Does tipping facilitate sexual objectification? The effect of tips on sexual harassment of bar and restaurant servers

When the fictionalized female tipped worker received tips, sexually harassing behaviors towards her were viewed as more legitimate compared to when she did not.  

• Participants in the “receive tips” groups rated Tina as having higher levels of sexual experience (mean = 4 out of 5), such as sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure, compared to participants in the “no tips” groups (3.68).  
• Participants in the “receive tips” groups rated Tina as enjoying sexualization more (mean = 4.53 out of 7) compared to participants in the “no tips” groups (4.13).  
• Participants in the “receive tips” groups rated sexually harassing behaviors towards Tina as more acceptable (mean = 2.56 out of 7) compared to participants in the “no tips” group (2.18). 
  • Of the mediating variables, participants perceived Tina as more manipulative when she earned tips versus when she had a fixed income. 
• Participants in the “clothing choice” groups rated Tina as more manipulative (mean = 4.88 out of 7) compared to participants in the “no clothing choice” groups (4.52). 
  • Clothing choice did not significantly impact ratings of Tina’s sexual experience or enjoyment of sexualization.
  • These findings suggest participants perceived Tina as strategically playing a sexualized character.  

These findings suggest that dependence on tips is harmful to women who work as tipped employees, which reinforces a ritualized service relation between men and women and encourages sexually objectifying behaviors associated with these gender roles, making sexual harassment appear more legitimate. Furthermore, the authors point out that tipping is also a source of racial discrimination, where Europeans Americans are tipped more than African American personnel. The authors propose that tipping as a practice should be curtailed altogether, that a higher minimum hourly wage may be implemented to address inequity, or that patrons could be informed that tips are pooled among restaurant workers, so that patrons would have less power over a single server.   

This study recruited 161 male American participants through Amazon’s MTurk and compensated participants $0.50. Participants were shown an image and background information of a sexualized and attractive fictional bartender named Tina and randomly assigned into one of four conditions based on Tina’s clothing choice (whether she chose them or her manager did) and whether she received tips or was salaried. Participants then rated the acceptability of sexually harassing behaviors towards Tina, her perceived capability of experiencing different forms of agency and sexuality, her perceived enjoyment of sexualization, and her perceived manipulativeness.  

Sexually harassing behaviors were measured by participants rating the acceptability of 29 behaviors a customer could use to get Tina’s attention (some neutral, some sexually harassing) on a scale of one to seven (with one being not acceptable and seven being very acceptable) and included examples like whistling at Tina and saying, “Hey Baby!” Participants were also asked to rank Tina’s capability on a one to five scale (with one being much less capable and five being much more capable) of experiencing variables relating to agency and sexuality. Participants rated Tina’s enjoyment of sexualization on a one to seven scale (with one being disagree strongly and seven being agree strongly) of a list of seven items such as “It is important to her that men are attracted to her” and “She likes showing off her body.” Finally, Tina’s perceived manipulativeness was measured by asking participants to rank how strongly they agree (one not at all, seven very much) with statements like “Tina knows how to behave to get what she wants” and “Tina is manipulative.”