By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A legal analysis in Canada of their anti-discrimination laws indicates that discrimination might occur if women are to wear revealing clothing and men are not similarly attired.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held that a dress code requiring a waitress to wear a bikini top during a nightclub’s Hawai’ian themed event was discriminatory because men were not required to wear a male specific analog of her clothing.
The tribunal awarded Andrea Mottu C$6,000 in 2004.
In their ruling the nightclub then had greatly differing rules concerning male and female employees. Men were not required to wear revealing clothing, or gender specific clothing which had potentially sexual connotations. Women were to wear such revealing attire.
While these types of employee uniforms are common in some venues throughout the United States and Canada, several legal professionals are debating if this generally could be cause for action against employers.
Geoffrey Howard, a partner with Gowling, Lafleur, Henderson, LLP stated in an interview with CBC News:
“Where an outfit sexualizes the employee, whether it be male or female, there can be … successful claims that [are ruled] a form of sexual discrimination.”
Bettina Burgess, also of Gowling, said that either gender may have its own specific dress code but they must be of a similar fashion to avoid discrimination torts.
“[Dress codes] should be equal, they should be somewhat similar, but in accordance with what you would traditionally think a dress code would be for a male.”
In that respect if a woman is required to wear a bikini, men must also wear attires such beach clothing. As odd as this might seem, it does follow along an extension of what has become of anti-discrimination law statutory interpretation.
However, according to Howard, these cases are more on the “borderline,” and may be harder to win than a situation involving a piece of clothing with sexual connotations, as in Mottu’s case.
In most respects the decision is a matter of interpretation and not clearly defined.
Interim CEO of Canada Restaurants, Donna Dooher, indicated her association members and their employees have difficulty in determining what would constitute a permitted dress code.
She believes that prospective employees are made aware of the dress code before they are offered employment and that if they are concerned they should voice this during their interview.
Her argument likely will have weight in any future tort prosecuted against an employer. A plaintiff employee would have significant difficulty convincing a jury she was unlawfully required to wear low cut bikinis at Hooter’s Restaurant when it is common knowledge and obvious that this will be the dress attire among the servers. But, if a restaurant changes its attire from a more conventional uniform to a uniform style akin to that of a Hooter’s, the weight might shift to the employee.
A possibility if the matter comes to litigation in the United States some restaurants could potentially skirt the dress code problem by employing the servers as actors or entertainers portraying characters of a particular theme or story and that their performance is one of adhering to that role.
While such regulations might enjoy support among some, it could otherwise have a chilling effect on bikini bars and other businesses. It would be rather unfortunate to whittle down to the safest, most bland, most boring and old fashioned morals of the past. But there will always be those who will find loopholes and flaunt the law.
By Darren Smith
Source: CBC News
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
“Here’s a rule I gave our daughter. If a date treats the wait staff badly, DUMP HIM! ”
Agree on that Nick. You can tell a lot about person by how they treat people they don’t have to be nice to.
Here’s a rule I gave our daughter. If a date treats the wait staff badly, DUMP HIM! As bad as that tweaker waitress was, I treated her w/ respect.
If you want to see titties, go to a titty bar. If you want good food, go to a place where you don’t even notice what the wait staff is wearing. T-shirt and jeans is fine if the food and service is good. Having worked in the restaurant biz, and being a lover of good food and service, here are a few tips. If a server tells you their name, and wants to know yours, get up a go to another place. If a server always announces what they are going to do, they probably won’t do it. We went to a restaurant in Long Beach last week. The waitress was a meth head, literally. She was one of the worst ever. But, I still gave her 15%, which is very low for me. I usually tip 25-35%. This woman came up to me as I left and was so thankful. She must get stiffed often. I just felt sorry for her. She must have weighed 90lbs. and had those meth teeth.
At this happened at a night club. Who joins a night club staff and expects to be given a full dress uniform?
At my age, I’d rather have homely waitresses and good food but why not just recognize reality? Most men like looking at good looking women and will even put up with mediocre food to do it.
I’ve never been to a Hooters restaurant either. If a restaurant is all about perception, chances are the food won’t be that good.
Never been to a Hooters for that very reason, Haz.
Lipstick on an underdone pig.
The Lefties like to call evangelicals the “American Taliban”, but the left has its own code of compliance.
Certain groups in our society seem determined to impose their mores on the rest of us.
Go away – quit bugging me with your petty concerns.
In my experience, the more skin a restaurant requires a waitress to show, the crappier the food is. I avoid those places like the plague.
The Memories Pizza witch hunt and now this dress code lawsuit brings to mind the Maoist Cultural Revolution, and their mobbing of dissenters or those insufficiently enthusiastic.
http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/programs/special/images/zicheng_000_000.jpg
It is a slippery slope, leading to ridiculous, Sharia-style, micromanaging assessments of what clothing is “sexualized”, what is allowed and what is prohibited; the only difference is the legalized style of Western law vs Mid-East law.
The motivation is the same — control how others are allowed to express themselves in public, in this case via the clothing they wear.
