Two decades ago it wasn’t terribly hard to have a laugh over the kind of body-cult feminism typified by Eve Ensler, the creator of the “Vagina Monologues” franchise, which could seem so narrow and self-absorbed. Yet now, in the era of Sheryl Sandberg-styled corporate-conference feminism and leaning in — an option you don’t get to exercise in a kitchen at a Taco Bell, where you will only lean closer to the grill — it is easy to feel nostalgic for a time when a prominent face of the women’s movement could emerge from the fringe world of downtown Manhattan theater, rather than the neutered boardrooms of Silicon Valley.

Last week, as Internet conversation frenetically turned to plans from Facebook and Apple to cover the expense of egg freezing for female employees, Ms. Ensler spoke at a rally attended by no more than 50 people outside City Hall about the sub-minimum wage, an issue that affects the significantly broader world of Women Who Did Not Go to Stanford. Sponsored by a group called Restaurant Opportunities Centers United or ROC, formed in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, the rally aimed to draw attention to the problems faced by tipped workers across the country, some of whom make as little as $2.13 an hour before gratuities, and more than 60 percent of whom are women.

Earlier in the month, ROC, along with another group, had released a report based on extensive interviews with 700 former and current restaurant workers in New York and other major cities, as well as an analysis of census data and statistics from the United States Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which concluded that more than 90 percent of female restaurant workers experienced sexual harassment, with more than half reporting incidents on a weekly basis. Although the restaurant industry employs only 7 percent of American women, the sector is responsible for 37 percent of sexual harassment claims filed with the E.E.O.C.

It isn’t just the notoriously sexist culture of restaurant kitchens that is at fault, but the economic structure that turns customers into shadow employers, leaving servers — so often women — vulnerable to the predations anyone picking up the bill might feel entitled to exercise. The study showed that women reliant on tips made up the highest share of those who had experienced harassment and that those who lived in states where the tipped minimum wage was $2.13 an hour (the federal minimum for tipped workers) were twice as likely to experience sexual harassment as those who lived in places where a single minimum wage standard applied to all workers.