Scene 1
Server: How do you want your steak cooked?
Me: Rare please
Server: You know that’s red in the middle, yes?
———
Scene 2
Server walks up to table, places turkey burger in front of me and beef burger in front of my male companion.
Me: Are you trying to tell me something? The beef is mine.
———-
Scene 3
My (female) friend and I want a bottle of wine to accompany our dinner. I order the wine and our server brings it to the table. He doesn’t look at as he opens it and almost starts pouring. Without making any kind of eye contact he asks,
“Oh, do you wanna try this or can I just pour?”
“I want to taste it first, please”, I reply.
————
Seeing as I was a Women’s Studies major in college and I am an unapologetic feminist now and forever, I get the typical questions: Do you hate men? Do you think the world is out to get you? Do you cry during sex?
If pressed, I think most of you would come to realize you are feminists too, at least you women, that it isn’t a bad word. But, this is not my crusade for today and I think it is best to keep politics out of this blog. Just rest assured; despite what it says on my diploma and my ballot, I will surprise you. All of us will.
I love being a woman despite the pressures and the stress. I would never want to be a man. Yet, I cannot help to think the scenarios above would not have happened if I were male. When one dines out as much as I do, you begin to notice certain behaviors and patterns. I would never scream sexism at the drop of a dime, but…it happens.
Male servers try to tell me what I want; I know what I want. They don’t think I know what I am talking about; I do. Some hosts have let tables skip me, not thinking I will notice or speak; I do. (Yes, I understand sometimes you get skipped for other reasons, but some times it is egregious.) The check is always dropped to the man.
You notice these things…or maybe it is just me. Please tell me different. Call me a crazy, sensitive feminist. Because honestly, I kind of hope it is just me.
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
No it’s not just you. I wish those were isolated incidents but they’re not. My mom is a feminist and I’m a feminist and one day if I have a daughter, she’ll be a feminist too. The world needs more of us standing up for ourselves.
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I always get a kick out of it when I’m being treated to dinner by a female friend and the server hands the credit card back to me–I’m thinking “so they think my name is Blanche?” Of course, male and female servers both do that.
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it’s definitely not just you. i think so many people are just… conditioned this way, or used to growing up like this, with the impression of what falls under a man/woman’s role. i usually just brush it off, but if it happens too many times it gets to me for sure.
rare, huh? i just went to medium and im loving it.
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No, it’s definitely not just you. I’ve had my credit card returned to many a man. Well, not THAT many.
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At the end of the day, if it involves burning brassieres, then I’m all for it.
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It’s not just you.
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In semi-defense of the server in the third incident, he might have been reacting to age rather than gender. Not all that many 20-somethings are very knowledgeable about wine — and he might have made a judgment on that based on the bottle you ordered, though of course I don’t know specifics — or the purpose of the ritual. Besides, if the bottle is corked, regardless of whether you do the official sample ritual, of course you can still send it back!
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My wife has written about buying a new car and how at every dealership, the salesman wants to talk to me. I instantly tell them that it’s her car and her money, but often that makes no difference. The salesman that speaks with her and ignores me is usually the one that ends up making the sale.
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Hmmm, now I wanna know how those scenes ended, in particular (1) and (3). I know I would have probably given them the “look of death” and then respond something that is not completely nice.
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When I was car shopping earlier this year, you wouldn’t BELIEVE the varying treatment I received when I first went to the dealership by myself vs. when I brought a good male friend with me. In scenario one, they paid attention to me, took me seriously, and let me go out on my own to test drive. In scenario two, they ignored me, teased me gently when I asked questions, and asked “who would be driving” when handing over the keys…when it was quite clear *I* was the one buying the car.
So, yeah, it is not just you. (Duh, considering the comments above.)
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Restaurants are guilty of several types of ‘profiling’. I am single and dine alone a fair amount. Hwen I go out alone I am writing something or reading a book and I am in no rush but if I order a first and second course the second comes a minute after the first as if I am in a rush to get out and avaoid the embarrassment of eating alone. And it is not just a specific restaurant, I have been to a place with friends where they space thing out normally but rush it along when I am alone.
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It’s not just you. I nearly stabbed the waiter at Oyamel in the hand last week when he tried to give my nopal asado AND my tongue taco to my date. Girls apparently aren’t allowed to eat cactus or offal. And yeah, you can share the nopal asado, but that’s MYTONGUE TACO, dammit.
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It’s not just you. I notice it too, but I notice there’s a lot less of it now than there was even just five years ago if you ask me. Especially with the bringing of the check. These days I find that it mostly just goes in the center of the table or on the edge of the booth, between the two parties. Maybe the waitstaff is learning after tongue lashings (not the good kind) or almost being stabbed?
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It pains me how many women are afraid to take on this label – it pains me more that people assume it means you hate men.
I notice it, too. My sister and I went out to eat at a Thai restaurant in Chinablocks; they literally tried to give us the shittiest table in the restaurant. You can bet your ass I said something and got us one that didn’t suck.
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I have witnessed this behaviour while out and it pisses me off. In fact, I could careless if I am ignored, but ignore my date and you will not get paid.
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The thing that makes me go apeshit insane is when people ask to talk to our “computer guy.” The whole room freezes as I say “I *am* the computer guy.”
