The Chubby Maid Cafe
Allow me to introduce you to the Chubby Maid Café, an establishment in Japan, started by a woman who worked at a “regular maid café” until she realized all the other women who worked there were much thinner than she was.
In researching what a “maid café” is, I discovered that it’s a “cosplay” (costume play) café, and that there are also “butler cafés.” According to Wikipedia, “The butlers in these cafés are well-dressed male employees and may wear either a typical waiter’s uniform or even a tuxedo or tails.”
Well, you learn something new every day! Of the chubby maid café, which is called Pomeranian, Jezebel says:
On the one hand, this restaurant basically caters to a fetish, like a Hooters with a weight minimum, and its entire point is to focus attention on the physical appearance of the female employees. Is it just another example of women being treated as objects? On the other hand, all of the waitresses interviewed seem to have a great relationship with their bodies in a culture that’s extremely diet-obsessed and where a woman is “supposed” to be tiny and slender. Should we be accepting of a place like Pomeranian?
Ichigo says: “I wish [girls] wouldn’t take their chubbiness as a negative thing. There are tons of girls out there who are chubby and attractive, so they should regard them as role models. Also, even if you notice that someone’s chubby, you shouldn’t comment on their weight so much [laughs]. It’s a unique trait of theirs, and that’s an important thing to have.”
Vice has the full interview, where you can also enjoy some delightful pictures and ponder the question: are these girls really all that “chubby”? You can also read full interviews with several of the maids who work there, like head maid Tsukasa:
[E]ven around here I’m on the larger side, so in that way I’m in keeping with the whole idea of the café itself. Being this size kind of suits me, so I guess customers who like chubby girls are attracted to me. But I’m not saying I love myself because of it.
That last line makes me wonder if Jezebel’s statement that the women universally seem to have “great relationships” with their bodies goes a little too far. You can also see Kozue (who, the interviewer points out, is the skinniest of the bunch):
I think the word “chubby” means different things to different people. For example, some people see Kanako Yanagihara [an overweight entertainer in Japan] as being “chubby,” but I personally think that “chubby” is just when you don’t fit into the clothes sold at normal clothing stores, which I don’t. So when I meet customers who have someone bigger like Kanako in mind, they often say that I’m pretty average-looking, slender even. It upsets me when they say that.
A fascinating glimpse into another culture and its attitudes toward and definitions of chubbyness. Thanks to Shannon for the link! (And after I wrote this, but before I posted it, Rachel also picked up the story! Check out her take.)
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advocacy, Feminism, International, Magazines, Sex & Romance, Work
The ‘big’ girls there aren’t even big….they just have big chests. One of those girls in the pictures is skinnier than 70% of Americans most likely.
Just because they aren’t American’s standards of what chubby means doesn’t mean they aren’t discriminated about their size. Japan has some kind of law going on right now about people maintaining at least a 36 inch waist or they are ordered by the government to lose weight. I’m not sure if that’s all over the country, but even so… these girls are basically going against the wishes of their government to be a certain size.
I think it’s very inspiring that these girls opened their own restraint which caters to their chubbiness. :) Obviously they’re getting business!
Brooke Elliott isn’t even fat! But you’re right–she is gorgeous.
I agree, just because they aren’t “chubby” to Americans, doesn’t mean they aren’t “chubby” in Japan! Their standards may be very different from ours.
Well I think that all of them are still healthy and on is really average on my own standards(which is what chubby means in my mind at lease; Kind of over weight but still on a healthy range)
about the measurements they are commenting well is not that crazy and a waist of 36 inches is a pretty big range even a 32.
I’m over weight and my waist is 30.42 inches.
as I live in Mexico that would be around 78 cm
2 cm near of being on the official health concerning over weight on my country.
so if you consider this a 32 and even a 36 on a women is not a small waist.
and is an interesting government measurement but possibly psychological prejudicial to population, because even slender people would feel anxious to loose weight