If govt would just GTF out of controlling social mores, moral legislation and ever tighter control over what we do and how we do it, stupid crap like this would not be even be a controversy.
We are moving toward a world of total corporate conformity, with dress codes and restricted speech and forbidden religions.
This total corporate conformity will be demanded of every business and store, no differences allowed.
It’s the 1950s IBM approach, gone national.
I agree this was unfair, but a lawsuit?
Why not just quit and tell people not to go there?
They lose good employees and keep the bad ones?
But all must conform.
Pogo Hears a Who
We are moving toward a world of total corporate conformity, with dress codes and restricted speech and forbidden religions.
This total corporate conformity will be demanded of every business and store, no differences allowed.
It’s the 1950s IBM approach, gone national.
I agree this was unfair, but a lawsuit?
Why not just quit and tell people not to go there?
They lose good employees and keep the bad ones?
But all must conform.
Well – You know – Barkin Dog usually does this but this is getting so darn pathetic I can’t stand it
And the sign said “Long-haired freaky people need not apply”
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said “You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you’ll do”
So I took off my hat, I said “Imagine that. Huh! Me workin’ for you!”
Whoa-oh-oh
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?
And the sign said anybody caught trespassin’ would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and-a yelled at the house, “Hey! What gives you the right?”
“To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in”
“If God was here he’d tell you to your face, Man, you’re some kinda sinner”
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?
Now, hey you, mister, can’t you read?
You’ve got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can’t even watch, no you can’t eat
You ain’t supposed to be here
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside
Ugh!
[Lead Guitar]
And the sign said, “Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray”
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn’t have a penny to pay
So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, “Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me. I’m alive and doin’ fine.”
Wooo!
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Sign
Sign, sign
😉
I once ate at an establishment where the waitresses wore a kilt that almost revealed their pubic hairs and did reveal the crack in their backside. Personally, I am not interested in eating food served to me from someone whose personal hygiene I am not sure of.
Having women parade around in such a fashion, should not demand that waiters be demeaned and brought down to such a level, also. What should be happening is that the level of attire be brought up a level and waitresses should not have to serve food in such skimmy attire. If you need to have a woman serve you in skimmy attire – consider eating at home, eh?
We have a natural right to discriminate. Our mommy and daddy government
should just get out of the way and stop controlling the people. The people
can solve their own problems among themselves. With discrimination laws there will always be a boon for lawyers and a bane for employers. We should
not have any protected groups in America. These stupid laws only make criminals out of everyday working people. Our mommy and daddy government
always treats us like children. Don’t congress have bigger fish to fry?
What if it is a “bent bar” in say NYC? The bar caters to gay men. Yet the bar hires women to do all tasks which men are hired to do. However, the bar wishes to cater to the bent guys and requires the male bartenders to wear bow ties but no shirts. The women can dress like Carmen Miranda or a nun. Would the men bartenders have a claim for sex discrimination?
What if they only hired bent men to work the bartending jobs?
What if a straight bar which catered to men refused to hire gay women to be bartenders no matter what they agreed to wear?
What if you were legal counsel for a company which owned: 1) a gay men’s bar; 2) a gay womens’ bar; 3) a straight bar catering to both sexes; and 4) a straight bar catering to men generally? Think of the problems if you had the employees of the four bars intermingling. What if several of them belonged to Christian Mingle?
I wonder if Christian Mingle would allow two bent males to participate.
What if it is a legal cathouse in Nevada and a cat women decides that she is bent and does not want to service men? Or what if it is a legal cathouse in Nevada and the cat women will pork men but refuses to wear the nun outfit which the cathouse requires for a certain segment of their customers?
Gosh, think of all the wrinkles which the Supreme Court will be handling on these topics someday. I can imagine the discussion off record between Nito and Ruth.
This is Canada. Which used to be spelled “CND”. A very young citizen of that country who was just learning how to spell once asked his neighbor how to spell the name of the country and was told “CND”. He then said ” C, eh ? N, eh ? D, eh? And the rest is history.
Just look at her. lololol. I would say the Object is relatively subjective as in she is a legend in her own mind. lolol 😉
I am glad I am at an age when I could care less about something like this. Why can’t we face reality and just admit guys are usually wired to look at girls dressed skimpily as often as humanly possible and will pay to do it? It is enjoyable for them and hurts no one.
It is normal for a waitress to be objectified. It is what they are paid for in lots of restaurants and not their brains. 😉
The world is surely losing its mind. This is the latest step towards it.
Good article! Under these circumstances, I think Mottu should have won. She was being sexually objectified because she was a woman, while the dudes were not required to sexually debase themselves. Now, when it comes to Hooters, then the chicks know what they are getting into from the get go.
What would have worked better for Mottu, is if management had given the girls (and boys) a chance, and said, “Hey, it’s Hawaiian night so if you want to wear a bikini top, or other swimwear, then OK. Most of them (at least the good looking ones) probably would have opted for the tops in order to increase their tips.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter