The Tipping Point

As a woman who has worked in the food service industry for the past 18 years I have experienced and witnessed the pervasive effects of sexism within this field. The more pleasant I am with customers, the more generous they will be towards me. Indeed, little by little, without realizing it, this irreproachable attitude led me to laugh at degrading jokes, to keep quiet when clients publicly humiliated me, to accept that people call me names like “darling”, “sweetheart”, “honey” etc. Why then do I, someone who strives to defend the values of feminism, accept to be verbally abused? Most of the time, I submit to these unofficial rules out of fatigue, out of a desire to earn a livable wage, and all too often out of discouragement and exhaustion. I am selling a service, a service that implies submission, acceptance of my condition as a woman, and irrevocably complacency with patriarchy. This body of work explores the pervasive issue of sexism in the food service industry through the lens of conceptual art. Using a variety of mediums, including sculpture, installation, and photography, I seek to challenge the viewers assumptions and bring attention to the ways in which gender inequality affects those working in the industry. Through this work, I aim to subvert traditional notions of gender roles and highlight the ways in which they have been perpetuated.