If you thought Joe’s was bad, you’ll get a real kick out of Java Divas, a new coffee shop in Pasadena, Maryland. NBC4 in DC ran a little feature on the operation tonight, which caught my attention. It’s a drive-through coffee shop staffed by scantily-clad hotties. They serve drinks in sizes A, B and C. The anchors reported the story by telling a few one-liners and giggling and/or openly complaining that “my baristas don’t look like that!” A woman came up with the idea and business is booming – as is the business at the gas station next door.
The website invites readers to wank to sexxxay pictures of the employees meet the divas. Unsurprisingly, they are all thin, able-bodied and appear to be white. Alleged customer raves are plastered all over the home page. “I love the drive thru. I don’t have to get the kids out of their car seats!” says one. Got to teach your children that women are the Sex Class early.
Java Divas is not the first coffee place to lure customers with women’s bodies. People will dismiss criticism of these shops with the shallow platitude “sex sells.” But whose sex sells? And to whom? Women’s sexualized bodies sell to the assumed default consumer: heterosexual men.
I’ll brew my own, thanks.
I wonder what Java Divas would do if a woman like me walked in and said, “hey, would you hire a woman like me who’s under five feet tall?” And then I’d proceed to make googly eyes at one of the baristas, just so I could give a little ‘fuck you’ to their heteronormative standards.
And in an economy where getting even a part time job is murder (six months unemployed here…), it pisses me off even more that someone who might need that job is turned away because they won’t sell “sexiness” along with selling a cup of joe.
Coming out of lurkdom to say AUUUGHHHHHH I HATE THESE KIND OF PLACES.
I’m too tired to get all witty and analytical, but my main source of confusion–what I just don’t understand–is this: how could any girl (you see on the site that they’re young girls) who work there not feel creeped out??
Okay, I lied, there’s another thing I just don’t understand: what person in their right mind would go to a half-naked-girls-drive-through with their little kids in the backseat??
Did you notice that a customer can buy one of the divas an outfit to wear? Fabulous! I’d buy a nun’s habit for one of them… maybe one of the girls in a bikini. It could not be fun working with hot coffee and steam in the mostly-nude.
As I told SarahMC, unless they’re advertising breast milk lattes, there’s no need for that. Get some dignity, ladies.
I can’t believe this place was started by a woman, let alone a trauma nurse (the thought of some creepo stalking these girls out and assaulting them after their shift never crossed her mind?)! On the news this morning the place looked like a shack in a deserted lot with no room for anyone except the three young girls working (I could be wrong though, I hope I’m wrong)…very concerning.
People will dismiss criticism of these shops with the shallow platitude “sex sells.” But whose sex sells? And to whom?
Exactly. I teach Communication and Women’s Studies, and you would not believe how many university students – male and female – are willing to dismiss sexist advertising with this platitude.
I always make them deconstruct it (first, I tell them it’s not worthy of a communication major (I rarely get it from a women’s studies major)). I ask what they mean by “sex” in that statement, and keep probing until we come around to “sexual objectification of women” sells.
Then I love to spring this little number on them: it doesn’t really sell. This little study,
conducted by MediaAnalyzer for AdWeek, shows that both sales and brand recall are poorer when ads use sexual objectification of women. (I’ve highlighted the relevant statistics in the PDF.)
God, that is beyond grim. I love the pseudo porn prose, “she knows how to hit the sweet spot”. Seriously…
I just can’t believe they covered it on the local news. sheesh.
If I worked there, I’d be covered in burns. I’m a bit clumsy, so I’m sure working at a coffee shop, I’d spill every so often. And with no clothes for protection, ouch. Oh, oops, but silly me, they would never hire 5’1 me. I don’t look like a model.
This pisses me off so much.
[...] January 3, 2010 Christina Leave a comment Go to comments I first came across Java Divas on Pursuit of Harpyness a few days ago and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since. Basically, this new coffee shop [...]
I wanted to re-post a Note I found on Facebook from a girl recently fired from Java Divas. I have her permission to do so.
“I’ve never been fired before. It feels really awkward, like unresolved. I wish I had organized my own exit strategy. My biggest regret is that when I started, I thought I would be working for a mom and pop establishment with a pro-sex feminist morality and an emphasis on tongue-in-cheek sexuality and pin-up playfulness. In reality, the woman owner is present only in the press, and so I was working for the Man, her husband.With a name like “McMillion”, how could I have been so duped? Everything about him screams capitalist, heteronormative hegemony. In a place of business where female bodies are openly commodified, submitting and reporting to a father figure fond of scolding one minute and then flirting the next is a recipe fordegradation. I knew all this and continued working there anyway, because the money was good and I could express my agency in my creative costume choices and have some fun feeling attractive. But when the male management expressed dislike for my costume choices, preferring that I “conform at least to some degree to the preconceived notions that customers have when they drive up to the coffeeshop”, as in, “Fantasy Tuesday means bedroom fantasy”, not MY fantasy, that’s when I knew I had to leave. Don’t think you can take away the one thing that made entertaining boring, leering men worth it and expect me to happily do my job. I am a creative female with a love of costumes and performativity. I am not a fembot with a duty to entertain only on the terms of Mr. Bill McMillion. So that’s why I thank you for firing me. Maybe you thought I’d post this on your FB Group, which is why you blocked me. It’s probably a good thing you did.
But yeah, sorry I left the window unlocked. Too bad I wasn’t fired for something more scandalous than that.”
Damn, friend! Thanks for your comment.
Damn is right. Good for her for having her say.