4 ms·

I would be shocked if female waiters in the US are paid less than male ones. Got a source?

Johnny555 9y ago
I was mainly referring to general wage discrimination across all industries, but here's a few references for the restaurant industry from 10 seconds of googling: http://rocunited.org/publications/tipped-over-the-edge-gender-inequity-in-the-restaurant-industry/ http://rocunited.org/publications/tipped-over-the-edge-gende... – The industry follows a conscious business model of confining women to the lower-paid positions within restaurants. Women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home. - In addition, women are confined to the lower-paying segments of the industry such as quick-serve and family style rather than the highest-paying fine dining segment. So even within the same job classification of server, full-time, year-round female servers are paid just 68 percent of what male servers are paid ($17,000 vs. $25,000 annually). http://fortune.com/2015/10/23/wage-gap-restaurants/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/23/wage-gap-restaurants/ - Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group. - Women are pushed toward lower-paying jobs at more casual restaurants, and people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions.
- briandear 9y ago
  > women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home. This is a ridiculous statement. Cooking at home has zero to do with going to culinary school and becoming a chef. If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men (or at least 80%+ of them,) based on my experience in working in probably 10 different restaurants in my life. Working as a line cook is often part of the career progression of becoming a chef. At the finer restuarants, the line cooks are often "staging" while they're in culinary school. If anyone has ever worked as a line cook in a real restaurant, one would know that it's pretty brutal work -- lots of dirty cleaning, standing in front of hell-fire ovens and grills for entire shifts -- at a pretty pitiful level of pay. Certainly, women do it, but even remotely comparing that career with making lasagna in a home kitchen is like suggesting that I should be a race car driver simply because I drive a car every day or that I should be a stand up comedian just because I can make my kids laugh. > Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group. At the beginning of the comment, we just were discussing how only 19% of chefs are women, but then we complain that women are pushed into the "lowest-paying jobs" -- such as the kitchen. The kitchen is where you start if you want to be a chef. And, most kitchens I've ever worked in had few women. Most of the women were in the front of the house making real money, while those of us in the back were cutting and burning ourselves for $10 per hour with the goal of moving up in the kitchen brigade at some point. The dishwashers are almost always men. I don't think I've ever seen a female dishwasher at any fine dining restaurant I've ever worked at. Obviously there are women dishwashers, but there are a heck of a lot more front-of-the-house women than there are in the back of the house. I've seen very few female busboys. I can't remember a single one. I've seen many men barbacks -- but can't remember seeing a single female barback. In fact, the pretty women are typically in the highest paying position in the resturant (aside from the general manager) -- bartenders. I've been denied many jobs as a bartender because the bar "only hired women bartenders." Although I had no problems getting a job as a doorman or a barback. > ..people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions. Chefs didn't start in the kitchen as chefs. Managers typically didn't start as managers. Almost universally chefs started by working on the line. Managers often started as waitstaff or even busboys. Whoever is providing this "data" seems like they've never actually worked in a restaurant, nor experienced how the business works and how people move up in the industry. Also, a non-trivial number of back-of-the-house workers are illegal aliens who are both "of color" and willing to work for far lower wages. It isn't that people "of color" are being sent to the kitchen as punishment -- but often those with limited English proficiency aren't generally going to be front-of-the-house. In my anecdotal experience working in a variety of restaurants in Houston, black people and white/Hispanic women were typically working as waitstaff -- and making far more money than the white/Hispanic males working in the kitchen. Bartenders trended female, general managers trended white male, kitchen managers were black, white/Hispanic and male. Sous chefs were commonly white male or female. Pasty chefs were generally white or black female, dishwashers were older hispanic men, busboys and barbacks were young Hispanic men. Line cooks were white or Hispanic men. Executive Chefs -- typically white or black males. Completely anecdotal for sure -- but, at least in Houston, restaurant racism was something I don't think I ever saw; and I worked in a lot of places, especially in the high end. I was a manager of a few places, mostly at the bar, so I saw the nightly tip declarations -- anyone making the claim that women make less in tips than men or that certain races make lower tips than others -- I would have to doubt their experience in the business. Women often made more. People of color made just as much as anyone else. Here's an article from a Houston magazine about black chefs in Houston: http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2017/02/in-praise-of-color-in-cuisine-celebrating-black-chefs-in-houston/ http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2017/02/in-praise-of-color-i... Key quote: "I see many African Americans [chefs] in good restaurant kitchens in Houston—too many, in fact to cover in this article.." One of the most exclusive restaurants in Houston, Tony's has a female chef. The 2017 Houston James Beard semi-finalists were an extremely diverse group: https://www.visithoustontexas.com/culinary-tours/culinary-blog/post/10-houston-chefs-restaurants-named-among-the-2017-james-beard-awards-semifinalists/ https://www.visithoustontexas.com/culinary-tours/culinary-bl... There might have been only 2 white males among all those nominees.
  - Johnny555 9y ago
    >> women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home. > If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men So your argument is that the discrimination begins much earlier in the chain?
    - seattle_spring 9y ago
      Line cooks make a lot less than wait staff. So what you're saying is that it's actually men who are discriminated against!?
      - Johnny555 9y ago
        More men are ending up in line-cook positions that are on the career track to high paying chef positions, yet you think it's the men that are being shortchanged?
        umanwizard 9y ago
        What fraction of line cooks become well-paid chefs?
        Johnny555 9y ago
        I have no idea, but the previous commenter said that there are few women chefs because there are few woman line cooks, and most chefs are line cooks first.
        belorn 9y ago
        If a person has with the same entry level education and experience but is forced to get lower pay and worse work environment, then that is discrimination regardless if it has higher potential to reach a high paying job several years later in life. Discrimination is antithesis to liberty. The right for he or she to become what they seek out to be without the restrictions of gender roles. Young men should not be forced to do poor work for no pay in hopes to get a chance for high paying job later, and young women should not be forced to do nice and high paying jobs only to be blocked later in life for top positions. If there is one gender discrimination that need to be destroyed it is the view society has on young poor men and old women, contrasted to the view of young attractive women and old rich men. The work market would look very different if people, both women and men, were not restricted to gender roles.
s73ver_ 9y ago
It's more that the majority of tipped workers are women.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

