My daughter was a bartender. Like me, she had to endure the gropers

I was a waitress back in the days before the internet, and remember (not with any fondness) the leering comments, the sexual innuendos and the incessant touching – when passing plates, passing on the stairs, filling a wine glass.

But that was then. My daughter, now 24, has found herself doing the same jobs, some decades on. Nothing has changed. Seriously. If anything – despite the #MeToo movement and the decades of feminism that separates hers and my “hospo” jobs, there remains a 1980s tolerance of bad behaviour in the hospitality industry.

It’s a low bar that can still be tolerated in the hospitality industry.Credit: iStock

There’s the assumption that chefs (as the apex predator in the kitchen) can bully and yell and belittle. There’s the manager who is still most likely to be male and who controls how and when someone is rostered on, and favours those who don’t complain about bad behaviour.

As I said – nothing new there. But when my daughter was sexually harassed, continually, at her workplace, I thought the world had moved on. That the dinosaur who pushed himself up against her, time and again, had not moved with that world. I encouraged her to contact her union, which quite frankly was useless. Its advice: go see a lawyer and here’s someone we recommend; the first hour is free. That first hour was spent with my daughter retelling the solicitor what she’d already been asked to document in an email. The advice only came once the clock started ticking.

I didn’t have the nous to see a lawyer in the 1980s when harassment was expected and endured. I naturally assumed the “protections” introduced since would do just that for my daughter – offer protection – in a decade when women have supposedly found their voice calling out harassment. When that didn’t happen, it just made me want to weep.

I have been to some of those bars in Sydney that are now the focus of serious complaints of harassment and assault, and I must admit that the paucity of women behind the bar did seem strange to me. The mood wasn’t blokey. At all. But there was a sense of entitlement that young men in Sydney seem to have. It wasn’t until I read the appalling stories in The Sydney Morning Herald this week that I realised what exactly those men/boys felt entitled to.

It’s been said before. The #MeToo movement – brought to the world’s attention by certainly brave female actors who called out bad behaviour in the movie industry – has yet to filter down to the women who work in industries marked by poor pay, casual rates and male-centric management.

There will be much debate about how we must teach our sons to be better; to change the way we talk about sexist behaviour. And that, of course, is all true. But until we have easily accessible means by which we can call out this behaviour – including unions that take it seriously and support members in addressing it, and a legal system that genuinely helps women who want to stand up to harassment – then it will simply continue.

My daughter. My strong, feminist, heart-filled daughter wanted to ensure the creep who shoved her up against a bar, many, many times, would be punished and prevented from doing the same to the next group of female waiters and bar staff. Instead, she had to leave the restaurant, her shifts cut to almost none while management muttered that she’d brought all this on herself.

It shouldn’t be left to journalists to be the last, and only, means by which sexual harassment in the hospitality industry (and many others) is outed. If I have a granddaughter, I truly hope the “system” is better for her. I’m really not so sure that wish will be granted.

Tania Ewing is a freelance writer.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.