At restaurants, wait staff is mostly composed of women. These female waitresses struggle to make ends meet at home (5), while they endure physical pain, sexism, sexual objectification and disrespect during long work hours (1,2,3,5,6). Many women feel disrespected by customers, taken as objects of customer’s utilization rather than human workers. It is even harder when these waitresses are at the expense of low-tippers, but must continue to serve in a friendly and competent way (2). Waitresse are trained to introduce themselves to their customers, but really discouraged of asking about the names of customers. This creates a power imbalance, where the customer has far more power over the waitress, knowing her name, but she never learning the customers name (1). Further, scholars’ studies have revealed that women in the restaurant business often only associate themselves with individuals of like careers outside of work. This includes other waitresses, bartenders, and musicians. This creates an isolation of waitresses, preventing them from benefiting from relationships with neighbors, and other adults of different career paths (2).

Waitresses often also struggle with many hardships like stress on the body, alcoholism, and drug addictions.(3). Waitressing is often extremely hard on the woman’s feet, due to the extended hours of waiting tables. Further, cocktail waitresses must wear high heals, which increases the damage to her feet. These cocktail waitresses are often sexually exploited during their work. They are required to wear miniscule clothing, which is both degrading to a woman and increases the difficulty of her work (3). These cocktail waitresses are often seen as objects of sexual pleasure, and as key aspects to a casino’s visual appearance (1,2,6). Waitresses themselves, managerial staff, bartenders, cooks, etc have been reported in encouraging this behavior in waitresses as well.

I intend to take this exploration further in my civic engagement project: A Waitress of Many Faces. I will discuss the sexual exploitation of waitresses (1,2,6) and relate these studies to stories of personal experience. I also did not see any discussion of spousal abuse among waitresses, and wish to discuss it because I came across it during the several years I waitressed. I will also discuss media representations of waitresses, including TV ads and shows, Halloween costumes and dictionary definitions. I will also discuss the responsibilities put on waitresses for the well being of the entire restaurant (4) in the form of personal narratives.