I was mainly referring to general wage discrimination across all industries, but here's a few references for the restaurant industry from 10 seconds of googling: http://rocunited.org/publications/tipped-over-the-edge-gender-inequity-in-the-restaurant-industry/ http://rocunited.org/publications/tipped-over-the-edge-gende... – The industry follows a conscious business model of confining women to the lower-paid positions within restaurants. Women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home. - In addition, women are confined to the lower-paying segments of the industry such as quick-serve and family style rather than the highest-paying fine dining segment. So even within the same job classification of server, full-time, year-round female servers are paid just 68 percent of what male servers are paid ($17,000 vs. $25,000 annually). http://fortune.com/2015/10/23/wage-gap-restaurants/ http://fortune.com/2015/10/23/wage-gap-restaurants/ - Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group. - Women are pushed toward lower-paying jobs at more casual restaurants, and people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions.

briandear 9y ago
> women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home. This is a ridiculous statement. Cooking at home has zero to do with going to culinary school and becoming a chef. If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men (or at least 80%+ of them,) based on my experience in working in probably 10 different restaurants in my life. Working as a line cook is often part of the career progression of becoming a chef. At the finer restuarants, the line cooks are often "staging" while they're in culinary school. If anyone has ever worked as a line cook in a real restaurant, one would know that it's pretty brutal work -- lots of dirty cleaning, standing in front of hell-fire ovens and grills for entire shifts -- at a pretty pitiful level of pay. Certainly, women do it, but even remotely comparing that career with making lasagna in a home kitchen is like suggesting that I should be a race car driver simply because I drive a car every day or that I should be a stand up comedian just because I can make my kids laugh. > Women and workers of color are often pushed into the lowest-paying jobs in the food service industry, according to a report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a labor advocacy group. At the beginning of the comment, we just were discussing how only 19% of chefs are women, but then we complain that women are pushed into the "lowest-paying jobs" -- such as the kitchen. The kitchen is where you start if you want to be a chef. And, most kitchens I've ever worked in had few women. Most of the women were in the front of the house making real money, while those of us in the back were cutting and burning ourselves for $10 per hour with the goal of moving up in the kitchen brigade at some point. The dishwashers are almost always men. I don't think I've ever seen a female dishwasher at any fine dining restaurant I've ever worked at. Obviously there are women dishwashers, but there are a heck of a lot more front-of-the-house women than there are in the back of the house. I've seen very few female busboys. I can't remember a single one. I've seen many men barbacks -- but can't remember seeing a single female barback. In fact, the pretty women are typically in the highest paying position in the resturant (aside from the general manager) -- bartenders. I've been denied many jobs as a bartender because the bar "only hired women bartenders." Although I had no problems getting a job as a doorman or a barback. > ..people of color are channeled toward even lower-paying jobs such as bussing and kitchen positions. Chefs didn't start in the kitchen as chefs. Managers typically didn't start as managers. Almost universally chefs started by working on the line. Managers often started as waitstaff or even busboys. Whoever is providing this "data" seems like they've never actually worked in a restaurant, nor experienced how the business works and how people move up in the industry. Also, a non-trivial number of back-of-the-house workers are illegal aliens who are both "of color" and willing to work for far lower wages. It