Dignity or a Generous Tip? For Waitresses, Sexual Harassment is Part of The Job

Editor's Note: Listen to the audio player above for the full interview.

For Brittany Bronson, clocking in on the job means balancing sexual harassment and her feminist ideals.

Bronson serves cocktails at a casino in Las Vegas, a job she uses to supplement her income as an English instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and writing op-eds for the New York Times. In a recent op-ed, she wondered, "Can You Be a Waitress and a Feminist?"

For Bronson, the answer seems to be a reluctant no.

"What I'm doing at work is more of a performance, and how I'd react outside of work is more truly reflective of my ideas and what's important to me," Bronson says. "When a man makes a sexist comment or an advance that I find inappropriate, I have to act in a different way for the sake of my job."

In other jobs, Bronson says she would never tolerate the sexual harassment she faces as a cocktail server.

"I would say something back, I would walk out, I would exit from the situation," she says. "But in a restaurant setting where I'm meant to be cordial and have a relationship with my guests, I'll laugh or I'll make a joke. I'll smile and pretend that I'm on board, even though inside I don't feel comfortable with what comment is being made, or if a hand is on my shoulder or on my hip."

"If a guest hugs me or puts me in their arms or something like that, I tolerate or excuse it, because I've come to accept that it's part of my job," she adds.

According to Bronson, working women are all too often called upon to prioritize their economic security over their personal security.

"I feel that I can handle excusing it. I'm tough enough to get through it in order to protect that tip that I need and that I want," Bronson says. "So I make a compromise to ensure and protect my income."

She continues: "Women in the service industry—not just those who are in a highly sexualized position like mine in cocktailing, but across the country—have to deal with this at a much more frequent rate, and much more frequently than their male colleagues, working the same position."

According to a report last fall from Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a group that advocates for the rights of America's 14 million restaurant workers, servers are twice as likely to experience sexual harassment, and many tolerate it in exchange for a larger tip. Bronson cites this report as evidence that servers like her see workplace advances differently than other workers.

"The more crucial that tip is as your income versus a steady wage, the more likely you are to excuse sexual harassment or interpret it as less severe or as not as much of a problem," Bronson says. "I admit that a problem is that I am desensitized so much that I am continuing to allow it just for the sake of just getting to the end of my shift and leaving with the income that I need to survive outside of work."

Though both her gender politics and her academic training would compel her to speak out against her chauvinist patrons, her class identity often overrides her feminism.

"For a working-class woman, it can be more difficult to access those feminist ideals," Bronson says.