A famed restaurant in Peru was recently fined $62,000 for
discriminating against women by giving ladies who dined with men menus
that didn’t feature any prices.
La Rosa Nautica, a pricey restaurant built on a peer overlooking the
ocean in the Peruvian capital, Lima, was ordered to pay a 210,000 sol
($62,000) fine for offering women a different menu when they dined with
men. While gentlemen were given a blue menu that featured both the
dishes available and their prices, ladies got a gold version that
mentioned no prices at all. The owner of the high-end restaurant
defended the practice by calling it a way for women to enjoy a romantic
night out without having to worry about costs, but Peruvian authorities
ruled that it was discriminatory against women.
In their defense, La Rosa Nautica owners said that price-free menus
“extoll the position of women, considering it a pleasure for them to
enjoy a romantic evening with their partner, without taking into account
the cost of the services,” but the National Institute for the Defense
of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property
disagreed. In a 3-2 ruling last week it declared that all women should
have access to the same menus as men.
“These small things may seem harmless,” Liliana Cerrón, an official with the institute, said. “But at the end of the day they are the basis of a chauvinistic construct reinforcing differences between men and women.”
In addition to the $62,000 fine, La Rosa Nautica – a restaurant
popular both with tourists and Peru’s upper class – will have to start
offering the same menus to everyone, train its staff and post a sign
clearly stating that discrimination will not be tolerated.
Interestingly, La Rosa Nautica is not the first restaurant to offer
women price-free menus. Famed Los Angeles restaurant L’Orangerie used to
do the same thing, giving women white menus without prices, and men
green ones with prices. But they were sued for the practice in the
1980’s and agreed to drop it, which makes the use of such a practice in a
time when sexism and discrimination in general is so frowned upon that
much stranger.