isn't that people "of color" are being sent to the kitchen as punishment -- but often those with limited English proficiency aren't generally going to be front-of-the-house. In my anecdotal experience working in a variety of restaurants in Houston, black people and white/Hispanic women were typically working as waitstaff -- and making far more money than the white/Hispanic males working in the kitchen. Bartenders trended female, general managers trended white male, kitchen managers were black, white/Hispanic and male. Sous chefs were commonly white male or female. Pasty chefs were generally white or black female, dishwashers were older hispanic men, busboys and barbacks were young Hispanic men. Line cooks were white or Hispanic men. Executive Chefs -- typically white or black males. Completely anecdotal for sure -- but, at least in Houston, restaurant racism was something I don't think I ever saw; and I worked in a lot of places, especially in the high end. I was a manager of a few places, mostly at the bar, so I saw the nightly tip declarations -- anyone making the claim that women make less in tips than men or that certain races make lower tips than others -- I would have to doubt their experience in the business. Women often made more. People of color made just as much as anyone else. Here's an article from a Houston magazine about black chefs in Houston: http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2017/02/in-praise-of-color-in-cuisine-celebrating-black-chefs-in-houston/ http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2017/02/in-praise-of-color-i... Key quote: "I see many African Americans [chefs] in good restaurant kitchens in Houston—too many, in fact to cover in this article.." One of the most exclusive restaurants in Houston, Tony's has a female chef. The 2017 Houston James Beard semi-finalists were an extremely diverse group: https://www.visithoustontexas.com/culinary-tours/culinary-blog/post/10-houston-chefs-restaurants-named-among-the-2017-james-beard-awards-semifinalists/ https://www.visithoustontexas.com/culinary-tours/culinary-bl... There might have been only 2 white males among all those nominees.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  >> women are hired for only 19 percent of chef positions, for example, even though traditionally most women are more likely to do a majority of the cooking at home. > If you visit most restaurant kitchens -- the line cooks and dishwashers are almost always men So your argument is that the discrimination begins much earlier in the chain?
  - seattle_spring 9y ago
    Line cooks make a lot less than wait staff. So what you're saying is that it's actually men who are discriminated against!?
    - Johnny555 9y ago
      More men are ending up in line-cook positions that are on the career track to high paying chef positions, yet you think it's the men that are being shortchanged?
      - umanwizard 9y ago
        What fraction of line cooks become well-paid chefs?
        Johnny555 9y ago
        I have no idea, but the previous commenter said that there are few women chefs because there are few woman line cooks, and most chefs are line cooks first.
      - belorn 9y ago
        If a person has with the same entry level education and experience but is forced to get lower pay and worse work environment, then that is discrimination regardless if it has higher potential to reach a high paying job several years later in life. Discrimination is antithesis to liberty. The right for he or she to become what they seek out to be without the restrictions of gender roles. Young men should not be forced to do poor work for no pay in hopes to get a chance for high paying job later, and young women should not be forced to do nice and high paying jobs only to be blocked later in life for top positions. If there is one gender discrimination that need to be destroyed it is the view society has on young poor men and old women, contrasted to the view of young attractive women and old rich men. The work market would look very different if people, both women and men, were not restricted to gender roles.

s73ver_ 9y ago

It's more that the majority of tipped workers are women.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]