, because although it's reprehensible to tell a woman she needs to stay skinny to keep her job, it's not remotely surprising to any woman who has spent time in the service industry.

Before becoming an employed writer, I spent seven years bartending and waitressing at a bar that was owned by a pair of elderly German men who hired only women, and those women were required to wear sexy-looking dirndls to work. I was 23 and broke when I took the job; the first day I had to put on the dirndl, I looked in the mirror and started to cry.

Make no mistake, men came to the bar to gawk at the "girls" who worked there. (We were always called girls, even the middle-aged among us.) We made great tips, though, and lots of regular non-gawkers came in to befriend us. Most important, we were a family — girls against the rude, unseemly, drunken masses. We were also up against our bosses and their often sexist assumptions about how we should look and behave.

When a thirtysomething coworker didn't wear makeup to work, she was told she looked like an "old lady"; if a girl gained weight, she was told she was fat; when I scarred my face in a car accident, my boss asked, "What happened to your face?" even though he knew perfectly well what had happened to it. We knew this treatment was inappropriate, but our bosses were old, from another time and in possession of what we liked to think of as a special type of German candidness. Over the years we learned to remain unfazed and to sneak shots behind their backs.

I've met many waitresses over the years who have run up against similar prejudice. It seems to come with the territory and is emblematic of a larger problem within the service industry as a whole — not just at a trendy nightclub like Foxtail, where as a commenter on Eater pointed out, "they're in the business of image."

After all, the image of a woman — what she is supposed to be and look like and how she is supposed to talk and think — becomes magnified when she is in the age-old role of server. When a woman dresses in a uniform to put food on the table or to take orders, she is assuming several roles at once, roles that have been hard-wired into most people's brains whether they realize it or not — those of mother, wife and servant. All three roles are sexualized in their own particular and sometimes bizarre ways. For example, the time a potbellied man lecherously patted my rear end after I brought him his steak tartare. Nothing is less sexy than steak tartare.

When that sexualization gets wrapped up in the form of a woman who gets paid to be nice to you, otherwise restrained and thoughtful people can become pillars of insensitivity.

— Jessica Gelt

Photo: A server has her hands full. Credit: Thomas Lohnes / AFP Getty Images

Comments

[The Bartender]

I know this story has gone a bit cold, but I felt obligated to respond to Mae's comment. I think Mae has proven Ms. Gelt's theories on service industry stereotypes by simply saying "I doubt most waitresses spend a lot of time reading daily papers..." This is further proof that even women have stereotypes about women in "servant" positions.

The idea that women employed as servers, bartenders, et cetera don't read the paper is ignorant, stereotypical and mitigating, and the fact that you could make that assumption based solely on their employment in hospitality is exactly what Ms. Gelt is refering to when she points out the sexualization of paid servants turning otherwise restrained and thoughtful people into pillars of insensitivity.

That sexualization makes men do things like pat them on the rear end, and makes haughty women like Mae here believe that they are unintelligent and either have no interest or capacity to engage in an activity so cerebrally basic as picking up the newspaper.

And Mae, if you think there is much difference in being a bartender and being a waitress, I can tell you, I have been both, and there are far more similarities than differences between the two positions. I also can tell you clearly have been neither, for two reasons. Number 1, you would know there is little difference, and 2, according to your own beliefs, had you ever been either, you would likely not have ever read this article, since "the daily paper" in your eyes seems to be above and beyond the common cranial capacity of women in these professions.

Ms. Gelt - It seems to me this comment came from a woman who, once you voiced your prior experience as a service industry worker, was intent on finding fault with your intellect and trivializing your topic of discussion.

Congrats on having your point proven for you. It's a shame that it was a woman who stepped up to do it, but all the more powerful an affirmation of the prejudices and second-class consideration service industry workers face in their jobs and in the rest of their lives.

[Mae]

With so many good writers losing their jobs at LAT, this column does nothing to give me confidence in those writers that remain. I don't think I've read anything I didn't already know and I doubt most waitresses spend a lot of time reading daily papers for supportive open letters from someone who once worked as a waitress--and in case you've forgotten, the lawsuit is filed on behalf of a woman who worked as a bartender, not a waitress.
So much of this has been covered and covered again in blogs and other places...I would think there's enough real news in this story for an interesting, readable story with a few comments of personal experience to tie it all together. The lawsuit is about sexual discrimination, not objectification.