Behind the Kitchen Door

"My memoir is an up-close and personal description of how discrimination operates in professional jobs. This book shows the details of how it operates in restaurant jobs. Restaurants are an industry that almost all of us have familiarity with. We go to restaurants frequently. And just as my memoir details how to make change in professional organizations, this book shows how to make change in restaurants. It shows the moral courage that Robert Kennedy talked about. Moral courage must exist for tempered radicals to make change in their organizations, and Saru is a tempered radical. She gives a very disturbing picture of the restaurant industry and tells us how workers in that industry have organized across employers to improve their situation. And the book tells us how we, as consumers of restaurant food, can make a difference for restaurant workers by speaking out and asking questions. That’s right, but so many women are employed in restaurants. Being a waitress or a waiter is another example of those occupations that are segregated by gender, even though the name is the same. Men tend to be employed in high-priced restaurants and get good tips, and women tend to be employed as waitresses in relatively cheap restaurants. The food is cheap, and they don’t get much in tips at all. It’s another example of segregation."