Image Credit: Mykola Velychko / Dreamstime.com

By Katie Neustaeter

Refraction

NEUSTAETER: Bikinis, bistros and the business of exploiting women

May 19, 2019 | 12:30 AM

One of the great challenges of raising a daughter is teaching her how to clothe her body. It’s important to respect her individuality and empower her own sense of style without allowing current fashion and the pressures of an over sexualized culture to dictate her choices.

Debates over how to properly do this in our schools and homes continue all the time as we try to teach young women that their worth is more than skin deep and that their bodies are the visible, physical representations of their personal standards. Unfortunately the wider world, which does not care one iota about their future, individuality or decency, is constantly giving girls mixed messages about what’s acceptable, expected and attractive — not to mention all the conflicting ideas about what kind of attention she should be seeking.

Throughout my time mentoring youth, and now as I’m guiding my own daughter through boundaries and comfort levels when it comes to clothing, I have regularly told young women looking for guidance that the key to successful dressing is to always aim for “appropriate” for the environment they will be in. I often use this example: I’m all for bikinis and I love a good parka, but I wouldn’t wear a parka to the beach in summer and I wouldn’t wear a bikini out to a restaurant in the city.

It had always seemed like a pretty foolproof illustration of how to eliminate restrictive or rigid rules when it comes to clothing while still providing some guidance, but then headlines like “Bikini Bistro soon to be revealed on North Shore”, “Teenie Bikini Bistro: servers in swimsuits coming to BC” and “Bikini Bistro to launch in Kamloops later this month” emerged in local media this week.

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“You’ve GOT to be kidding me” was the collective gag response of a multitude of people who are just plain sick of seeing women exploited, devalued and dehumanized while being sold the lie that exploitation is equivalent to empowerment!

I was annoyed with myself for daring to hope that in this age of #metoo, #timesup and equality-building we had actually made some progress and were accomplishing something when it came to changing the perception that a woman’s body is an object to be used for the profit of others. But as I read the articles about the new restaurant opening, it was even more salt in the wound to discover that the business will be owned and operated by women.

While I took issue with the bare feet on the counter, the degradingly strategic placement of paint splotches on the chest of a young woman “working” and the discriminatory comments made by the owner in local news articles, it was the knowledge that despite the many women who are trying to teach girls that their true value, strength, identity and security lies beyond the physical, others are still reinforcing the dangerous belief that the bodies of women are little more than an objectified commodity and (*surprise surprise*) that really got me fired up.

It left me wondering: If we’re holding men to a higher standard when it comes to the treatment of females, shouldn’t we expect that from each other as well? If we can say, “that’s not okay” about how men have treated women in the past and are setting a higher expected standard for them in the future, shouldn’t we demand that same treatment from women, too?

I realize that the idea of women profiting from the sexuality of other women is as old as any other form of exploitation, but that doesn’t make it right and it really drove home an idea that’s been gnawing at me as I’ve been watching women try to push back against misogyny and the status quo: Women will never truly make the progress we so desperately seek until we meet that standard ourselves.

Women of all sizes, weights, shapes and skin tones:

You look great in that bathing suit and the only true definition of a “bikini body” is your body wearing a bikini, but you need to respect that body enough not to allow it to be served up like an extra side of meat on the platter you carry to a customer.

This isn’t France in the 1860s, this is British Columbia in 2019 and the unemployment rate is under five per cent. Don’t give someone permission to exploit your beautiful body and use it for cheap thrills when you have other options.

There’s ground to be found for women between shaming each other for our bodies and exploiting each other because of them, and that ground is certainly not a bikini bistro on the Kamloops North Shore.

(I mean, come on, this business isn’t even located on the river. It’s in the middle of the Tranquille corridor where there isn’t even a vaguely plausible reason for girls to be serving food in bikinis other than for the purposes of being ogled.)

Girls, don’t let anyone sell you on a cheap version of empowerment that involves money being made off of your bare back (or any other body part). Your dignity is worth more than a temporary job that demands that you display your skin for the amusement of strangers and use your bodies as little more than bait.

As for the business owner, I wish her all the best if and when she finds a better business model, but for now she should save the parkas for the ski hills, the bikinis for the beaches and the dignity of women from further degradation.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.