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Abstract
Although research on restaurants has spiked in the last 30 years, most studies do not place attention to the employees. In other words, they spotlight the customers, the tips, the organisational space, the types of foods and cuisines, management practices and policy changes, globalisation, or commodification. This study improves the comprehension of how men employed in non-professional pink collar trades particularly those waitering in family restaurants, coffee shops and tea rooms perceive themselves and how their gender identities are created in and out of the workplace. Waitering in family restaurants, coffee shops and tea rooms has traditionally regarded as women’s work. Therefore, this dissertation demonstrates what happens when socially constructed gender restrictions are opposed. The central research question was: What are the experiences of men in non-professional pink collar trades in South Africa?
To respond to the research question, data was collected through semi structured in-depth interviews. Fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted with men working as waitrons in Auckland Park, Melville and Cresta in Johannesburg. Purposive sampling is a type of non-probability sampling that the researcher employed for waitrons since they are the specific target population for the study. Purposive sampling was used as it allowed the researcher to actively select the most useful sample that will answer the research question (Marshall, 1996).
Masculinities speak about gender relations; thus, the researcher drew on insights from Connell’s (2005) idea of masculinities, particularly her notions of hegemonic, subordinate, complicit and marginalised masculinities to make the link between masculinities and workplace interactions in South Africa. Connell (2005: 76) argues that a relational approach makes it easier to recognise the hard compulsions under which gender configurations are formed, the bitterness as well as the pleasure in gendered experience. With growing recognition of the interplay between gender, race and class it has become common to acknowledge multiple masculinities.
The findings of the study reveal that the experiences that men in family restaurants, coffee shops and tea rooms live through are varied, implying they are either positive or negative as shown by their interactions with different restaurant stakeholders. Despite having undistinguishable duties and responsibilities at work, the reality is that men waitering have a distinctive identity based on traditionally held beliefs or perceptions and this affects how they navigate through work and life activities. Men waitering understand their gender identities in the workplace by constructing a masculine waitron identity.
As a result, the dissertation argues that the experiences of men working as waitrons are complex and dynamic as they are a mixture of both challenges and opportunities. Although men employed as waitrons portray numerous characteristics of hegemonic masculinity that is domineering, aggressive, athletic and courage, the politics of intersectionality makes them fall short of hegemonic masculinity as the majority are foreign, Black, poor, doing women’s work and in most cases not very educated, thus making them fall under marginalised masculinities due to their race, class, ethnicities and socio-economic status.