The tipping system in practice artificially inflates the wages of service staff so I've never really understood the outrage around it. It's true that tipping d

The tipping system in practice artificially inflates the wages of service staff so I've never really understood the outrage around it. It's true that tipping drives away customers but that's because it artificially inflates the wages of service staff. It's still a net benefit to the service staff. It maybe is a negative to the restaurateurs and back of house but certainly not the service staff. The article portrays tipping as sexist but the institution acts as a mechanism to redistribute wealth from men to women. It's true that white women, young women, and attractive women get tipped more and they will put up with mistreatment to get tipped more but it ultimately smacks of attacking a system for being imperfect more than because it's bad. The alternative model you see at fast food restaurants is hardly less demeaning for women and definitely less profitable. If one ever succeeded in stripping away tipping it would only serve to keep more money in men's pockets in an attempt to end the sexism of tipping. I also strongly, STRONGLY dispute the idea that leaving 30-50 percent tips is the best way to redistribute wealth if charitably inclined. It seems more like a notion to make newspaper columnists seem woke and generous than something that actually is an efficient way to do good. The advantage to tipping is the social stigma essentially forces people to compensate service staff better than they normally would but you're never realistically going to pressure people into paying 50% or even 30% regularly. On the more positive side I do agree with the authors notion that the racial bias in tipping is rather extreme and unjustified. A third smaller tips for black drivers is pretty hard to justify and simply being aware that it happens is good knowledge.