If you are a family friendly restaurant with a wholesome image, why would you fire someone for being too fat?
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3111237/Too-fat-Hooters-girls-are-sacked.html
Or is it because, in fact, Hooters merely wish to perpetuate a narrow view that sees women as only and always sex objects, rather than as full human beings?
Hooters doesn't force anybody to work there. If a young woman so chooses, she can work in a plethora of environments that are completely committed to gender equality. Do you see my point? These individuals have a CHOICE.
ReplyDeleteIf they feel they WANT to work in an environment where their physical features are used to their advantage then Hooters gives them that option. A male friend of mine once worked as a "Butler in the Buff" - I'm assuming that you're also seeking to petition organisations that facilitate this practice?
Hi Phil
ReplyDeletei have published your comment because, despite it clearly breaking the moderation policy, i really want to challenge you on your idea of 'choice'.
Firstly, in a capitalist society with a massive unemployment problem and a rule where if the job centre suggest you go for a job interview, you go, and where women live under a pay gap, choosing to work somewhere is a bit of a misnomer.
But what about the women who would choose to work at hooters, but can't because they have small breasts or short hair, or, in one real life case, are a victim of domestic abuse? Hooters are happy to take their employment choices away from them.
Secondly, yes, i choose not to work at hooters. but i also choose not to live in a society that increasingly sees women as only and always sex objects, or invisible. Sadly, that choice is denied to me. Hooters (and many other industries) are removing my CHOICE (as you put it in capitals) to live in a society that treats women as human beings, as full citizens of the world, and not as objects, body parts, 'hooters'.
The increased sexual objectification of women in our society, which hooters contributes to, is removing my choices. it is removing my freedom.
Objectification is linked to violence against women and girls. It is removing women's choice, women's rights to live without the fear of violence.
Why is the corporate choice of Hooters to treat women as walking breasts more valid, more important than my choice to be treated equally? To be treated as a person? To live without the fear of violence?
Butlers in the Buff is a business i disagree with, precisely because it does to men what hooters does to women. With the exception that i don't think the butlers have to sign a contract to say they won't find their working environment hostile. If i had been around when it formed, and a group of people were organising a petition against the increased sexual objectification of men, then i would sign it.
but that isn't happening so i can't sign it. If you want to run a campaign, you have my full support.
The reason I am against Hooters is because the restaurants policy of allowing their waiting staff to be treated as sex objects normalises this practice in the service industry. If a child grows up going to a place where Daddy can pinch the waitresses bum and call her a 'tight looking sexy bitch' to her face, which can happen in Hooters with no consequences to the customer, then that child is growing up believing this to be normalised behaviour.
ReplyDeleteI have worked as a waitress for years in bars and restaurants that do not promote me as a sexualised being as opposed to a member of staff with a right to her own personal space and I can legally stop people from touching me sexually or alludeing to my body in a sexual manor, and if my customers frequently harras me, I can have them charged with assault- the women who work in Hooters cannot do this.
If a woman wants to work in the sex industry I have absolutely no problem with this, Hooters should therefore have the appropriate licence of a sex-encounter venue as dictated by Bristol council, but as it is a 'family themed restorant' it does not require this. Hooters is planning a massive expansion accross the UK and it worries me this is going to lead to more serving staff of all genders being sexually assaulted and harrased by cuctomers who do not understand this to be unacceptable. We alreday get paid below a living wage, is that not bad enough?
phil, a workplace being committed to gender equality isn't a 'choice'.
ReplyDeleteit's law.
@ philfill
ReplyDeleteYou're missing the point here. The reason the word 'feminist'has negative associations for people is because the system, which is anti-female at its very core, is challenged by it, and the engines and agencies of that system (eg BEP, BCC) must interpret it negatively. Whatever word we choose to describe ourselves would end up with the same negative connotations and we'd end up back where we started. We use the word feminist with pride. Its power to evoke and unite strengthens every time it is used negatively against us, and its use as an insult gradually undermines the systems which try to use it against women.
We can't change the name of our cause every time someone says they don't like it. That is exactly what enemies of feminism wish for - for us to be so afraid of what people think that we will change ourselves to fit what they would prefer us to be – ie, thin, gorgeous, sexually available, submissive, vague, dumb, etc etc. - in other words 'feminist' has come to mean fat, ugly, frigid, aggressive etc not because we are those things, but because we're not the alternative. And that would happen whatever we called ourselves.
sorry, posted this on the wrong thread. Will repost on the right one.
ReplyDelete