Out in the open
Close to home there is a coffee stand, station, hut, whatever you call it across the street from a gas station and next to some car window retailer. The coffee joint is called “Bikini Hut” and it brags that the women, err, “girls” in there are wearing bikinis. Baristas in bikinis, basically. I get gas at the local station and I always see a parade of trucks and stereotypically macho beat up cars driving up to the window. I thought the embarrassment of actually going to a place that advertises that their female workers are working in two-pieces would be enough but apparently not for these gentlemen. I got a glimpse of one of the women working there and she looked like she was in high school. And judging by the time of day, she probably was in high school. And to skeptics, when I was in high school I remember a classmate who was a senior working at Hooters so yes, those places are staffed by people that still have to have their parents’ permission when missing school. Now people tell me I look like i’m in high school but the point is that you have a place of business where you pay for coffee and slobbering all over some woman with your eyes. I wonder if the women working there, when nobody’s at the window, cover up and wear a bathrobe only to take it off when a customer drives in. If you think about it that way, it is very literally, like a coin-operated strip club. Except with this you get something to drink.
As I was telling my co-worker this, she, from Chile, tells me that there is a place there called “Coffee and Legs” where women are dressed in a similar manner. She said that originally the owner only hired stereotypically attractive women and made them wear shorter and shorter skirts to promote the “image” of the restaurant. As time went on, they wore less and less and it didn’t hide what it was selling.
I know we have our Hooters, our Cowgirls Inc. bars (a local bar that, after the success of the film Coyote Ugly, hired women to not wear a whole lot and do choreographed dances on the bar tables) and our “Daisy Dukes” restaurants but seriously, is this getting even worse? Proponents of these places say that they’re safe and harmless because everyone knows these are for “adults” (read: men) and that it’s Ok to have certain things that are for adults only. Critics of these types of places usually talk about having a “family friendly” place to which the proponents again say “I already told you, we aren’t trying to bring in the Johnson Family here, go eat at the Olive Garden.” And while i’d agree that there are some places that are and should be kept “adult only” like bars and upscale restaurants for obvious reasons, the existence of these invading the space of restaurants and other services under the guise of being “just a nice smile to look at as you get your coffee” is just bullshit. If you want to look at a naked woman or a near naked woman, go to a strip club (and the issues there with sex-work and strip clubs is an entire different issue which I won’t get into here). The idea that this type hiring and business practice is in any way acceptable in our society I think indicates just how used to the idea we are of associating women’s bodies and viewing women’s bodies with commodity, with sale and consumption hinged on the almighty dollar (and tip money, as tip money places the buyer in a position of authority over the worker, the “performer” in that sense).
My cousin works at a Barista at the giant coffee corporation. Most people would say she’s an attractive person and as such, she tells me “I always have the most in tips” while her male co-workers do not get much. Now, unlike the Bikini Hut, she actually keeps her clothes on and she has no interaction with the customer beyond saying the name of the drink and then handing it to them. The point is that she’s good looking so she gets tips from dudes that think tipping her more than they usually would (if at all) is going to get them a date or impress her. She does her job and her getting more tip money by virtue of people taking an eye to her is a comment on how we reward beauty with money and attention. She isn’t, however, put into a position by her workplace to blatantly use her body and herself to get more in tips and to attract customers. Are there some who would go out of their way to buy a coffee at the place my cousin works at? I’m sure it’s happened. But unlike the Bikini Hut (where, let’s be real, you’re only going there to look at a woman), she is second fiddle to the company and the product, not the other way around.