Flirting with [ the Bev Cart Girls] - Hoang

 

Alina Secrest

    Beverage cart girls who work on golf courses exemplify several aspects of Hoang's Flirting with Capital. Golf courses have become a leisure space where men often go to assert their masculinity and dominance, either in business or personal aspects. Like the elite Vietnamese bars, wealthy, elite businessmen use golf courses to network in a more casual setting to build relationships. The cart girls in these settings are subordinate to them, and are used as props to exacerbate their masculinity, such as through shows of generous tipping. 

    Cart girls are extremely sexualized in a job that shouldn't necessarily be, as shown by the tight clothing all the cart girls in the photo are wearing. The second photo from the left in particular calls out this sexualization, insinuating that men golf because of the possibility of interacting with an attractive cart girl, which provides a space to display their masculinity. Men typically have a superior relationship to cart girls because the girls’ job is to to serve them, and golfers (who are usually men) are expected to tip generously. Tipping is a form of masculinity by flaunting one’s wealth and therefore power, and the more a man tips, the more superior they are perceived by those around them, just like in the Vietnamese bars. 

    However, as much as cart girls have been glamorized on TikTok, where these photos are all from, the job can quickly turn negative when men perceive them as props and harass them. The quote in the image displays how men often blur the lines between the cart girls' actual jobs and what the men want from them. Due to the sexualization of cart girls, which the women play into because it brings them more tips, as shown by the way they’ve dressed up for work to look appealing, they have shifted into sex objects, and men will often flirt with them, try to get their numbers (as shown by the right most image), or pay them for sexual favors (exemplified in the quote). This asserts their masculinity because men are put in a position of power and semi-ownership of the women's services, and by extension the women themselves. These girls are captive recipients of sexual advances, as the customer service nature of the job requires them to be nice to the golfers. Not only this, but the main draw of working as a cart girl is the generous tips, shown by the first image, which women need to be pleasant in order to receive. The third from the left image shows a cart girl pointing out her kind and subordinate “alter ego” when working, in order to get tips. Because of this dynamic, flirting with them is an easy masculinity boost for men because they are unofficially required to accept it. Though unlike the Vietnamese bars in the reading, these women are not sex workers, the male gaze has forced them into that light and led to more aggression from men who believe they are entitled to them. The cart girls' status as near-props can be dangerous, but as the quote highlights, if they push back, it often reminds the men of their actual job boundaries and can shut them down. In this way, cart girls have more autonomy than the Vietnamese sex workers in pushing back against this American version of "a retired man's playground," but the entitlement that men feel when asserting their masculinity on golf courses is still prominent.

Works Cited

Hoang, Kimberly Kay. “Flirting with Capital.” Social Problems, vol. 61, no. 4, 2014, pp. 507–529., https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2014.12303. 

   Levins, Keely. “The Secret Life of Cart Girls.” Golf Digest, 1 Mar. 2015, https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-secret-life-of-cart-girls.