The Reality of Being a Beverage Cart Girl

There’s a common misconception that the summer “it” job is working at a Golf Course as a beverage cart girl. Well, as someone who has done that job for two straight summers, I can tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Golf is a male-dominated, sport so making young girls the norm for service is extremely harmful. These men are able to make nasty comments about these girls with almost no threat of being held accountable. Most cart girls are young and dont feel comfortable standing up to these men so they just get away with it. At my golf course, most of the men that were golfing on my course were mid-40’s or older, which made it difficult to be a 19-year old girl in her tennis skirt and tight-shirt uniform. Just about every man who came up to me had something to say about the way I looked or made assumptions about me, and added alcohol to the mix…well you can imagine how that went.

Photo taken from Vice, read this for more insight on what it’s like to be a cart girl

One day, a group of men around 40 were on an outing, seemingly celebrating something, therefore they were drinking pretty heavily. One of the men came up to me as they were leaving, slurring his words, and asked me if I played sports in high school, following it with how nice my legs were. I’d like to say I made a snarky comment back at him about how unnecessary that comment was, but I just awkwardly smiled and removed myself from the conversation. Not only did they make outright comments about me, but they would use words that reminded me that I was younger than them and they held all the power. I was referred to as “girl,” “sweetie,” “honey,” and even whistled at to get my attention.There were even men who made themselves out to be harmless, throwing around the fact that they have a young daughter and would feel bad for her if she worked as a cart girl, only to turn around and touch my shoulder or back, pretending like they were the good guys.I was often put in these awkward situations unable to defend myself, even when I wanted to. These men knew they held some power over me being the customer and the ones who decided how much they were gonna tip me. A lot of cart girls,  like Mica in the article above, experience this feeling of powerlessness and are not comfortable shutting down male golfers’ advances. The men know that they are the ones in control and due to the normalization of harassing beverage cart girls, they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. 

Photo taken from Kemper Sports

Eventually, I was able to make the decision to leave that job and find one that actually valued me, but I’ll never forget the time I spent at the golf course. I left everyday irrationally angry and at the time ashamed and almost dirty. I felt like I was doing something wrong because so many men were making comments about the way I looked. It was easily the worst job I’ve ever worked and although I made good money in tips, I would never recommend this job to a young girl trying to make quick money. Being put in a position where men feel entitled to make comments about me without consequence was discouraging and really damaging to my mental health. I am happy to be rid of that job and I hope that other young women who worked the same job know that they do not deserve to be disrespected at their place of work.