Content warning: this article discusses alleged sexual assault and violence and may be distressing to some readers.
When I was 19, I started working in bars. The money was better than retail, and pulling a Carlton or pouring a rum and coke was easier than scrambling to remember 27 order alterations on an eight-person table at the trendy local café. While I mostly worked with women my age, some of whom I am still friends with today, throughout the five years and four different pubs I worked in, my bosses were always men whose ages ranged from mid-twenties to forties.
Last week, when I read an investigation published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food that included claims of sexual assault and discrimination at one of Sydney’s most prestigious hospitality groups, Swillhouse, I found the allegations unsurprising.
What Are The Allegations Against Swillhouse?
The Swillhouse group oversees venues far more salubrious than the dive bars and city pubs I worked in. Its restaurants and bars include Le Foote, Restaurant Hubert, The Baxter Inn and The Caterpillar Club. They’re luxe venues where people celebrate big events. One of the group’s biggest assets, Restaurant Huberts, has been a mainstay in my life. As a lifestyle editor, brands have hosted me there, I’ve taken clients there, I’ve celebrated birthdays and friends’ graduations there and I enjoyed date nights. Photos of friends and acquaintances beaming over their Crème Caramel fill my feed on a regular basis.
But the SMH expose “Sex, sleaze and Swillhouse: The sinister side of the glitzy hospitality scene” painted a very different picture of the venue and company. It aired allegations by five former female staff members who say they were sexually harassed and assaulted by other employees at the venues.
The investigation amounted to 10 articles in which former employees made claims of discrimination, assault, rape, drug use and harassment — and spoke to widespread issues within the broader industry. Swillhouse issued an apology, the CEO has stood down from the Australian Restaurant and Café Association, and SafeWork NSW is investigating the hospitality group.
Sexual Harassment In The Australian Hospitality Industry Is Not News
As I spoke to friends, I realised many of our first jobs were in hospitality, and many of our experiences had the same flavour. In a report by Hiring Lab.org, it was disclosed that two-thirds of Australian accommodation and food services workers are under 35. In 2021, Barcats, a platform that connects hospitality venues with potential employees, reported that teenagers leaving high school were “rushing” to fill positions.
I worked in hospitality between the ages of 19 and 24, and my experiences in my first career still impact me today. While I had vague fantasies of Coyote Ugly style fun, my experiences didn’t leave me feeling like a 2000s-era Piper Perabo.
I remember snapping at a condescending male manager and receiving only one half-shift on my usual full-time roster as a result. I remember another male boss (whose fiancé also worked at the venue) spending our shifts together tossing receipts at my chest in front of customers and joking that he didn’t believe I wasn’t wearing “two bras”.
I remember snapping at a condescending male manager and receiving only one half-shift on my usual full-time roster as a result. I remember another male boss (whose fiancé also worked at the venue) spending our shifts together tossing receipts at my chest in front of customers and joking that he didn’t believe I wasn’t wearing “two bras”.
I remember pushing a customer away who tried to grope me as I delivered the requisite 12 parmigiana to a lunch table and being scolded by another male manager when said customer made a complaint. I remember my first day at a new job when the manager’s friends flooded the front bar and found out later through my boyfriend (I did go on to date one of them) that he’d sent a message out to their group chat to come check out the new hire.
Over my career in hospitality, I dated two of my managers. On reflection, it was one of the better ways to ensure better shifts and less bullshit from male managers and customers. It wasn’t a surefire method, though. When one boyfriend told our licensee he was dating me, the forty-year-old gave him a high five in front of me.
My worst experience was working in a pokies room at 21, when a customer who routinely spent 12 hours at the machines would corner me in front of the till. I wasn’t able to leave when he’d tell me about the sexual fantasies he had about his daughters, who were “younger than you”. When I told my managers, they placed a ban on him, but it was never enforced.
‘Peter Pans’ Running Bars: Joining The Dots On Sexual Harassment In Hospitality
During my six years working in bars, I was constantly surveilled, on the back foot, and always the butt of the joke. And my experiences aren’t unusual.
Samantha* is 46 years old and has worked at the higher end of hospitality for 24 years. She tells me, “I’ve worked in construction and hospitality: 100% hospitality is a tougher environment for women”. She points to the casual workforce as one factor influencing young women’s constant need to appease male bosses. “If you speak up, your shifts get cut because everyone is casual. Some managers will find ways to cut your tips. If you don’t suck up, the financials are direct… tell me, in what industry does management have that much power over your ability to pay the rent?”
