Gah, HOOTERS! *shudder* Worse than strip clubs. Like, I would go to a strip club, and possbily enjoy it, but Hooters just skeeves me out.
At a strip club, there's no secret about what the point of the whole thing is. You're there to look at people's bodies. Awesome. As long as that's out in the open, that's a fine and dandy goal. Godspeed to you.
But Hooters....that "healthy, normal restaurant" veil just makes the skeeviness worse. Hey! They're not strippers! They're not prostitutes! They're just waitresses...
This is just what waitresses are! Being ogled is just part of the waitressing job!
The normalcy of it just reenforces the worst aspects of subtle sexism: the idea that women who are just doing their job, going about their business, exist for men's enjoyment.
With strip-clubs, it's open: the women (or maybe men) are deliberately doing something for the patrons to enjoy. With Hooters it's just this passive, pervasive idea: "Hey...that's what they're for, right? That's what breasts are for, waitresses, women..." Bleh.
I'm in agreement. I'm less worried about the blatant ogling of women who are making it their job being naked, and more worried about the line being blurred between non-sex professions and permission to ogle.
The purpose of the strippers IS to make money as sexually desirable objects. If she's doing her job well, customer satisfaction entails ogling.
The mixing of waitressing with the sexual appeal reinforces the pervasive pairing of non-sex professionalism with sexual objectification. Ostensibly, they're "just" waitresses, but the clear implication is that you're also supposed to objectify them while they work.
Women have enough trouble navigating the public (and professional) realm without any reinforcement of the idea that it's acceptable to assess a woman's sex appeal while she works.
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