The Restaurant
By Joycelyn Hwang
This blog is about my perception of a simple conversation that my boyfriend and I experienced at a restaurant, and the gendering powers revealed through subtle body language and eye contact by the server. I was eating dinner today with my boyfriend at a restaurant that we regularly visit from time to time. We ordered a dish that we’ve had before but this time, it tasted very different and somewhat unsatisfying. Nonetheless, we finished the dinner and was ready to get the bill. As a regular customer, I decided to engage a conversation with the owner to inquire if maybe they might have replaced the old chef. He answered me politely saying that the chef was still the same, but soon realized the food I was complaining about was slightly different from the food that we actually ate resulting to our dissatisfaction. The waiter must have served us the wrong food. Within this brief social transaction, the interesting thing (I noticed) is that although I maintained eye contact with this fellow, I seemingly noticed him glancing more and more towards my boyfriend in acknowledgement of his presence. He continued to talk about the mix up and about his honest restaurant business mainly to my boyfriend, then eventually apologized whilst still looking at him for serving us the wrong dish. All this time, my boyfriend hadn’t said a word, he only nodded in agreement. I tried to regain my presence here and said “Of course, it was no problemÖ” earning his eye contact towards me again and continued “that I was only relieved to know that my dissatisfaction was towards a food mix up.” He confirmed and eventually apologized again. At this point, he thought about the situation, then he looked at my boyfriend and said he will rectify this problem by packing up the correct meal for us – free of charge. And the exchange of conversation was over after we thanked him.
This is very subtle illustration that stuck out in my eyes as Genderism and the Women’s Double Bind . Even though I started the conversation with all my ability to be civil – somehow the waiter found it important not only to recognize and respect my dinner partner as being “the man of the table”, but also felt it necessary to rectify the problem under my boyfriend’s consent. Although I was never ignored during this conversation, I felt like there was no real autonomy given on my part. This experience made me realize that even such a common place like a restaurants reinforce our gender identities. If you think about it: New couples often choose restaurants to play out these roles when they get to know each other, and sometimes its fun but the point is that this place allows gender roles to be constructed and played out in the relationship. I wonder if the waiter would have been different in conducting his apology had I been eating with a woman. The double bind that I experienced is when the owner neglected my leadership in the conversation. As a woman, there are moments when I try to speak out bolder, be more aggressive or stronger (an image that is not stereotypically feminine) are often not rewarding experiences. Gender influencing powers exists in all sorts of forms in various places.
Surely, people go through similar experiences repeatedly in day to day social transactions that reinforce performances of gender identities. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed this had I not been more aware about gendered places and how it socially constructs all of us.
Sex and the City 