rant by request: hooters

[keryx]

There's a Friendly's or something equally family-oriented out on Broad Street (that's a major thoroughfare for those of you not in Richmond) that caught fire/went bankrupt/whatever, and it has a sign up that says, effectively "eat at Hooter's".

I haven't actually been to a Hooter's in a good five years. Back then, I worked on a project with a number of South African emigres, who were bizarrely really keen on Hooters, and always wanted to go there after we left team events and happy hours. They weren't particularly prurient types, but got an odd sense of kitschy amusement out of the absurd, stereotypically male environment. And they liked the food, which was really just okay.

The one commonality I can draw from these two stories is that Hooter's doesn't have to be as offensive a concept as it is - or possibly was; it doesn't seem like people are upset about it anymore. Does it? I don't know if the restaurant became less popular or if there are just so many more appalling things to be concerned about, but I haven't seen any good anti-Hooters furor in awhile.

You know what bothers me about the place? Aside from the bleh food, of course... It's that the idea plays to all the most obnoxious stereotypes about gender in America. I think, as Americans, it's easy to assume our gender stereotypes are universal (they're not - that's precisely why my South African friends liked the place so much). But yes. Men all like sports. And fried food. And half-naked women. Men are, in fact, basically slobbering idiots. Women don't like any of those things. Everyone is straight. Women are consumable. There is one standard of beauty/sexy/good for women. Breasts are supposed to be erect and dome-shaped.

I know 90% of television and print advertising also reinforces all those stereotypes, and in an arguably even less challenging way (I mean, you have to actually interact with your Hooters waiter, which means there's basic human connection going on - and I have to imagine that makes it slightly harder to maintain that stereotypical fiction), but this doesn't make it not piss me off.

Do people still even go to Hooter's, though? I don't think they do. In which case, that might be a sign of progress - that there's less of an audience for rank stereotype.

Comments

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

There is not necessarily any basic human connection made between waitress and customer. (In fact, that woman who wrote Nine Lives said she received much better treatment as a stripper than as a cocktail waitress).

The Hooters near my office still does a brisk business. I still hate the place, but I am more inured to walking past it, because it's been there a while. When I'm in earshot of men going in, though, I still say "pathetic wankers!" in a stage whisper at them.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

There's still the physical fact of interaction between humans, however much one may attempt to degrade the other. While that simply doesn't exist if you're ingesting some kind of media image of another person.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

True. But the waitress is in an extremely subordinate role, working for tips, and could lose her job if she pissed off a customer.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. The interaction isn't equal; it just exists.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I just see too many men/customers who imagine they have a "relationship," or have made a "connection," with a woman who is being paid to smile and bring them drinks and remember their regular order. But you're right, at least she is a real breathing person and not a magazine...

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

They are opening a new Hooter's in my hood and I constantly run into people through business or what have you that go to Hooter's. It was on my mind, in fact, because when I was in philly this weekend one of the people I was meeting up with was late because he had been at Hooter's.

And the new stereotype: Female Chauvinist Pigs. Oy.

In one sense I feel more and more alone every day, and in another sense I don't because no one I actually know well would go to Hooter's (except oontzgrrl and well, we have a longstanding friendship-in-spite-of-our-differences thang goin' on.) and the people I keep running into that do go are more acquaintances.

Thanks for the rant. :) Way more gentle than I'd be, obviously. :)

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I would love to read your rant on the same subject! :-)

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. I think everyone should do rants-by-request!

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

But everyone knows how I feel about stuff like that. I wanted to hear from someone whom I knew had a more liberal point of view on things. :)

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I always think I know how you feel about things, cause you kindof advertise yourself as reactionary. But then when you actually speak about them, you're incredibly well-reasoned.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Damn! I'm ruining my own image! :)

I really do feel pretty reactionary though. I wonder if I purposely soften my ideas in a misleading way.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

ha! No, I think it's because your views are well-thought-out, unlike those of a great many people in the world. :-)

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

It means alot to me that you guys feel that way, particularly when today seems to be a rage-first-think-later kind of day for me.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's possible. Or you feel reactionary, but then support your feelings with good arguments.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

When I first saw the title of that book I felt like throwing something. Because the third-wavers who are keen on talking about and responsibly embracing female sexuality are just raunchmeisters. Ugh.

This little sadomasochist is going to go crawl under a table now lest she start screaming uncontrollably.

AND BUTCHES AND FEMMES ARE NOT NEW. IDIOTS.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

Yep.

The bit about butches and femmes is taken from the Booklist starred review. Perhaps the author understands butch/femme culture and the reviewer gets it wrong, but it certainly sounds like the author has a very flawed understanding of it as a "new" phenomenon. How it's tied into "raunch" I don't even want to guess.

The idea that there is an impure branch of feminism (here referred to as "raunch feminism") is a criticism all too often launched at those of us who believe that sometimes it can be feminist and empowering to explore sexuality, even in ways that some feminists find generally problematic. I am bothered by this criticism whenever it comes up. It's true that some people attach the label "feminist" to anything they like. However, it's also true, as pointed out countless times during "the sex wars", that female sexual pleasure of any sort has traditionally been mocked and derided by patriarchy.

