Women’s Tales of Tables for One

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• A Fundamental Right

Credit…Kathleen Fu

To the Editor:

Re “Oh, No, She’s Eating All Alone!,” by Callie Hitchcock (Opinion guest essay, May 28):

I am an 82-year-old retired attorney. I would like to add a historical note to this excellent article.

When I was a young attorney in the 1970s we would have Women Lawyers of Michigan meetings. At restaurants. I would sometimes get to the meetings early and sit at the bar to have a drink while I waited for others. That is, until I was told that I was not allowed to sit at the bar alone, as I would be seen as a “hooker” and the bar didn’t want “hookers” in the restaurant.

Needless to say, we sued them under a civil rights law and won. We also sued a different restaurant for refusing to hang our coats. We won that lawsuit, too, and were awarded damages, which were donated to a shelter.

I will add that I have always gone out to eat alone and like to sit at the bar, as I often meet interesting people there. I am sorry to say no one from management has ever offered me a free drink.

Carole Chiamp
Bingham Farms, Mich.

To the Editor:

Many years ago, when I was new to working internationally, I’d finished my morning appointments in Milan and had no lunch scheduled. Walking down the street, I saw a charming white-tablecloth restaurant and entered. When I was seated and asked if anyone would be joining me, I said “No.”

The waiter paused and asked if I was from Britain or America. When I replied “America,” he smiled, left and returned with a small U.S. flag in a stand and put it on the table.

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I was surprised and asked him why he had put a flag on my table. In an embarrassed mixture of English and Italian, he tried to explain that in Italy a woman seated at a table alone might be seen by an Italian man as a prostitute, and he didn’t want me to be bothered!

Grace Stanek
Chicago

To the Editor:

Maybe it is New York, maybe it is Callie Hitchcock, maybe it is a societal difference in the North versus the South, but I have never in all my years ever had an issue about dining alone.

I take my book or Kindle, go to a restaurant of my choice and dine alone. I have dined in many places across the country — from Michelin star restaurants to local joints. I have been in countries in both northern and southern Africa, and across Europe, including England and Ireland. Nary a bat of the lashes and usually a charming waiter or waitress and a lovely meal completely uninterrupted.

Even in ethnic restaurants where the owners were from countries where women cannot leave the house by themselves, I was welcomed without hesitation.

No one seemed to presume I was suffering from a broken heart, but only that I wanted nice food and a nice evening or afternoon. Once in a while I get a “will someone be joining you?” But in my mind that is to maximize the seating possibilities for the restaurant.

I suggest that restaurants treat women as they do men; of course this should be true across all businesses. I might suggest to Ms. Hitchcock to get out of the city and travel a bit and see if it is the same elsewhere. I think she might be pleasantly surprised.

Christy Jobe Carter
Southport, N.C.

To the Editor:

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Since I was recently widowed, I am often eating alone. Thus I was surprised that the article didn’t mention widows.

Because I had a partner for many years, I am not in the habit of arranging to eat with someone else. I hope that will eventually change.

Irene Starr
Overland Park, Kan.

A Fundamental Right

Guards stand next to the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.Credit…Ron Edmonds/Associated Press

To the Editor:

“Rising Chorus by Courts: Immigrants Have Rights” (news analysis, front page, May 19) understates the importance of the courts’ decisions to block or rule against the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies. These decisions protect not only immigrants, but all Americans as well.

What can stop the federal government from incorrectly claiming that a United States citizen is a deportable immigrant and sending that person to a prison in El Salvador or Libya or any other country without a proper hearing to determine the validity of the government’s claim?

The answer is the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which wisely protects all persons from being deprived of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

Due process protects all of us, as the founders intended.

Perry Bechky
Washington
The writer is a lawyer.