Waitresses (Group of artists)

Dates:

Establishment 1977

Disestablishment 1985

History notes:

The Waitresses was a performance art group founded by Jerri Allyn and Anne Gauldin in 1977 while they were students at the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), a program of the Los Angeles Woman's Building. Drawing from their experiences working as waitresses, they created performance art related to the issues of sex discrimination, stereotyping, and wage inequality. The group staged their first performance, the seven-day Ready to Order? (1978) which took place at various restaurants in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles and intended to educate customers who may not have been aware of labor issues in the food service industry. The group eventually grew to include fourteen members, including Elizabeth Canelake, Anne Mavor, Anita Green, Chutney Gunderson, and Denise Yarfitz, who wore waitress uniforms and adapted personas such as "Wonder Waitress" and the multi-breasted "Great Goddess Diana," in various performances produced in restaurants, conferences, and other unconventional settings. The Waitresses stopped performing in 1985, but Jerri Allyn continued creating performance art related to the issues surrounding waitressing in the performance series American Dining: A Working Woman's Movement, from 1986 to 1989.