# What's the non-American view on the current sexual harassment situation in America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 16, 2017, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614 "2017-12-16T05:51:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/21 "2017-12-16T22:29:28Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > But when you’re in the service industry you experience a lot of those fractions, right? I only recall one incident from my time in the service industries, and that was a manager with wandering hands. We made sure he was never alone with a girl on staff, and we made sure he knew why he was never alone with a girl on staff. …do you honestly think that was good enough? How about reporting the manager and getting him fired? Allowing him to keep working put an unfair burden on everybody else: especially those who were “not allowed to be alone with him.” Is protecting managers with wandering hands a Canadian thing? I just read something on my twitter timeline about a cafe in Auckland. The barista “would kiss all female staff on the neck and hug them.” The staff hated it and complained to the owners. The owners did nothing. So they all resigned. They took a stand. You shouldn’t have to tolerate managers with wandering hands. You are every bit part of the problem. > [@](#): > > The OP asks the impression of non-Americans, and that’s my impression. There are mashers bounders and cads everywhere, but I would be very surprised to learn that sexual harassment is as rampant here as it apparently is in the US, just as I would be very surprised if the homicide rate was as high here as in the US. The thing is your impression of sexual harassment in restaurants in the United States is so cartoonish that it deserves to be called out. You initially said “Apparently waitresses, f’rinstance, in the US expect to be harassed and groped and leered at by customers and management alike. It comes with the territory.” When challenged on this your response was “Nearly every bar and restaurant I’ve ever been in has been in Canada, and I’ve never seen a waitress groped or slapped on the bum.” Do you think that in the US if you went to a typical restaurant you would witness a waitress getting groped or slapped on the bum? How is all of this groping and leering happening in America? What do you imagine is happening? You don’t think that maybe the groping and the slapping and the leering is happening in a way that you wouldn’t notice? That you helped enable a sexual harasser just goes to show that maybe things aren’t as different where you live than it is everywhere else. I live in New Zealand, I’m a male who worked in hospitality at the senior levels for over 15 years, and I didn’t see any groping or bum slapping either. But I’m not going to pretend that we don’t have a problem here, and I’m not going to pretend that we are any better than the folks in the US. And you shouldn’t be doing that either. > [@](#): > > But this is all based on my impression, and I may be wrong. I have no doubt that you are. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/22 "2017-12-16T23:12:16Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …do you honestly think that was good enough? > > How about reporting the manager and getting him fired? Allowing him to keep working put an unfair burden on everybody else: especially those who were “not allowed to be alone with him.” Of course he was reported. I don’t know why he wasn’t fired, I was a sixteen year old kid and Not In Charge. That’s why we (a bunch of kids at a Wendy’s) made sure the creep wasn’t left alone with anyone. And he knew why too. He was a pig, we all knew it, and he knew we all knew it. > [@](#): > > Do you think that in the US if you went to a typical restaurant you would witness a waitress getting groped or slapped on the bum? Yes, if I sat there sipping coffee long enough. This is because numerous women in the service industry have told me I would. You want to disagree, disagree with them. I don’t appreciate being told I enable sexual predators, so this conversation is over. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/23 "2017-12-16T23:29:21Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > Of course he was reported. I don’t know why he wasn’t fired, I was a sixteen year old kid and Not In Charge. That’s why we (a bunch of kids at a Wendy’s) made sure the creep wasn’t left alone with anyone. And he knew why too. He was a pig, we all knew it, and he knew we all knew it. …what do you mean “of course it was reported?” How was I supposed to have known that? You’ve buried the lede. That you reported it and nothing was done is the most significant part of your story. So apparently in Canada you can report sexual harassment and nothing will get done about it. How is this so different from anywhere else in the world? > [@](#): > > Yes, if I sat there sipping coffee long enough. This is because numerous women in the service industry have told me I would. You want to disagree, disagree with them. This is the first time that you’ve stated that your opinions were formed by the “numerous women in the service industry” and not just from “things you heard”. Were these women that worked in the service industry representative of the entire United States? Do you think if you sat at a restaurant in Canada long enough you would see some groping and some bum slapping as well? > [@](#): > > I don’t appreciate being told I enable sexual predators, so this conversation is over. BYE! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/24 "2017-12-16T23:30:15Z")
In all my years in the U.S., the closest I’ve ever seen to a customer getting too personal with a customer was once when I saw a customer ask a waitress who he had never met before if she would go on a date with him. She said no. That was the end of it. I suspect that being harassed a lot for an American waitress is at least once a week. That’s too much, but it doesn’t mean that everybody will notice how much they are harassed. Also, I suspect that the amount of harassment depends on the type of restaurant and the type of customers. A sports bar in a college town is probably going to get a lot more cases of waitress harassment than a restaurant in a big city serving the latest hip exotic cuisine to customers who are at least middle-aged and more likely old. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/25 "2017-12-16T23:42:34Z")
