Coffee with Legs: The Production of Gendered Bodies in Santiago's Cafés con Piernas

• In Event: 315 - Regular Session. Producing Gender at Work

Abstract

In the center of Santiago, Chile, there are nearly 200 coffee shops where male office workers drink coffee, standing up at a bar, served by women dressed in very sexualized apparel. The popular name of these spaces, “café con piernas” – “coffee with legs” – derives from the exposed legs of women standing on a higher platform, subjected to the gaze of customers. Women wear high heels and dress with a very short mini skirt or a bikini, depending on the social class and status of the establishment. Spaces are designed in such a way so women’s bodies are always being watched by their clientele and in some cases their legs are displayed as a signage that can be seen from outside.
While most clients work in different service jobs, women come from the most underprivileged sector of the population; many are young Colombian or Peruvian immigrants. Some workers modify their bodies with plastic surgeries in order to be better qualified for the job. The social location, physical position, and nakedness of women’s bodies in relation to men opens a space for the study of a local phenomenon that reflects larger processes of gender and class inequality. This study seeks to explore how women’s bodies and identities are transformed through the performance of their work, and how sexualities are being conditioned by these practices in gendered and classed ways. More broadly, this research aims to trace how these performances reproduce class and gender inequality in Chile.

Author

• Pilar Ortiz, City University of New York-Graduate Center