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Just A Girl Reply:
September 18th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Ooh I was just gonna say that – we have several women in our IMO department but people always ask if we can get “a guy” to come look at something. One of them is named Kendall and she had to change her email sig to say “Miss Kendall _____” because people kept sending her emails as if she was male.
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you want sexist treatment – try going into an electronics store and telling them you want a specifc (insert some quasi technical item here). 9 out of 10 times they will hand you any old thing and tell you to have “him” bring it back if it doesn’t work for”him”.
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I notice these things sometimes, but not all the time. Maybe I’m just not looking for them. But that’s how I prefer it to be. I’m sure it would bother me a lot more if I were more attune to picking these things up…
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It’s not just you.
But maybe the server just thought you wanted the turkey burger because you’re such a skinny, pretty princess
I still don’t want you to cut your hair though.
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I’m a big, steak-eatin’ man and I still get number 1 from time to time. Rare at a real steakhouse means a steak with a cool, red center. People often have a different definition of rare, so it’s good to check first.
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KRC Reply:
September 18th, 2009 at 11:24 am
As a former steak house server, this is exactly why you’re asked that question. The worse thing for you (and for us) is for you to get your meal and find out that when your definition of rare and the restaurants are different–and then have to wait for another steak to come out.
And there really are people who don’t know what the difference between rare, mid-rare, medium etc.
But everything you say regardless, is spot on.
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The big news here is that you sat down for a meal with a man who would order a turkey burger.
I’m often asked if I want to taste the wine first. Maybe tasting the wine has become bourgois.
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I can’t believe it’s 1978 and we *still* have to put up with questions like that.
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i used to shudder at the word “feminist,” but i realize more and more that i definitely am one. and if any of those situations happened to me i would have definitely thought the exact same as you.
a few weeks ago i was out to dinner with my dad and stepmom, and the waiter came up to us with the bill and said to my dad “here’s the bill for you sir, whenever you’re ready.” i’m sure it was obvious that we were his wife and kid and that he was going to pay, but we all just looked at each other kinda funny and laughed about it because i’ve never seen that done so obvious before. normally they’ll just place the bill next to the man, but this one specifically gave it to him and acknowledged him. pretty weird.
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Steel mill. Steel mill, steel mill, steel mill. People automatically assume I’m the receptionist every single day, and treat me like it even after they find out I’m not. Sometimes I wonder why I bothered with my super-tough engineering school and grad school?
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Most people have no idea what feminism is really all about. It’s not man-hating. At all.
Hell, it’s not even housewife-hating. It’s about choices, and our right to make them. It’s about me wanting a career and to make my own way and you (not you, you…general you) wanting to stay home and raise a family and both of those options and EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN being perfectly acceptable choices that we, as (female) HUMAN BEINGS, have every right to make.
Feminism: Look it up, people. CHOICES.
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Has everyone taken their bras off yet?
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it’s a shame there’s such a presumption that operates against you. because people confuse being taught to assume social positioning with what social positioning actually should be. they get to a point where they don’t know the difference and it becomes comfortable. here’s hoping the next generation is taught something altogether different.
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Amen to what Shine said above. That’s feminism to me, not some man hating garbage.
And, it’s not just you. When my husband and I go out, I always pay. It’s all the same money and I can get to my card faster. The server almost always hands the card back to him. Does he look like a Cheryl? I think not.
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NONE of that would happen in the midwest….
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oh yah, i’m totally a feminist. you should see the profiling i get at work. (in a tattoo shop)… every single person assumes i’m a piercer or “just the receptionist”
(i’m the shop manager)
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Sorry chica. It’s not just you.
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Definitely not just you. A tad depressing though.
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I have seen this far too often in restaurants and spent far too much time trying to prevent it in restaurants I ran. It sucks that this still continues in 2009.
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Nope it’s not just you. For the brief stint I worked at a fine dining restaurant, we servers were actually trained to do that, giving the check to the man. That and serving the females first, the whole bit. It’s institutionalized sexism in a sense. But then if there weren’t such protocols, people would be in a huff that there were no manners any more or something. I don’t have answers, but I’m definitely a feminist as well. I adhere to a feminism, where I love it when a guy holds the door open for me, but I also hold open the door for him sometimes too.
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I always notice. Even two days ago, Dan and I were at Applebees and the check was handed to him. It’s annoying. I like to be the “woman” at times but let DAN do that… not the server.
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it’s not just you, although i will say i am pleased that i hardly run into it in dc these days. my servers pretty much always ask whoever it is that ordered the wine if they’d like to taste it first (regardless of who ordered it), and seem to generally make an effort to address the whole table when talking about specials/etc.
i do find that the upscale-r the restaurant – especially if it’s upscale in the snooty way – the more likely they are to put the bill in front of the dude, which i guess is because they like to think of themselves as more traditional or whatever? that doesn’t usually bother me.. at least not NEARLY as much as being talked down to when ordering steak (!!!) would. i don’t think i would have been able to resist using a LOT of sarcasm in that situation.
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It’s an uphill battle, but one we have to keep fighting!
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The bill thing doesn’t bother me. Who really cares, but it would be better if it just went in the middle of table.
When my husband and I eat out, I always order beer and he orders a soda. The server always gives him the beer, WTF your job is to get the right order to the person who ordered it, but some sexist opinion makes you give my beer away? This shouldn’t be difficult, if it really is that unusual for a woman to order a beer it should have stuck in your head for more than 2 seconds.
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