Times restaurant critic Pete Wells, who we've noticed earlier (here and here) dilating on what he calls the "pleasure" of being served by women and "others who don't look like men of European descent," is at it again. In a three-star review of Bouley, Wells writes, "I wish more women worked in Bouley's dining room; the gender imbalance there is old-fashioned in the wrong way."
If Mr. Wells or the Times has evidence of discrimination in hiring, they should share it. Maybe it's worth a whole article. Instead, the paper keeps slipping these asides into restaurant reviews. There's nothing in the review about the gender composition of the kitchen staff, or of the fishermen who caught the food or the farmers that grew it. Mr. Wells doesn't make a strong case for why readers should care about the race or gender of who serves the food any more or less than they care about the race or gender of who cooks, plants, or kills it. Myself, I am happy to have the food brought to my table by a man, a woman, or even someone who doesn't fit neatly into traditional gender categories, so long as that person is efficient, knowledgable, unobtrusive, and friendly.