My apologies about the obvious mistake in the first version of this post. In all my years in the U.S., the closest I’ve ever seen to a customer getting too personal with a waitress was once when I saw a customer ask a waitress who he had never met before if she would go on a date with him. She said no. That was the end of it. I suspect that being harassed a lot for an American waitress would mean at least once a week. That’s too much, but it doesn’t mean that everybody will notice how much they are harassed. Also, I suspect that the amount of harassment depends on the type of restaurant and the type of customers. A sports bar in a college town is probably going to get a lot more cases of waitress harassment than a restaurant in a big city serving the latest hip exotic cuisine to customers who are at least middle-aged and more likely old. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2017, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/26 "2017-12-16T23:52:58Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I would be very surprised to learn that sexual harassment is as rampant here as it apparently is in the US, just as I would be very surprised if the homicide rate was as high here as in the US. But this is all based on my impression, and I may be wrong. The difference in homicides is almost completely explained by the number of guns, particularly handguns. This is why a family argument sometimes ends in a death instead of a slap-fight. I haven’t heard of an epidemic of men’s hands being cut off, but that’s based on my impression. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/27 "2017-12-17T03:32:55Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > My apologies about the obvious mistake in the first version of this post. > > In all my years in the U.S., the closest I’ve ever seen to a customer getting too personal with a waitress was once when I saw a customer ask a waitress who he had never met before if she would go on a date with him. She said no. That was the end of it. I suspect that being harassed a lot for an American waitress would mean at least once a week. That’s too much, but it doesn’t mean that everybody will notice how much they are harassed. Also, I suspect that the amount of harassment depends on the type of restaurant and the type of customers. A sports bar in a college town is probably going to get a lot more cases of waitress harassment than a restaurant in a big city serving the latest hip exotic cuisine to customers who are at least middle-aged and more likely old. Buddy, if you are a man, you won’t see 99% of the harassment of women. So your point of view ain’t worth anything. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/28 "2017-12-17T03:42:48Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Buddy, if you are a man, you won’t see 99% of the harassment of women. So your point of view ain’t worth anything. Nothing personal. It’s the thing men always say about harassment of women. They can’t believe something is so ubiquitous and yet they’ve hardly ever observed it. And women can’t be believed, so it can’t be true. That can get irritating over time. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/29 "2017-12-17T05:29:56Z")
I would never remotely say that women can’t be believed. What I was saying is almost the opposite of what you think I was saying. I was saying that I had never seen any man getting personal with a woman beyond (I think) one guy thinking that because his waitress was pretty he had the right to ask her for a date. I’ve never seen a customer touch a waitress or make sexually suggestive comments. Of course I know that there’s a lot going on that I have never seen. This is partly because I don’t go to the kind of restaurants where harassment is most common. I was commenting on the posters who say that they didn’t see harassment in the one visit to a restaurant, so it must not happen at all. I was saying that for women who say that there is constant harassment, that sometimes means that it happens once a week, but of course it’s often much more common. And let me make it clear, even once a week is too much. Anybody who sexually harasses a waitress should be at least warned the first time and tossed out on the second time. That’s only if the first time might possibly be ambiguous. If the first time it’s obviously harassment, he should be tossed out the first time it happens. For that matter, if he did something that he can clearly be arrested for, he should be arrested. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/30 "2017-12-17T14:45:39Z")
> [@HelenGawn](#): > > The difference in homicides is almost completely explained by the number of guns, particularly handguns. This is why a family argument sometimes ends in a death instead of a slap-fight. > > I haven’t heard of an epidemic of men’s hands being cut off, but that’s based on my impression. I don’t believe lack of access to firepower is the major reason Canadians don’t kill each other off at the same rate as Americans. If people wanted to grab a rifle and start sniping, they could. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/31 "2017-12-17T14:52:52Z")
“Sniping” with a rifle makes big headlines but that accounts for a small fraction of the homicides in the US. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/32 "2017-12-17T15:12:20Z")
