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| yeah daria |
This Saturday, I got my hair did. I've been going to the same salon for a while (I mentioned previously my shock that my stylist wanted fake breasts), and have a great relationship with my stylist. She knows what I like hair-wise, remembers things about my boyfriend and background, and is really funny. I like her a lot, as a service provider and as a person.
Which is why I get really upset about people who don't tip, or tip poorly, or talk nasty to their stylist.
I'm not saying anything revolutionary that BeautySchooled hasn't addressed (and surely more eloquently), but I am just perpetually shocked at what people think is acceptable in terms of treating salon workers. Or anyone who works and relies primarily on tips to get by. But because workers in the beauty industry are so overwhelmingly female, this is a gendered issue and it's also a great way to put your money where your mouth is...and your feminist walk behind your talk (too many idioms?).
Treating (badly paid) women workers well isn't just feminism, it's just damn polite and the right thing to do. As a consumer, the way you use your money and the issues you bring to the attention of business owners really matter.
Do you get mad when people tip badly? Or are you yourself a bad tipper (does anyone actually think they are)?
Much love,
The Sheriff
After working in a service industry and watching my coworkers struggle day after day to make their tips, and then having to split them, barely walking away with enough to buy dinner, I now have a very hard time when I see people tip poorly or not at all. I was a notoriously bad tipper, mostly because I didn't know any better. I didn't know what was a reasonable tip for a hair dresser or server at a restaurant. Now I find myself overtipping to compensate for those people that don't. I could never speak to a server of hair dresser the way that I was spoken to when I worked at a restaurant.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with you, Sheriff, not about the treating your stylist well, but about this being a gendered issue. Courtesy and politeness are not gendered issues, but rather common decency issues.
ReplyDeleteI have worked in the service industry for almost two years, the second half of that in a position where I make $2.15 an hour and rely almost entirely on tips for my paycheck. Fortunately, I have run into very few rude people, but I have had far too many instances of being tipped 10% or less, and it is extremely frustrating, even more so for my friends and coworkers who I know scrape together every penny to be able to pay their rent. If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to go out. If you can afford to tip well but you don't, you don't deserve to breathe.
But to say that it is a gendered issue gives feminist haters an excuse to say "feminists are spoiled brats! They claim they want equality but what they really want is special treatment." They make this same argument when they talk about chivalry, and how every time they compliment a woman, or hold a door open for a woman, they get screamed at. I have never gotten a negative reaction for holding the door for someone; and I use the phrase someone because I hold the door open for everyone! Men and women (not children, though; it's too hilarious to watch them slam into the door...). I think that if we stop thinking of things like tipping and politeness as feminist issues, and think of them as "everybody should treat everybody else as if they were human beings rather than annoyances or slaves" we would get a lot less crap from feminist-haters.
I notice the nice people generally tip well--although there is one very rude gentleman who comes into my work who tips well (no doubt to give himself an excuse to be rude; "I tip them generously so I can treat them any way I want").
ReplyDeleteAlso, this kind of moves away from the tipping issue, but I think it's closely related. As a barista, I'm constantly shocked and dismayed at how incredibly rude people will be to me and my coworkers--people who are no doubt otherwise decent humans who would never DREAM of treating their friends or family that way. o_O
Tom--I'm not saying poor pay is solely a gendered issue, but in the salon industry, it sure is. The restaurant industry is definitely more mixed in terms of gender, but I've seen maybe three male hairdressers in my life, and that's what I was addressing today.
ReplyDeleteSheriff---True. The health/beauty subset of the service industry is certainly far less gender-balanced than the restaurant subset. What, then, does it say about this issue that the vast majority of customers at salons are women?
ReplyDeleteTom-Damn, good question!
ReplyDeleteI think it's also one of those questions that involves a lot more than gender (doesn't everything?). Perhaps if they're middle class and always have been, they don't know how much tips matter to someone making an hourly wage. Or they might be splurging and busting the budget as it is to get a salon service done, and don't really have the money for a tip on top of that (but I agree that if you can't afford an adequate tip, you can't afford the service/meal!).
Also, it says that some people are jerks. Or ignorant.