I waited on tables for a long time.  It’s a tough job.  Chances are I didn’t screw up your order, but I wasn’t happy about being there in the first place.  So as a skating judge might say - I was technically perfect but artistically, I was dreadful.

I called myself a waiter.  Countless times, people would correct me: “You mean, waitress.”

I would shake my head.

“Waiter.”

Artwork by Anastasia Ponyatovskaya

I met a lot of anger from people when I insisted ‘waiter not waitress.’ Their answer would then be, “Why make such a fuss over it?”

I could say the same back but then we would have been in one of those: “You are.” “No you are” conversations that I hear my children having in the backseat of the car.

I make a fuss because it matters to me.

Recently I had a heated discussion with another member on a sports site.  I monitor the NHL threads and this one member with whom I have been friendly over the years wrote something that made me cringe.  I commented on this and there started the heated discussion.

He grew so angry with me, he wrote to me privately that he wished I would stay away from his areas of interest and he would do the same for me.

I talked about this with my husband, who every now and then joins the site for hockey discussion.  He said, “I didn’t really like him, anyway.”

He’d never said as much before and I wondered now, “How come?”

“The way he called you ‘blueandwhite girl.’”

Blueandwhite is my moniker, my handle if you will.  I am a Leafs fan.  It seemed fitting.  And my husband is right – this member often referred to me as ‘blueandwhite girl.’

I let it go for numerous reasons.  I decided this member was using it in a playful rather than a condescending manner.  I never was reduced to calling him ‘moniker boy,’ but it wasn’t on purpose.  The idea just never occurred to me and this is interesting in itself.  It
never occurred to me to sexually ‘out’ him back, or portray him as a manchild. Plus I am one of a few females on a heavily male-dominated site. Isn’t sports the last bastion of male camaraderie?

I didn’t want to make a fuss.

My husband said,
“He didn’t need to call you girl.  Yet he always did.”

My husband was right.

I am constantly reminded of the Pick Your Battles defense as a parent.  Don’t argue everything with your kids, the experts (as well as those who have gone before me) will say, or you will exhaust yourself and become miserable.  Pick your battles.

In hindsight I’m not thinking I should have picked this battle.  But I am thinking, I should have seen this coming.  Calling me ‘girl’ was not a term of endearment, as I initially thought.  It was an insight into this person’s way of thinking.  He had created this neat little persona for me:  I was a small, cute child with ponytails, dressed in blue and white, cheering on my hockey team, pouting at losses, loving the captain.

By confronting him about something that made him uncomfortable and defensive, I had overstepped my boundaries.  I had grown teeth.  I had grown up.

I don’t want anyone referring to me as blueandwhite woman, either.  I am what I say I am:  blueandwhite.  I don’t need to be sexually defined.  I just need to be.

Waitress sounds prettier than waiter, doesn’t it?  I hate that.
Because pretty’s got nothing to do with it.

Comments (2)

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Emilie said:

Another great article Sarah! I, too, have thought a lot before about the use of gendered profession titles like that. Like actor/actress. Now it seems it's common for all stars to call themselves an "actor". But I have to admit, I find something unsettling about us choosing the male version of the two as the universal standard...am I just misinterpreting it? Is it that "waiter" and "actor" are, linguistically, the gender-neutral versions of the words, and adding "-ess" marks gender? Or is it that we are prone to considering male things neutral things, after living in a patriarchy for an eternity? Not sure... I, too, have experience waiting tables for the last two years, and at the place I work, we are all "servers". I guess I like this because it seems fairly neutral, and has only one form. Albeit, it's a little less glamorous than "waiter"... oh words, they have so much weight sometimes... Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

March 16, 2008

sarah said:

You know, you are right - I never really thought about how I was choosing the male term over the female - I guess I do think waiter seems gender neutral. That 'ess' ending just sounds like someone added lace, and I've never felt very 'lacey'.

March 17, 2008 | url

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