Interesting article from the New York Times on gender and the restaurant industry.
Although the goal in many public places and in much of public life is to treat men and women equally, most upscale restaurants haven't reached that point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/08gend.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/dining/08gend.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin)
An interesting article indeed.
Both my dad and younger brother are fairly conservative, though they both deny this with a mad passion. They will insist that their wives be seated and served first.
I usually allow myself to be seated and served last, but not out of gender deference. Somewhen while growing up, I learned that one attends to one's serving needs last. So, I usually let my wife and kids be seated and served before me, in no particular order if we're all out.
I have a tendancy to have my wife go first, as (to me) she's the most important person on the planet. But, that would be true regardless of the sex of my spouse.
Other than that, it seems that the article put forth a bunch of stereotypes. But, at the same time, it seems that folks in the restaurant industry aren't just making blanket statements. It seems that their making statements based on their observations.
Well you kind of have to deal with large amounts of people with blanket statements and blanket policies that kind of 'in lue of any other idea, go with this..."
And, these are not the Denny's of New York, so when people are out paying $80-100 each for dinner, then different rules are in effect I think, in the same way that when I work the Symphony I not only dress a lot nicer than I do for a rock concert, but I really watch my language too. Different crowds, different settings, different ground rules. So where I can use the "F" word pretty much as every other word in a sentence for a band, I try to remember I'm in a different place with the symphony where, as it turns out, 'piano' is not the only obscene word in the language anymore.
So I would expect a different level of manners, and a classical sense of manners at that.