Maskual harassment:

I just learned about a new form of sexual harassment going on these days. It’s being called “maskual harassment,” and I’ve got to say, it fills me with all sorts of feelings – none of them positive.

This type of harassment happens when a male restaurant diner, after he’s finished his meal, says to his female server something along the lines of “show me what’s under the mask if you want your tip.” If the server refuses to show him her face, the customer skimps on the tip. The NY Times even wrote about it recently.

Fascination with what’s underneath:

This is problematic in so many ways that I had to write about it. The first thing that came to mind is the historical context for this type of harassment. Over the centuries, men have been fascinated by what is underneath a woman’s clothing and over the centuries, many men have tried to get a peek at it.

Whether it’s going to burlesque or striptease shows, or going to even greater – and often illegal or immoral – lengths to see what’s under a woman’s garments, men have been attempting to get past those boundaries for the longest time.

The problem with maskual harassment is not that the man is demanding to see a body part that’s supposed to remain hidden – the face is not usually a sexualized body part. Mask harassment is about the way the man starts to sexualize and objectify the server’s face when she’s just trying to make an honest living.

Some might argue that asking to see what’s under the mask is not the same as demanding, for example, that a woman should remove her shirt, but actually it’s pretty darned similar, and I’ll explain why.

In both cases, a boundary violation is taking place.

It’s less about whether or not the covered body part is meant to stay covered and more about the fact that the man is demanding to see it, against the woman’s will. Any time a man demands something related to a woman’s body that’s against her will, it’s abuse, and it’s wrong.

Power dynamics in abuse:

As soon as someone in a position of greater power demands that someone in a position of lesser power show them what’s hidden beneath an article of clothing, an abusive sexual dynamic is established.

Of course, with body parts that are supposed to be covered in public, it would cause great humiliation and embarrassment for the woman to have this part of her anatomy exposed for strangers to see.

However, even with body parts that under other circumstances would ordinarily be on full view, the demand to show “what’s under” any type of covering is highly problematic. Being coerced to lift her mask to show her face would feel just as humiliating for a woman as would be lifting her blouse.

In the time of Covid-19, removing one’s mask in a crowded restaurant could mean a serious health risk, and this should never be forced on someone, for any reason. For the poorly-paid server, however, the threat of financial repercussions could induce her to relinquish her personal safety in exchange for her economic security. Putting someone in such a position is abuse, clear and simple.

Any demand to show “what’s underneath” any garment is intrusive and sexually charged. We all understand that covering and uncovering the body has symbolic and erotic significance. This is why burlesque is so popular.

The eroticization of female body parts:

In this form of entertainment, it’s less the specific body parts involved and more the act of covering and uncovering that’s the turn-on. That’s why removing gloves plays such a major role in burlesque. And in the same way, the covered and then uncovered face can become eroticized as much as a more typically sexualized body part.

The practitioner of burlesque is an adult who chooses to do these performances and who does so on her own terms. The female server, on the other hand, is being coerced to show the customer what’s under her mask. She is not in a position to refuse the demand without incurring a financial consequence.

The female server is being put into an extremely uncomfortable situation. She understands, either intellectually or intuitively, that the man demanding that she lift her mask is doing so for his own sexual gratification. She also understands that if she agrees to his demand, she will be doing it for the money.

The threat of withholding the tip makes the demand for the woman to lift her mask into a financial transaction.

The man says, “show me what’s under the mask and you get your tip. Don’t show me, and no tip.” In this way, the man turns his server into an unwilling prostitute, putting her in the position of having to decide whether or not to uncover a covered body part for money that she should have earned – in the first place – for her competent service.

What are the restaurants doing?

It’s unclear what the restaurants involved are doing to support their female staff. Maybe they’re putting up signs that indicate a zero-tolerance policy toward demands for servers to remove masks. Maybe they’re permanently banning customers who sexually harass the customers in this way, but I doubt it.

Sadly, sexual harassment is rarely something that men in positions of power are inclined to deal with. It’s most often ignored when it happens to women with much greater power and privilege than the average restaurant server, so it’s unlikely that it will be acknowledged, let alone addressed, in a population that is so devoid of either power or privilege.

I’m not confident that this article will change anything, either. Like I said, institutions and individuals have little interest in dealing with sexual harassment of any type. Still, hearing about mask harassment made me so mad, sad, and disappointed that I knew I had to write about it. I guess that if it reaches even one woman who has experienced maskual harassment and she feels validated in her experience of abuse, maybe it was worth writing after all.

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