It's not just Japanese Maid Cafes that are a little crazy that way. Now I'm guessing Hooters doesn't do much business in China either.
are these cafes quite degrading to women?
Short answer: usually
Long answer: they cater to customers with a maid fetish. It is possible that some staff do not mind, or even enjoy, working there. It is possible that a maid cafe might put clear boundaries, and protect its staff. But in the real world, most of the time, yes it is quite degrading.
Local officials found that hundreds of cafés and e-sports venues in Yiwu were offering maid café-style services, with female servers forced to kneel to serve tea, massage male customers, and shout “Welcome home, my master!” to anyone entering.
The procuratorate brought a public interest lawsuit to a local court, arguing that such services “belittle and damage women’s rights to human dignity.” They also said that some local businesses had failed to take measures to protect their female staff from sexual harassment.
[...]
“Maid cafés have been a symbolic space where women are defaulted to being the subject of sexual exploitation,” Chen said. “The key to solving this problem should be educating the public to respect women.”
Sounds like banning this might not be such a bad thing? Stricter regulation and severe penalties for violators would maybe help instead, but I don't know enough about Chinese culture to really be able to comment on whether that would even be effective. At least taking steps to make sure this doesn't continue is a net benefit, I think.
China has an Abysmal record on women's rights.
There is something else making this move on than the suffering of women. Probably because this way they get to shame Japanese maid cafes. Not that the idea of those isnt weird.
You’d be kicked out of a dungeon for expecting that sort of shit around here. Wtf?
I went to one like 17 years ago or so when it had first opened in my area, and it was basically just a subpar restaurant where the waitresses were wearing maid costumes. None of the shit you might see in an anime.
Not that they're the same, but this feels like not letting people be strippers because some people may feel degraded by it. I could understand having legislation that provides protections for employees through employer obligations to ensure a safe environment, but ultimately it's the choice of the individual if they're okay with the work or not. I don't have a dog in this fight, but this feels like Chinese conservatism forcing "modesty" on women.
You mean Chinese conservatism? My take was as means of combating foreign cultural influence.
Whoops, idk why I misread it as Japanese. Will fix thanks.
Completely understandable you probably saw maid cafe and instantly thought Japan before reading the headline. We all have our moments.
This was almost definitely it lmao
forcing “modesty” on women.
I see what you're saying. A feminist from one of these countries explained to me once using the metaphor that it's all very well for western feminists to fight for the right to show their breasts but we need to respect that a lot of non-western feminists are still fighting for the right to choose not to show them.
In the west, feminists are interested in the right to sexual expression and agency so that's the lense we view this stuff through.
But at a grassroots level women in LICs focus on things like rape law reform, consent age reform, freedom from spousal abuse, mechanisms to protect domestic workers, FGM etc. So it's not realistic to expect everyone to be on the same page when conditions are so different.
I remember when my aunt and uncle were going through a divorce, the government forced them through years of legal hoops. This seemed to be in the mistaken belief that couples should be forced back together. This is Switzerland. It might not be FGM or lack of marital rape laws, but sometimes it can be surprising where backwards laws and beliefs still hold sway.
Yes every country's struggles are specific, it was just a general trend.
I can't get my head around Switzerland. Women only got full suffrage there in 1971. It was 1893 where I live. You do have to be separated for 2 years to get a divorce here, too, though, which I think is stupid.
ultimately it's the choice of the individual if they're okay with the work or not
Ah, the free choice between degrading yourself and starving. I too would have preferred the path of regulation, but I can understand the courts being so disgusted that they just blanket ban it.
this feels like Chinese conservatism forcing "modesty" on women.
I don't know much about Chinese society, but in South Korea (and to a lesser extent, Japan), it is mainly feminists pushing against practises that objectify them, with furious opposition from certain men, and even the authorities dragging their feet.
Thank you for responding to my question! I edited my original comment because I took a quick look into it and came to the same conclusion you did. I'm of the opinion that things like sex work can be done properly, and if they aren't "officially" done properly they will be done improperly illegally. Sort of a "Prohibition" vs. "regulated alcohol sales" scenario. People like other sexy people, and some adults legitimately consent to be those other sexy people. However, in order for it to be ethical there have to be robust protections.
It doesn't take much research to find out these maid cafes do not always feature said protections. So I edited my original comment because I found the answer and then you kindly backed it up very shortly afterwards.
The staff in maid cafes in Japan don't kneel nor provide massages.
I see these sometimes in anime and they always seem creepy as hell. I just don't get it. Then again, I'm gay and dom/sub never has appealed to me, even in role play.
I do the whole dom/sub thing pretty intensely, but not with waitstaff. That’s just creepy. This is their work.
Fair, I'm more pointing out that I lack a side of me that that would understand that appeal, both in terms of sexual orientation and dom/sub. But yeah, I'm not sure how consensual this can be.
Yeah I think it’s hooters but for incels instead of douchebags. And as a massive lesbo I can theoretically get the appeal but also the appeal is “I want to hire a sex worker, but don’t want to think of myself as having hired a sex worker in this context”.
And honestly from what I do know about japan’s sex work scene I don’t believe that you can have a reasonable certainty that any sex worker you hired there is consenting. Especially if the worker isn’t originally from Japan. The yakuza absolutely kidnaps poor girls from Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But that’s where we get into the discussion other people in the thread got into.
To further clarify, Maid Cafes in Japan do not provide sexual services. If that wasn't what was being referred to in this thread please ignore this message.
Well yeah, and neither does hooters, but I’d say hooters waitstaff are known and assumed to be catering to sexual tastes in a way that brings their work closer to a stripper than to your waitress at Waffle House. You go to hooters because of the attractive waitstaff, you go to Waffle House for the food.
So uh, at these cafés, are there any male maids? A-asking for a friend 👉👈🥺
Those are butler cafes unless you mean crossdressed guys in which case I've no idea.
Could also be asking for host clubs if they want alcohol.
There is, or at least was, at least one place catering to your friend's tastes: https://urnotalone.com/male-maids-serve-it-up-at-japans-first-cross-dressing-maid-cafe/
Edit: More recent article: https://www.tokyoweekender.com/food-and-drink/restaurants-and-bars/boys-magically-become-girls-at-the-maho-ni-kakerarete-crossdressing-bar/
But at what cost?
Fake: China cares about the personal dignity of women
Gay: All the women are going to be replaced with men in maid outfits
Yeah these are pretty gross with how they treat women
Is this like an Asian version of Hooters?
another common win for China
China Moves Toward Ban on Japanese-Style ‘Maid Cafés’
Reads text
That's dramatic... aren't they just giving women servers rights to not be humiliated as much there... (don't scream SeeSeePee control all over again)
News from around the world!
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, propaganda, etc
