For my final project I wanted to share the stories/experiences of myself and other workers in the restaurant business (particularly the women) when dealing with customers. I find this topic interesting to me because of the area in which we work, which is primarily white and upper class. Many of the customers do feel entitled to treat me and my fellow female coworkers with a great deal of disrespect in which we have to just bite our tongues or walk away because “the customer is always right.” Another thing that is interesting about this topic is that out of the entire staff which is comprised of about 30 people or more, only 4 of us are women.
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| Extremely legible sign that customers choose to ignore, 2018 |
I plan on publishing my final project most likely as a public post on YouTube which can be distributed to just about anyone who decides they want to view my video. This fits into my portfolio of work because I am very much about supporting people getting treated fairly and humanely. I like to consider myself very outspoken but it’s ironic how much I have to hold back being a server myself. I know that I alone can name countless stories of the various situations I have been put in or overheard as a previous phone girl and current hostess/bartender/server where the topics of sexism, racism and sexual orientation come into play. I even considered offering the audience the point of view coming from our higher ups such as managers and bosses who are all white heterosexual cyst men, to get their opinions on women working for them and whether or not they share the same viewpoints of certain customers.
All in all, I want to be able to share the other side of the restaurant experience coming from those who actually provide the service. Working in a restaurant automatically places you in a position where you are secondary to customers of all types. The restaurant business is most definitely a hustle but just because you put in the work does not necessarily mean you’re gonna see a bunch of green (money) at the end of it. I hope that this video can grow and progress over the semester because I somehow want to encourage other people who faced discrimination and injustice to share their experiences in their various forms of work because it is not ok.
Resources:
Related Readings:
- Beauty and the Beast of Advertising - Jean Kilbourne
- Hunger as Ideology - Bordo
- Body Messages and Body Meanings - Wykes Gunther
This is a very interesting idea, and as someone who is female and has worked in the service industry I can definitely relate. Being a female server, I also always felt I had to bite my tongue, but also put on a mask of an agreeable woman who was just there to help... no matter what was said to me. Maybe you could branch out and focus on other service areas as well, because women face this issue in so many different jobs You could look into women who work in "pink-collared jobs" as this is an issue they face daily too.
ReplyDeleteGood luck
This topic hits home as a woman who has worked in the service industry for several years. I found an article that may be helpful. I would suggest looking into sexism behind the scenes as a server not just from the viewpoint of customers. I remember often hearing managers refusing to promote women to head server positions and moving them up to bartenders in restaurants because of their own sexist ideologies and belief that men would be better suited to handle the pressure. I found this article that may be helpful that also talks about this: https://www.womensmediacenter.com/fbomb/how-i-handled-sexism-in-the-service-industry
ReplyDeleteGood luck!