I’m aware of the statistics, thank you. I’m also aware of the link between crime and poverty. I’m not aware of anything that supports the claim that the difference between homicide rates is “almost completely” explained by our lack of access to guns. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/33 "2017-12-17T16:34:21Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I don’t believe lack of access to firepower is the major reason Canadians don’t kill each other off at the same rate as Americans. If people wanted to grab a rifle and start sniping, they could. > [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I’m aware of the statistics, thank you. You’d never know from your post (above). We can’t read your mind, we can only read your posts. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/34 "2017-12-17T17:21:40Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > When two Canadians bump into each other they both apologize so I would expect such incidences to be less common here, but I also expect and hope that women who have been sexually assaulted will be more willing to say so; trends move north. Americans are not getting worked up over something that isn’t a big deal, this is a very big deal. I’m pretty stunned at the stories I’m hearing, and not just from celebrities. Apparently waitresses, f’rinstance, in the US expect to be harassed and groped and leered at by customers and management alike. It comes with the territory. Boobgate ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/35 "2017-12-17T19:05:25Z")
My view from the UK is that now American women have their men by the balls and they’re not going to let go any time soon. Which considering all the centuries that they’ve been grabbed by the pussy is as just as it is fitting. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/36 "2017-12-17T19:07:13Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > My view from the UK is that now American women have their men by the balls and they’re not going to let go any time soon. Which considering all the centuries that they’ve been grabbed by the pussy is as just as it is fitting. [Well, cover your nuts.](http://www.newsweek.com/metoo-politics-britain-parliament-698906) ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/37 "2017-12-17T19:24:53Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I would never remotely say that women can’t be believed. What I was saying is almost the opposite of what you think I was saying. I was saying that I had never seen any man getting personal with a woman beyond (I think) one guy thinking that because his waitress was pretty he had the right to ask her for a date. I’ve never seen a customer touch a waitress or make sexually suggestive comments. Of course I know that there’s a lot going on that I have never seen. This is partly because I don’t go to the kind of restaurants where harassment is most common. I was commenting on the posters who say that they didn’t see harassment in the one visit to a restaurant, so it must not happen at all. I was saying that for women who say that there is constant harassment, that sometimes means that it happens once a week, but of course it’s often much more common. And let me make it clear, even once a week is too much. Anybody who sexually harasses a waitress should be at least warned the first time and tossed out on the second time. That’s only if the first time might possibly be ambiguous. If the first time it’s obviously harassment, he should be tossed out the first time it happens. For that matter, if he did something that he can clearly be arrested for, he should be arrested. Actually it is common in all restaurants, pretty much. It’s ubiquitous, it’s everywhere. And apparently, it is almost completely invisible to men. Some places are worse than others of course. Your imagined “probably once a week” is wishful thinking. I’ve heard plenty of stories from waitresses of men who would make it a point to sit at their table every single day just to be able to harass them. Part of the enjoyment of their lunch. Your idea of policing is, to be honest, a little silly, in our culture. Who is going to warn them? Who is going to toss them? The reality of the restaurant world, just for one, is that waitresses have to suck it up, they need the job and the restaurant needs the customers. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/38 "2017-12-18T02:29:10Z")
How do you know that it’s common in all restaurants? Show me some evidence. How can you make such a claim? Have you surveyed a lot of restaurants? Have you read some academic studies showing that it’s true? Or are you just going by some vague claim that you’ve heard somewhere? It’s possible to believe that men notice harassment less than women do without claiming that men are so incredibly stupid that they virtually never notice it. So what do you propose to do about it? You say that my suggestion that any man who does it should be banned from the restaurant the first time or at least the second time he does it isn’t workable. You say that my suggestion that cases that could be handled by the police wouldn’t work. So what do you propose to do? Are you saying that women just have to accept it? What do you do then? Why don’t women who have suffered harassment as a waitress start a national movement to do something about it? It seems to be working at least somewhat in the Harvey Weinstein case and the other cases that have come up recently. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/39 "2017-12-18T05:39:49Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > How do you know that it’s common in all restaurants? Show me some evidence. How can you make such a claim? Have you surveyed a lot of restaurants? Have you read some academic studies showing that it’s true? Or are you just going by some vague claim that you’ve heard somewhere? It’s possible to believe that men notice harassment less than women do without claiming that men are so incredibly stupid that they virtually never notice it. > > So what do you propose to do about it? You say that my suggestion that any man who does it should be banned from the restaurant the first time or at least the second time he does it isn’t workable. You say that my suggestion that cases that could be handled by the police wouldn’t work. So what do you propose to do? Are you saying that women just have to accept it? What do you do then? Why don’t women who have suffered harassment as a waitress start a national movement to do something about it? It seems to be working at least somewhat in the Harvey Weinstein case and the other cases that have come up recently. I’m aware your comments weren’t addressed to me, but allow me to show you evidence that it’s common. In 2014, the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, an advocacy group for restaurant workers, surveyed over 5,000 workers around the country, including tipped workers, both male and female. [According to the ROCUnited report](http://rocunited.