Samantha worked her way up to senior positions in bar venues and said sexism was embedded in the running of venues. Non-Australian-born workers who were paid in cash (a common situation in hospitality) were paid less if they were women. And then there was the issue of recruitment. “As a manager, I have been directed only to employ good-looking people.” She explained that one time, she hired a woman who was size 14 (which is literally the average Australian is a size 14-16), and her boss was furious.
One of her worst experiences was when a chef was found to have assaulted a member of staff. Rather than being let go (or reported to law enforcement), he was directed to undertake anger management training.
Like me, Christine*, 33, got her start working in bars. Like me, she was primarily managed by men.”Most of my managers were men, except for one woman who worked the 9-5 day shift. She was an angel, but the men used to talk down to me and give me a patronising look as if to say I was a silly little girl if I asked questions or dared to challenge the way of doing things around the pub.” Christine said the main lesson she learnt in her first job was to “come in, get the job done and leave”.
Primarily employed in the pokies room, she was told multiple times that she was employed in the pokies because the patrons were men and preferred to be served by a woman. The pokies room was always the most remote area of the pub “because of all the cash, you weren’t allowed to leave the bar, which meant you often got stuck with creeps”.
“There was always a whiff of misogyny in the air, and the worst part of the job was not being able to leave the bar during shift except to walk into the room to serve refreshments or pay out a machine.” She said: “At least 90 per cent of the patrons were male, and they just loved to talk about themselves, their lives, or whatever else they felt like, and I was unable to leave. At times, I felt intimidated, frustrated and trapped.”
Sally* is also 33 years old, and worked in hospitality later in life during a freelancing stint overseas. After working in office jobs for most of her professional career, she was taken aback by hospitality culture. “I didn’t necessarily have experiences with gross men per se,” she tells marie claire. However, she noted that most managers spent their time “hitting on 21-year-olds”.
“I was struck by how blurred the lines were between ‘colleagues’ and friends. You don’t know what the lines of professionalism are when you’re out drinking with your manager at 4am, you know? It seemed like a maverick industry from a HR perspective.”
She notes that she’d characterise the male bar managers she met during the time as suffering a case of arrested development. “They’re adults who behave like children, Peter Pan men who never grew up.”
I quit my last hospitality job without notice when I ran into one of my bar managers on a night out, and he greeted me by grabbing my arse. While it was far from the worst memory I have of working in hospitality, it was the last straw.
*Samantha worked her way up to senior positions in bar venues and said sexism was embedded in the running of venues. Non-Australian-born workers who were paid in cash (a common situation in hospitality) were paid less if they were women. And then there was the issue of recruitment. “As a manager, I have been directed only to employ good-looking people.” She explained that one time, she hired a woman who was size 14 (which is literally the average Australian is a size 14-16), and her boss was furious.
*Samantha
Possibly, approaching my 24th birthday, it was simply a case of being old enough to know I didn’t need to put up with it and now had enough experience to have other options. I entered the beauty industry via retail, I entered a world that had shorter shifts and lower wages but was free of men, both customers or staff. (With the exception of the odd harried boyfriend pre-birthday and the flood of men who filled the store on Christmas Eve for gifts for wives and mothers as if the event wasn’t the same date every year.)
My professional development was taken seriously, my opinions were listened to. Whatever my management was saying behind my back, I could be fairly certain they weren’t talking about my breasts.
Despite this, it took a long time to develop trust and confidence in my managers, and myself.
While I’ve since changed careers, I’ve continued to work in a female-centric industry. Despite that, it’s taken a long time to unlearn the nervousness I feel when dealing with male superiors.
Our first jobs are where we learn to work, to negotiate, and what to expect in professional environments. The fact that women are getting their start in industries where the most important learning seems to be appeasing men, dodging harassment and keeping your head down – lessons that aren’t high on the list of transferable skills you might lean on when applying for jobs in corporate. And, it feels unfair that reasonable wages, tips and flexible hours uni students benefit from come at the risk of arriving browbeaten into the corporate workforce, or for those passionate about careers in hospitality, being faced with the choice of sucking it up or being squeezed out.
It’s unclear what impact the Swillhouse allegations will have on the broader hospitality industry in terms of protecting young women entering it, but I certainly hope it will.
*The individuals interviewed in this story are known to marie claire, name’s have been changed to maintain anonymity
Help Is Available:
If this post brings up any issues for you, or if you feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service or contact Full Stop Australia.
Related Posts:
- Is Australia’s Hospitality Industry Having Its ‘Me Too’ Moment?
- One In Three Parliamentary Staffers In Australia Have Experienced Sexual Harassment. Read That Again.
- New Data Has Revealed One In Two Australian Women Have Experienced Sexual Harassment
This article originally appeared on Marie Claire Australia and is republished here with permission.
