Dawn Lafreeda And Sexual Harassment

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Dawn Lafreeda is the owner- operator of 81 Denny’s restaurants all over the south and Midwest. Starting out as a waitress, Lafreeda knows what is like to be discriminated as a women and sexually harassed in a vulnerable work environment. In her article “Don’t Blame Tips for Sexual Harassment,” published in 2018 by The Wall Street Journal, she gives reasons why she disagrees with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and others open to the elimination of the lower minimum wage for workers who earn income primarily on tips, ultimately being the end of tipping (Lafreeda, 2018). For those who follow this idea, they are assuming that with higher wages, sexual harassment will be reduced since waitresses will not have to deal with certain disrespectful customers …show more content…

Sexual harassment is defined as any type of unwelcomed sexual advances, request, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. When women enter pink collar jobs, such as waitressing in most cases, unfortunately sexual harassment is something that happens often and they will be exposed through either seeing or experiencing themselves. The author of this article who is now a boss of many Denny’s, says “But that doesn’t describe the thousands of women I work with. Servers in my restaurants, especially women, don’t see tip income as a drawback…. Bad behavior is an occasional problem in any industry,” saying that sexual harassment is not something her waitresses deal with and its only an occasional problem (Lafreeda, 2018). However, as we have learned, many women who go through sexual harassment do not speak up for themselves with fear of getting fired, making the situation awkward, getting less hours, or getting no tip at all. Also with her position as a high ranking boss, I doubt waitresses would go to her if they were having any type of problems, rather go to their manager or other boss. Since she is not experiencing this problem herself she is assuming her workers would choose money over protection, sweeping sexual harassment under a rug once again- more ironically by a female. Intersectionality plays a role in this article as well because waitresses all over are being represented by a white, rich woman, from the south west. The author may say its not a problem to her workers because not only would she not hear about it but because maybe sexual harassment is not the same for white women as it is for any other racial women. Women with different skin colors, backgrounds, or cultures are the ones that are more fearful because if they lose their job, it would be hard to find a new one. Some customers may give them a harder time and

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