Girling

Who cares about gendered restaurants?

It was an interesting comment I got in regard to my last article: “who cares?” Not because it was not necessarily what a writer wants to hear after they publish something, but because it showed me how the way I perceive things isn’t always apparent to others. The article wasn’t about the restaurant. It was about the tendency to assign gender roles to things regardless of if they actually have a gender (or even a sex) at all. It was also about how this tendency goes beyond silly descriptions of restaurants and asks the question of why we do this and what it means for gender equality. 

I think about these things because I’m a gender studies scholar and equity advocate with years of education, research, and interest in the topic. But what about the normal people? You know, the ones who don’t see sexism in a passing comment about a small business. 

I’m not going to pretend to have the answers to any of the questions I pose in this blog. That’s not why I write. I write to share my view of the world and the way that my education and contextual understanding of gender roles, norms, expectations, and dynamics color that view. I hear a passing comment about a restaurant’s gender and I think about how that restaurant might reflect the historical stereotypes associated with that gender. Why was the restaurant feminine and not masculine? Who decides which traits go with which moniker? Pretty academic stuff and probably unfamiliar for the normal people, or rather the people who are simply more interested in asking academic questions about something else. 

But despite that, I hope that Girling can serve as a forum to encourage people to ask those questions anyway, to see everyday occurrences and wonder about how they fit into discussions of sexism and gender equity. That’s what I mean by “feminist reflections on everyday life.” I don’t have the answers, just a perspective that I hope encourages other feminists to reflect on everyday life. It doesn’t need to be judgmental and not everything is bad or sexist (even though it does sometimes feel that way). But, in order to change our reality, we need to first question it. 

Non-men are lower in the social hierarchy in many cultures around the world today because that’s how it’s been for thousands of years. With each notable figure and wave of activism, the movement for gender equality has managed to question reality and demand change. Questioning reality is the first step in the often incremental change that comes from social movements. 

So I present this blog as a medium to share my questions. I present this blog as a place where others can hopefully share their questions as well, and encounter new thoughts and concepts to generate more questions. Should I say ‘question’ one more time? QUESTION!

Maybe no one cares about whether restaurants are gendered. I don’t even know if that was an individual perspective from my former boss or industry standard. But I had to ask.

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