Women behind bars: Gender politics in cocktail comps
As the cocktail competition circuit heats up, Kristiane Sherry explores three underlying reasons for the striking lack of female participants.
Ingrained attitudes and activities are holding the industry back from meaningful progress** This feature was first published in the September 2016 edition of The Spirits Business
One of the biggest joys since joining The Spirits Business has been the discovery of the cocktail competition. Now an integral mechanic of the industry, these contests, often brand-led, open up new career paths to bartenders and provide an outlet for all kinds of creativity. Yet one question seems to define them all: where are the women?
If you follow the cocktail scene in any city it’s clear that excellence behind the bar is not confined to one gender – women are leading the field in many instances. Yet, as pointed out in the excellent white paper Diversity and Barriers to Access in the Bartending Industry, published ahead of Tales of the Cocktail this year by the event’s founders and analyst Trepwise, just 3% of Canadian applicants to Diageo World Class were female.
And it’s not just in Canada. Across the mature cocktail markets, men are putting themselves forward while people of other genders hold back. Why? If talent isn’t the reason, what is? When considering this issue, three inter-connected factors came to the fore, and they speak volumes about the structural inequality of the hospitality sector.
The wage gap
What’s the wage gap got to do with cocktail competitions when they’re free to enter? The costs can start to mount up if bartenders miss work in order to take part.
The British Hospitality Association publishes UK wage data broken down by gender. The average salary for the 2014 calendar year in hospitality and catering was £18,497 for a man and £15,665 for a woman. That’s an 18% pay gap.
This is partly due to men holding more senior positions than women in the industry (more 60 on this later). But when recruiter Reed names the hospitality sector the seventh worst of all when it comes to equal pay, this issue should not be taken lightly.
Back to cocktail competitions: if your event requires an afternoon off work for a final, and then a few days or even a week to travel for any prize, the financial hit for a female bartender is likely to be higher than that for her male counterparts due to loss of earnings – rent, food and other such costs stay the same regardless of gender.
Yet hospitality as a sector is relatively low-waged – and the minimum wage is equal for all. So where is this discrepancy coming from?
There are two immediate explanations: either women are working fewer hours, or they are not getting promoted to higher- waged roles. The first reason is fine if it is your female employee’s free choice to work fewer hours. If not, it’s time for employers to look at their policies.
Are you flexible around any childcare arrangements? When it comes to allocating overtime, is this done on an even basis? Does gender bias come into play? More on this to follow.
The second reason is perhaps less clear-cut. Are men being promoted more often than women? In a small team this would be justified if the right person for a given role happened to be male. But if there’s a pattern, we must consider why.
A culture of harassment
In December 2015 The Spirits Business published a report looking into the ‘culture of harassment’ in the UK on-trade. This coincided with a Drinkaware study into alcohol-fuelled sexual harassment among young adult students. It found that more than half of female students (54%) and one in seven male students (14%) had been on the receiving end of offensive sexual comments, abuse or inappropriate sexual touching on a night out in the last 12 months; 64% of respondents said they were left feeling “disgusted”, 54% feeling “angry” and 38% “afraid”.
Separately, figures obtained in a freedom of information request to the Metropolitan Police showed that incidents of alleged sexual offences in London bars soared between 2011 and 2016. Reports of rape grew 136% over the period, while incidents of other alleged sexual offences, including sexual assault, shot up 119%.
But what about bar staff? During SB’s research we asked bartenders for their views. One, who didn’t want to be named, said she had experienced sexual harassment from a customer while at work, and yet her employer didn’t have any guidelines in
place for how to deal with it. Anecdotally, I’ve not heard of a single bar that has guidelines in place to equip staff to deal with sexual harassment.
Back to the Tales white paper: gender bias was found to be a key barrier to access. Gender bias is prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of gender – but often it’s ingrained and unconscious. This is important to acknowledge, because unless we start to think critically about it, all kinds of discrimination can slip past unnoticed. The Tales researchers found that in some entry-level roles, women actually had a hiring advantage over men in certain businesses due to gender bias.
Now, before we all throw our hands up in celebration or exasperation, depending on where you stand, this was found to be the case in party cities like Las Vegas, and in establishments like Hooters or Twin Peaks, where business models centre on sex appeal.
This “advantage” clearly affects men and women – putting men at a disadvantage while also “putting women in situations that further perpetuate existing stereotypes”, says the report.
And this objectification is dangerous. ROC United, a US group which campaigns on behalf of hospitality workers, found that “nearly 37% of all sexual harassment charges filed by women with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission came from the hospitality industry – more than five times the rate for the general female workforce”.
What has this all got to do with cocktail competitions, you might ask?
Consider the last point, that gender bias “advantage”. When a woman puts herself forward to compete, it’s against that backdrop. She is likely to be judged on her appearance. She is operating in that climate of objectification and harassment.
Now many, many women are able to deal with this, thrive in cocktail competitions and go on to win them. But for others, this is extremely intimidating. If someone experiences harassment or even assault when they’re behind the bar, stepping into the spotlight is unlikely to appeal.
A quick note before we move on – while the Tales of the Cocktail research does look at the experiences of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women, a lot more research needs to be done to understand how unconscious bias affects them. The same is true for LGBT+ people, gender-variant people and disabled people.
The ‘hangover’ of the Old Boys’ Club
Despite all this, significant progress has been made in the bartending industry. It is widely estimated that around 60% of bartenders today are female, with many working at the very top of their field. Yet clearly something remains not quite right.
Consider your bar, or a favourite bar, or even the bar you last visited. Who led you to your table? If there was table service, who served you? Who mixed the drinks? Who manages the establishment?
What’s Your Cheapest Shot?, a website for bartenders, estimates that despite the entire hospitality industry following the 60/40 ratio, fewer than 40% of managerial positions, 20% of general management positions and between 5-8% of board positions are held by women.
Why? I believe gender bias is part of the issue, especially in high-end, historic and hotel bars. ‘Ladies’ are considered pretty, delicate and nurturing – ideal for front-of-house – while men are seen as strong, reliable and able to get stuff done.
Why does this matter? The wage gap, for one, won’t come down while women aren’t able to climb the career ladder. Women can be stuck in roles where their primary duties are to serve men, and look pretty while they do it.
Linking back again, until women are seen as people rather than objects, the culture of harassment won’t change. Little of this data has been analysed beyond the gender binary. BAME women will have different experiences, as will LGBT+ people, and it is vital that their voices are listened to in all work going forward.
So what now?
Clearly the issues underpinning the lack of women in cocktail competitions are complex. Real change will require a significant cultural shift. To quote the Tales of the Cocktail white paper: “Discriminatory practices are rarely so cut and dry – 43% of respondents agreed that barriers are largely implicit rather than explicit (only 12% disagreed).”
We’re now at the stage where it’s ingrained attitudes and activities holding the industry back from meaningful progress – and no legislation can change that.
Diversity and Barriers to Access in the Bartending Industry quotes Ivy Mix, founder of women-only cocktail competition Speed Rack: “It is a larger issue, not of sexism but misogyny – and those are two separate issues. The real issue is the underlying objectification and ‘oh sweetheart’ attitudes.”
It’s time to stop pretending these issues don’t exist and start discussing them – the industry will only be better off as a result.
