drinks orders and rape culture

[rivers_bend]

Went out to dinner with a friend last night, and it was great and we decompressed about our shitty day at work and the food was good and what I was craving, but it made me think about a thing that's been bugging me that I couldn't quite put my finger on when I go out to eat.

Our server was perfectly friendly, and brought our food as ordered, and offered us refills of our soda at appropriate times, but he also did the thing. The thing that makes me really uncomfortable. He offered us alcohol when he took our drinks orders. Fine. I said, "I'm driving, so no thank you. I'll have a soda." Why did I give him an excuse? What business is it of his why I don't want a margarita or a beer? Because I have become familiar with what will happen next, and I am trying to find ways to make it not happen.

When he came back with our drinks, he said, "Sure you don't want a shot?" Same thing when he came back with our food. When he offered me a refill, he said something about how he could still bring me a margarita. And it is SO FUCKING CREEPY I WANT TO SCREAM.

Now I appreciate that alcohol has a good markup, and that part of a server's job is to upsell. I don't mind being asked if I am sure I don't want an appetizer, or some guacamole with my chips, or that dessert, but when a man is trying to push booze on a woman who has said she does not want to drink, the whole rape culture that we live in comes in to play. At least for me. And I REALLY SUPER A LOT do not like it. I cannot think of the last time a female server has tried to get me to drink alcohol when I've declined. But I have had male servers BRING ME A DRINK I EXPLICITLY STATED I DID NOT WANT because I "looked like I could use it."

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME.

And it's always bugged me, but I never really put into words in my own head why until last night. I am not the sort of person who feels comfortable explaining rape culture and grossness and creepy behaviour to someone I don't know at all who is trying to do their job. But it would be super great if shit like this could become a more widely spread cultural conversation. And if it could stop.

Comments

[fannishliss.livejournal.com]

It absolutely belongs as part of the wider cultural conversations.

two things:

I live in a college town area where "ladies nights" are just an excuse to get young women falling down drunk. A coalition of women from the town decided to participate in the ladies nights and hang around the bars all evening nursing beers to keep an eye on things. Their stated goal was to discourage these "ladies drink free" nights specifically because of the way it perpetuates rape culture. I think it worked -- the leading bar backed way off on the ladies nights, yay.

second, I see these songs in pop culture perpetuating the idea that "what I did when we were drunk doesn't count" -- and I find that really, really disturbing. It sets up the expectation in the young woman that she should get shitfaced and that nothing that happens to her then is her fault or matters. That bothers me so much.

So yeah, I totally agree with you, and I think that server was WAY out of line. You could go to the manager without naming names. Even just on the principle of designated drivers. For real!!!

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

I have always been irked by ladies nights, for that very reason. There are so many things broken with the messages that we're sending. It never occurred to me to go to the manager because this happens every time I go out to eat. to different degrees, but it seems pretty pervasive here.