Boundary Lines: Labeling Sexual Harassment in Restaurants

The Giuffre and Williams article focused on sexual harassment, as experienced by waiting staff in restaurants. Most respondents in the study believed their workplace to be sexually charged – rife with innuendo, touching, and other sexual behaviors – but seemed to dismiss the acts as an ingrained aspect of the food business. When sexual harassment was brought up, it was because one of three conditions: (1) the accused is a person in power; (2) the accused is of a different race or ethnicity from the accuser; or, (3) the accused is of a different sexual orientation than the accuser. Even if the acts are identical to interactions between fellow wait staff, people become uncomfortable with this familiarity with persons in power because they have no friendly relationship with the accused and believe that the manager/boss has overstepped into the accuser’s personal sphere, physically or otherwise. Similarly, people of dissimilar race or ethnicity were involved in sexual harassment, because the accusers felt no closeness or familiarity with the accused. One respondent explains, “This is not somebody that I talk to on a friendly basis… [W]hen he touches me, all I know is he is just touching me and there is no context about it. With other people, if they said something or they touched me, it would be funny or… we have a relationship. This person and I and all the other people do not. So that is sexual harassment” (Giuffre, Williams, p. 389). Lastly, people of different sexual orientations (from the accuser, that is) are named in sexual harassment. In this study, three heterosexual males indicated that they felt harassed by same-sex males, who had perpetrated the same behaviors as the rest of the wait staff. The key to this discussion is that while the harassing behaviors are considered typical among wait staff and familiars in the workplace, people outside of this sphere who engage in these behaviors are not tolerated for the same sexual behaviors.

I related very closely to this article, having worked at a movie theater for many years. Working among sixteen to twenty-four year olds, there was seldom a conversation that wasn’t about sex. Talking about sex was a universal language in which everyone could participate. Those who didn’t were simply not a part of the group, and sexual overtures – ass-grabbing, lewd comments – were generally seen as normal. Given the age range, however, “simulated” homosexuality or bisexuality was permitted and even encouraged among women, while man-to-man interactions were still seen as harassing.