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Restaurant Costumes, Profits, And The Role Of Government

There has been a hot debate swirling in Ontario lately regarding restaurant “uniforms” for women, which in drinking establishments and casual dining restaurants have become highly sexualized.

The argument against such practices centers around the sexualization of women in the workplace, and the fact that their male counterparts do not have to dress in a sexually provocative way to perform the same job function. This not only makes women more vulnerable to sexual harassment but it takes away work opportunities from women who do not wish to wear the uniform.

The argument against government intervening in the matter centers around women being able self select out of that job if they don’t like the uniform, and the fact that the government has no role telling people, or businesses, how long or tight a dress should be. Let women decide with their feet, and keep the government out of it, they say.

I would like to shed some light on this argument by discussing well accepted roles of businesses and government in a capitalist, for-profit system. Namely, I will argue that we can and should expect the government and advocacy groups to intervene when society deems actions of businesses to be immoral or detrimental in some way. I will also add, for clarification, that while the sexualization of women in bars and restaurants may “feel” normal to some, it is exactly what advocacy groups are calling it: Unfair discrimination towards women.

Before I get into the theory of businesses and governments and how they affect the debate, let me address the first part of the status quo argument that women know what they are getting into and can choose not to get into that line of work or establishment. This argument assumes that women know exactly what kind of uniform they will have to wear before they even apply for the job, and that women can, without any pressure or opportunity cost, choose a different job. This falls apart when you think that there aren’t freely available jobs for everyone to choose, otherwise we would not have unemployment. So when an opportunity arises for an unemployed person to work in a restaurant, choosing to keep looking comes at a cost. Secondly, restaurants don’t always disclose their uniform requirements and sometimes change the requirement after the employee has been hired. Men, on the other hand, do not have to consider this choice at all.

The other red flag in the status quo argument is the idea that women are just being asked to wear the establishment’s uniform. Uniform is by definition, well, uniform. If men have to wear slacks and a t-shirt or button down shirt, making female employees wear a sexual costume defies the idea of uniformity.

Imagine if we implemented such a policy outside of a restaurant, such as in a public institution like the Armed Forces or in hospitals. Let’s say that somehow someone could make the argument that skimpy costumes on female employees boosted morale. The argument would be, on it’s face, preposterous.

But why am I making such an outlandish example? Well, because restaurants may argue that their costumes, which only women wear, are part of what they sell and what they must do to maximize profits.

In business, this is called externalizing costs, and most businesses do it to the extent (and sometimes beyond) allowed by law. In this case, the restaurant, when faced with increased competition has two choices to make, invest in improving the product, or cut costs. Creating a better meal or experience for the customer is expensive, so asking female employees to wear revealing outfits pushes the cost of attracting customers down to female employees. The cost in question is the social and monetary cost of discrimination.

This gets me to the second part of my argument: Regardless of what you think about what female employees should or shouldn’t wear in a restaurant, we need institutions outside of private business to advocate for stakeholders such as employees, tax payers, and customers in situations where the interest of these stakeholders are at odds with maximizing business profits.

This is at the basis of a capitalist system, and it was alluded to by Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman back in 1970. Friedman justly argued that in a capitalist system, an agent (ie: a CEO) acting on behalf of shareholders who spends shareholder money in any way that does not maximize profits is in fact unfairly taxing said shareholders without representation. Friedman stated that this is the very reason we pay taxes and have constitutional, parliamentary, and judicial systems. They are responsible for collecting and distributing moneys and creating and administering laws that protect stakeholders who are not the shareholders of the company.

Friedman’s argument has a catch, however. It means that we must empower agents for other stakeholders to set the regulatory and judicial playing field that businesses use to generate profits. You cannot make the argument that businesses should be free to maximize their profits, while at the same time making the argument that government has no role in adjudicating how those profits can be made. Of course governments need to seek a balance of interests among stakeholders where businesses and individuals can flourish, and where we can protect public health, the environment, animals, and so on. But businesses have the means to lobby governments to improve the playing field to their advantage. Individuals should be afforded the same benefit.