Who made those so-called “local women” the arbiters of right and wrong? Wenches, concubines and sex slaves are part of Muslim modern culture. Some contemporary women have become quite wealthy being what would have been called in ancient times a “courtesan” (Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian come to mind). Why deny people an opportunity to make a comfortable living?
REGINA -- A job ad looking for serving “wenches” that asked applicants their measurements and dress size was “next level” offensive and “creepy,” say two local women.
“It’s so embarrassing that he thinks this is acceptable. Like where do you live? What year is it where you live?” said Jill Arnott, executive director of the University of Regina Women’s Centre.
The “he” in question is Jason Hall, owner of Regina’s faux medieval Stone Hall Castle, a mansion on College Avenue renovated to serve as a party venue/hotel/tourist attraction.
A “medieval wench” job posted Wednesday to the Stone Hall website asked women to include their dress size (options ranging from sizes 4 through 10, to be selected from a dropdown menu), as well as measurements of chest, waist and hips.
By Thursday, the ad had been amended to simply ask for dress size.
Hall said the women would work as tour guides and food and beverage servers.
Darlene Juschka, a U of R professor in gender studies, said women’s sizes are irrelevant to the job.
“This is serving work. They don’t have to be sparrow-thin … to do this work,” said Juschka, adding it seems to be a “sneaky” form of discrimination.
While the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code doesn’t explicitly cover size discrimination, it does outline some related areas for employers to consider when hiring.
During the application process, employers are not allowed to ask the applicant for their photo, sex, age (except in a general sense to ensure they’re not “younger than the minimum age required by employment law”), or height and weight (“unless it can be shown the criteria used is essential to the performance of the job”).
Arnott said she perceived the ad as “objectify(ing) the female body, and to send a really strong message that only some female bodies are OK.”
Hall said the ad wasn’t meant to restrict applicants to certain “body shapes and sizes.”
“We’re not ruling out talking to a girl who’s 250 pounds,” said Hall. “Or we would just use models, frankly.”
He said asking for sizes in the ad was a matter of fitting bodies to the costumes he already has on hand. He also said he didn’t write the ad; he said a local modelling agency wrote it on his behalf.
Arnott said it’s inappropriate to ask for a dress size before meeting a potential employee — that should come once it has been “established that they’re capable of doing the job and you’re going to need to order a costume.”
To be historically accurate, Juschka said bigger sizes would make more sense.
“You know, medieval wenches weren’t size 4,” she said. “If you’re being true to the time, then I think they need to be looking for sizes at least 8 to 16.”
Being true to the time was the reason Hall says he posted the ad for “wenches,” a historic word for serving girls.
“Wenches to me isn’t an offensive word,” said Hall. “If I felt it was disrespectful to women at all, I certainly wouldn’t use the term.”
He said there are wenches in the movie Shrek and he wasn’t offended by that.
Further, he’ll be looking to hire ogres and giants in the future.
Hall said the negative feedback on social media regarding the ad was related to people not liking him as a landlord.
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