If you’ve ever worked as a server in the restaurant industry, and especially if you’re a woman, you know that charm and affability equals more tips. Add attractiveness and flirting to the package, and you’ve found the model that launched a thousand Hooters and similar breastaurants (ugh) into popularity. It’s hardly rocket science: men are simple creatures, and a smile and a giggle can go a long way to earning better tips/getting out of traffic tickets/grabbing that last muffin at the Starbucks counter. Why do you think all brand models and reps are overwhelmingly women? And why do beautiful women dominate advertising, even for products and services geared towards men? It’s part of the depressing truth of existing while female.
In a world that is financially, systemically, and culturally stacked against women, there’s nothing wrong with using our oft exploited femininity to make our lives a little easier. After all, a woman can wear make-up, dress nicely, and be affable for HERSELF, and yet it will still be interpreted as something for men to consume/feel entitled to. Is it messed up? Absolutely. But denying it doesn’t make it any less true. Most sentient beings understand these sexual politics on a very base level, but there are some folks for whom the basics of customer service are akin to looking through the Matrix. Our most recent example of this is a viral headline from the New York Post, which reads “This is how restaurant servers are tricking you into giving bigger tips“.
This article, which was inexplicably written by a woman, details that SHOCKER! Waitresses will dress nicely, do their nails, and wear make-up to earn better tips from patrons. It’s a bombshell report for anyone who has A) never been to a restaurant or B) has been raised by wolves with no connection to human society. The reporter, Adriana Diaz, follows a TikTok trend where waitresses boast bigger tips by wearing their hair in pigtails, using a Southern accent, having blonde hair, and wearing short shorts. Again, where is the news? Is this not common knowledge to everyone everywhere? Have they never seen Paris Hilton eating a cheeseburger in a Carl’s Jr. commercial? What am I missing here? But I shouldn’t be surprised, as the New York Post has been accused of sexism and racism for years now, with a former editor filing a legal complaint against the company.
And would it even be fair to characterize these hacks as “tricks”? If making more money by being conventionally attractive is a trick, then it’s literally the oldest trick in the book. And given the exploitative wages and dependency on tipping for survival, it completely misconstrues the power dynamics at play here. I bet the editor of this piece thinks strippers really like him for his personality. Either way, it’s a deeply incel-friendly take to draw a line between “attractive women making money due to systemic sexism” to “WAH! women are tricking me by serving me chicken tenders with a smile!” By all means NYP, keep putting a target on women’s backs. That’ll teach us to earn a living!
Many took to social media to dunk on the article:
(featured image: FOX)
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