We asked the women of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about a time they experienced subtle sexism. Here are the painful responses, and comments from further posts, related to working in the restaurant industry.
1. "When I was sexually harassed by male customers as a hostess, I felt unsafe so I reported it to my manager. He told me I was 'overreacting' and that the customers were all regular and treated every female staff member like that."
2. "A customer asked if I'd like to hear a dirty joke. He was in his mid-fifties and I was 19. I politely said no thank you. He was silent for the rest of the service, then after he paid, he said 'I hope you can grow a sense of humor one day.'"
3. "I used to work a job where we made breakfast. One day, my coworkers and I had a meeting with the owner about needing to make sure that we dumped our bacon grease into the big bucket and not into the sink. He looked directly at me and said, 'Your husband is not going to enjoy cleaning out the sink drain because you didn’t feel like dumping the grease out.'"
4. "The GM of the bar I worked at decided that only men could bartend."
5. "I work in the kitchen at a restaurant where I have 4+ years of experience and I’m a manager. The amount of times I have trained someone new and explained something, only for them to turn to one of the other guys to second guess me, is wild. It’s so infuriating."
6. "I work at a fast food restaurant with a drive through. It's a well-known fact among our staff that I constantly get hit on by male customers, most of them twice my age or more."
7. "I was a bartender for six years, and men would often say to me, 'You should smile more.' Oh really? Well you should tip more."
8. "I’m a server at a cafe. This one customer relentlessly flirts with me and my coworkers. He often comes in while I'm closing the place alone. He says things like, 'I’m enjoying the view,' or, when I asked him if he needed anything else with his meal, he said, 'Yes, but it’d be inappropriate to say.' He also gave me his number and asked me to take a ride in his van with him. This guy is in his sixties, I’m 16."
9. Plus, "He’s a very big tipper and when you express that you’re uncomfortable, he doesn’t tip at all."
10. So then, "I told my boss (who’s also a woman) and her only response was 'you’ll be fine,' and she walked away."
11. "My old bartender was shocked to hear I may never have kids. He gave me looks of shock, along with 'but you're a woman' comments. I was not expecting that."
12. "The other day I was going to clean up the parking lot and close the drive-thru because that’s my job, and my boss was like, 'No, you’re a woman, I need to protect you.' I was like, 'Mate I can protect myself.'"
13. "One time, I was helping another server. She was struggling and I walked up smiling while she was bringing a table their food and a male customer said something to her like, 'See, she’s smiling, that’s what you should try to do!'"
14. "My co-workers constantly ask me if I’m single and when I say yes, they tell me my biological clock is ticking. Ew."
15. "My sister used to be a waitress and her BOSS, who was a woman, told her and the other female waitresses to be all smiley and give all the attention to the man at the table because he's paying and they’d get bigger tips."
16. "I work on the phone in a pizza place. We’ve had a few drunks call, but the one that stays with me is this dude who sounded old and then drunkenly asked me to go out with him cause he liked my voice. He asked if I would go out with an old guy. I was 16."
17. And finally, "I work at a fast food restaurant and there was a guy who'd come in to order food and put his name down as 'Daddy.' One time when he came in, I was the one that had to hand him his food. I bagged his order before he left the front counter so I wouldn't have to call his name. When I gave him his food he said, 'No, you have to say my name.' I just walked away."
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and clarity.