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/REPORT_TheGlassFloor_Sexual-Harassment-in-the-Restaurant-Industry.pdf), 52% of female tipped workers reported sexual harassment AT LEAST once a week. Note that that is not an average: once a week was the minimum. The survey deliberately avoided the term vague term “sexual harassment” in favor of more specific descriptors: verbal suggestions, physical contact, etc. On a slightly different note, the report makes it clear that tipped workers in the restaurant industry do NOT simply accept such behaviors as the status quo. Talk to waitstaff, and you can see that for yourself. (Obviously, don’t talk to them at work.) I posted on another thread on this that two aunts of mine were waitresses, and the pinches and remarks angered them. But when you receive sub-minimum wage and count on tips to survive, and when management has a vested interest in pleasing the customer, you can’t complain. But customers aren’t the only group who harasses waitstaff: management and coworkers do so, too. I wonder if this means the entitlement customers feel to sexually harass waitstaff, particularly women, spills over into these other groups as well. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2017, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-non-american-view-on-the-current-sexual-harassment-situation-in-america/804614/40 "2017-12-18T06:13:08Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > Possibly, and if so I’ll express my surprise. But elbow room is a natural resource here, some families pass it down through generations. Nearly every bar and restaurant I’ve ever been in has been in Canada, and I’ve never seen a waitress groped or slapped on the bum. It’s not a “just locker room talk, everyone does it” casual thing, I have never seen it happen. Not as a customer, not as a kid working first the grill at a Wendy’s and then a line cook elsewhere, not as an engineering student familiar with all the bars within 10km of campus. I’m sure it happens, I’d be shocked to learn it’s rampant. I don’t doubt drunk people say things they shouldn’t say thinking they’re being funny and flirty, though. > > If it turns out that people in the halls of corporate or governmental power are just as slimy just as often here as elsewhere, well, I have to admit I’d be surprised at that as well. I haven’t traveled a lot in the US, but when I have, on business and not, I’ve noticed that Americans are a lot more likely to get in my space than I’m used to. So there’s definitely something different here about such things. > > As for boorishness, well, I know how to keep my hands on the ends of my wrists where they belong. I’m quite fond of Canada and used to travel to Alberta frequently when I lived close to the U.S.-Canadian border. I think, though, that regardless of country, all of us are prone to generalizing based on our limited experiences, especially when we’re arguing against something we don’t want to be true. It turns out Canadian waitresses are also harassed, I’m sorry to report, and it doesn’t seem like a terribly uncommon occurrence. See[this story](https://globalnews.ca/news/3240168/female-servers-are-vulnerable-to-sexual-harassment-on-the-job-uvic-researcher/): > [@](#): > > Female servers have to put up with a lot of sexual harassment on the job, according to new research out of Victoria. > > “I heard stories about having to listen to a customer talk about their sex life, having to listen to sexist jokes or innuendo, sometimes even inappropriate touching,” University of Victoria PHD candidate Kaitlyn Matulewicz said. > > Matulewicz gathered these stories from current and former servers as part of her research project. She found low wages and a dependence on tips makes some female servers more vulnerable to sexual harassment from customers and colleagues… > …“I’ve seen other girls too who’ve taken like their hand being grabbed and like smacks on the butt just to put up with it and see if they get a tip out of it… And you don’t know what your hours are either so you can’t rely on your hours so you have to rely on your tables being good tippers,” Jill Cook, who worked as a server for close to 10 years, said. > > Kristyn Alger, who worked as a server for more than five years, has similar stories of appalling work environments. > > “You’re terrified to go and say anything just because then you have the risk of being let go, or just not having the good shifts, being the black sheep of the staff,” Alger said. And then there’s this from[Foodservice and Hospitality](http://www.foodserviceandhospitality.com/how-is-the-restaurant-industry-dealing-with-sexual-harassment-in-the-kitchen/): > [@](#): > > It’s difficult to get a handle on exactly how big a problem sexual harassment is in the restaurant industry. The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal agency doesn’t track complaints such as Burnham’s, but assistant registrar Arshad Alli speculates that based on the numbers that are tracked, there are between 10 and 25 sexual assault cases in the hospitality industry each year. If that’s accurate, Alli said those figures haven’t changed very much in the past several years. > > Shivani Marx, director of HR, Drake Hotels Properties and general manager at Toronto’s Drake Hotel concurs. “I’ve had HR roles in several sectors, from financial services, not-for-profit arts to hospitality, and have found that across the board, reporting rates of such behaviour is very low. This makes it hard to decipher the prevalence.” > > For this reason, these numbers do not begin to capture the extent of the problem — not only because the problem may be very significant (which is difficult to determine, objectively) but because the problem itself suppresses discussion. According to the Ontario Women’s Directorate, a Toronto-based government agency, 90 per cent of sexual assaults perpetrated by someone other than a spouse (such as, a colleague) are not reported to the police. There are a number of reasons for this but, ultimately, it boils down to the fact that most women feel ashamed and stigmatized by speaking out. When a male employee is being harassed, that fear of stigmatization also comes into play. 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