Everyone's Cup is Full Except for Hers Imagining the Development of Access and Resource Services Designed to Support Women in the Service Industry

Acknowledgements

This project is dedicated to Emmy Andréasson, the worlds best manager, coworker, and self-proclaimed "Slinger of Suds", for her ceaseless efforts and actions to support the well-being her coworkers and staff. Thank you for never just talkin' bout it and always bein' bout it - you inspire me to be my best self through service to myself and others.

Special mention to the contributions of Kerry Bannen for all of her accommodations of support and assistance in digitizing my data artifact, as well as Treasa McDonald and Alicia Criswell for their service in alcohol-serving establishments and their donation of personal items and time to this project. Although these items were sadly not able to be physically incorporated into the final product, they were contributions that provided important and integral symbolism that created and sustained this projects intent nonetheless.

Health Disparities Relation to Identity-Charged Sexual Harassment/Violence in the Workplace

Hoffman’s 2024 literature review argues for the need of further research on the compounding, intersecting impacts of sexual harassment on women who work in the hospitality industry - pointing to the casino gaming industry as an ideal focus group to observe the health disparities and adverse impacts to well-being caused by workplace sexual harassment. The conclusion also suggests the development of bystander-training in such environments, as it has previously proven to be more effective in the prevention of sexual violence than general sexual harassment trainings. The article pulls from various data sets to theorize on the distinct prevalence of sexual harassment in the hospitality industry as a phenomenon that is reflective of multi-faceted, intersecting systems of oppression (gender, race, class, citizenship status).

Human or Tool? The 'Hospitable Body at Work" - Selected, Molded, and Built

Research done in Nordic countries on what is referred to as the “hospitable body”, examining the implications of social and organizational associations between certain bodies and certain occupations, particularly as it applies to the hospitality industry. The production of the working body as what Marx and Engels referred to as “the appendage of a machine” is observed in relation to modern constructions of the hospitable body at work through varying modes of physical, emotional, and aesthetic labor. The appraisal of people as bodies reduced to gender, race, age, and so on is examined as an integral component in industries with high concentrations of marginalized demographics and high rates of contingent forms of employment generally perception and treatment of workers as replaceable. This analysis is supplemental to the following proposal for further research into the concept of the hospitable body at work and the responsive development of counteractive and preventative strategies tailored to address the distinct needs that arise from gender, sexual, and racial harassment in the hospitality workplace.(Zampoukos 2021)

Tipping, Objectification, and Sexual Harassment

A study revealed that tipping may particularly impact sexual harassment of women in the service industry through facilitating dominant cultural norms of sexual objectification. The authors examine how their studies findings present useful information regarding how the knowledge of a female workers mode of compensation including tips negatively impacts male perceptions of her and whether sex-based harassment towards her is considered to be legitimate.(Klein et al. 2021)

Examinations of "The Customer is Always Right" Philosophies and the Impacts

Enabling cultural factors such as the hierarchical assessment of “low-status service providers”, dependence on customers, norms of informality and substance use, accommodation-centered ideologies, and high prevalence of customer stress can exacerbate the frequency and wide-spread acceptance of customer and insider aggression, harassment, and assault of service employees. The workplace culture of service fields often prohibits employees’ perception of themselves as victims, as harassment is not only expected but expected to be ignored. The absence of formal policies and procedures in response to workplace harassment is an understood policy within itself. These findings are examined in observance of the ways in which structures that culturally regard service providers as mere objects/tools to be used to the satisfaction of the customer inevitably blurs and obscures the question of what customer behavior is to be considered right and wrong to the point of irrelevancy. Many service industry professional develop implicit strategies for coping with these environments and their impacts (e.g. problem-solving, escape-avoidance, and support seeking strategies) that are developed in response to the pervasive lack of support structures/policies. (Yagil 2008)

Workplaces Characterized by Permissive Drinking Norms

Many bars workforce demographics reflect particularly high percentages of men who exhibit patterns of heavy drinking in alignment with the established workplace culture, which makes their female coworkers particularly vulnerable to being targets of gender harassment in the workplace. (Bacharach, Bamberger, and McKinney 2007) Bacharach, et al.'s study findings indicate that both direct and moderated effects of drinking in workplace environments distinctly impact the prevalence of gender harassment in the workplace.

Familial Personal Workplace Relationships

The reliance on uniquely intimate workplace relationships such as “families” created and sustained across service industry jobs is reflective of the lack of structural and systemic support offered to this demographic. This study depicts how because these community dynamics are borne out of the industries refusal to provide workers with support/benefits that meet their basic needs, they can oftentimes unintentionally foster circumstances that produce and excuse inappropriate and harmful workplace cultures (substance abuse, harassment, assault, and violence). (Eger et al. 2022)

Resource Collections That Can Engage Everyone in Applicable Healing, Rest, and Resistance

As the provided research review reveals, the complex, layered issues faced by women bartenders and service industry professionals at large have deep, systemic and societal roots in harmful dominant narratives and cultures. These roots flourish because above ground we're still watering the weeds soil. Assisting in the exacerbation and reproduction of the circumstances for the continuous failure to provide service industry professionals with basic respect and support.

So, how can we assist in pulling this weed, roots and all?

I believe useful engagement with this matter that touches all of our lives is done through the continuous development of resources collections such as “We Believe You: A Feminist Book List on Sexual Violence, Consent, and Masculinity" by Charis Books & More and Charis Circle.

It is a resources list intended to support people “speaking truth to power”, to ignite change in the readers lives, the lives of those they engage with, and the world around them. The introductory statement says, “Some of the books on this list are geared towards personal healing for survivors of sexual assault, some are histories and studies about rape culture and U.S. sexual violence, some are books designed to help children understand consent and positive boundaries, some are books written by cisgender or transgender men, gay and straight, talking about the ways in which patriarchal culture has harmed them and caused them to harm others. These books are meant to help you keep the conversation going in your own head, in your home, with your family, in schools, faith communities, and in your workplace.” Incorporating resources collections akin to this in our libraries can enable us to help support the libraries user communities whose workplace and personal identity make them particularly vulnerable to instances of harassment, assault, and violence – as well as vulnerable to the impacts of experiencing, processing, and coping with such instances in environment with no formal support systems in place (for bartenders typically non-unionized, low-paying, no benefits, etc.). It can also provide us all with resources to identify how we each may be at risk of perpetuating such violence along with the opportunity to engage with material that provides a counter-narrative to dominant cultures(resources for bystander intervention, etc.), assisting in the deconstruction of harmful norms commonly established in workplaces such as the alcoholic beverage industry.

Useful resources in these collections could explore compiling accessible information that assists in support as depicted through Wake Counties Community Resource Collection. Or Worker Organizing Resource and Knowledge Center's Know Your Rights Toolkit that provides resources and services to assist in the formation of unions.