As feminists I think we have to be very careful when we want to say someone, or some group, is colluding. Since badmouthing female sexuality and female sexual pleasure is traditionally a patriarchal way of proceeding, not carefully considering the claims of so-called "sex positive" feminism* strikes me as regressive, not progressive.

*I say "so-called" here because, although personally I like the term and think it gets to the point well, many thoughtful people on the other side of the debate feel it deems them anti-sex, and I don't want to sound like I think they are.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard of this book until today, and you two are like the 5th and 6th people to mention it. What is up with this book? It sounds like it lumps pro-sex feminism and kink into one camp with exploitative BS like the "girls gone wild" stuff.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it yet but I think it has the potential to make some very salient points about the difference between embracing women's sexuality and having women embrace male sexuality.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'm assuming you mean to differentiate between "feminine" and "masculine" sexuality (that is gendered vs. biological sexual preferences)?

I feel pretty hesitant about that as a concept - I could be convinced otherwise, but I feel like most sexual behavior would be better off decoupled from gender. If there's an idea of "women's" sexuality that is softer/more loving/whatever, then exactly what we don't need is to call for women to embrace that. We need people of whatever gender to be allowed equal access to that type of sexuality and whatever its "male" opposite is assumed to be.

Of course, I may be responding to an idea that isn't even what you're talking about.

just my own take on it...

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I've no idea whether women's sexuality would be "softer" or anything like that, but I do feel that my own ideas and preferences have inescapably been shaped by the sexual imagery and lexicon that's out there, and that is mostly male. Meaning that it's been written by men, photographed by men, selected by men, the women pictured are there for male fantasies, and the men pictured are too (if only by being barely-in-the-frame, unthreateningly unbuff, etc.); the subject matter is what men want to see, so even if women start buying more erotic materials they only have what's out there to choose from. Just like it's hard to know whether any of us would, say, shave our legs if the patriarchy didn't exist, it's hard to know WHAT our sexual fantasies or imagery would look like if we hadn't been steeped in male ideas and the male gaze.

Re: just my own take on it...

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

right. and while adopting the male gaze may be a step in exploring our sexuality, we've got to recognize it for what it is, and adoption of the patriarchal sex role structure. at least that's IMHO.

Re: just my own take on it...

[keryx.livejournal.com]

This I'm willing to go along with. I get squicked almost automatically when people start talking about "women's sexuality", cause even a lot of feminists tend to equate that with luuurve. And argh. Eye-popping rage inducer for me.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

just put stereotypical in front of women's and men's, or whatever i would need to get across the fact that i was talking about socially proscribed gendered sexual behavior. sorry i'm building up a strong rage that is causing me to not express myself in perfect academic language.

Looks like junk to me.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

Based on the sample pages at Amazon (and the margins & type size), it looks like a skinny master's thesis or a few essays thrown hastily together to make a just-barely-book-sized manuscript.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Sorry misread your comment.

Frankly I think from the NY article I read that she has some fantastic points. But we can agree to disagree.

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry. It just sounded to me, and perhaps I have a really skewed understanding of what she's saying since I only read Amazon reviews, that she's trying to say that the problem is women going along with problematic stuff... and even if she's not attacking people on my side of teh debate (which is what that read like, but I may well be very wrong), it seems to me that laying the blame at the feet of women isn't very feminist. Even if some people collude, aren't we better off fighting the system than gawking at the women who collude with it as if they are either 1) circus freaks worthy only of our derision or 2) the source of the problem?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I guess I do feel that women going along with problematic stuff is something to examine - moreso, I feel like we can keep examining the problematic stuff, and that this book looked to me to be one facet of how to look at the problematic stuff. For me, it's an enormous relief to know that someone's willing to say, "whoah, how empowering is this". I am pretty much willing to lay the blame at the feet of anyone who is uncritically colluding with problematic stuff.

And just to be clear how terrible I am, my "Oy" was not directed at the author of the book, but at female chauvinist pigs.

Which to my mind is something totally separate from a "sex positive feminist" which is something that despite being anti-porn I feel like I could even use as a label for myself.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I went and read the intro to this book (it's on Amazon), and now I'm interested in reading it, but only after someone else buys it. I think we're missing a very big point in the evolution of women's sexuality, which is that - hello, it's only really been considered normal for women to like or want to talk about sex for what, 30 years? 50 years?

So what women are doing when they explore the whole "sex like a man" thing may be exactly that - exploring in the absence of a guide for women's sexuality that isn't about the lurve. It's a point in history, and possibly a necessary one - given the culture as it is and has been around us. I'm worried that her book doesn't seem to even give that a thought, but I'm absolutely with her on the point that where we are right not does not by any means represent an ideal or the end of feminism. And when did we decide it was even okay to let people who edit magazines like "Maxim" answer questions about what constitutes the end of feminism?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

See, if people are actually *going* to the Hooters, and it's still the same as it ever was, than I find it more offensive. And I also find it way weird that it doesn't seem to engender much protest. Did we just get tired?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine I could find more than 2 people to protest a Hooter's with, and they'd probably both think I was going to hell. And who wants to invite the abuse?

izzerwurst and some people went out to protest the Hustler club that went into B'more a few years ago, and I thought it was incredibly brave. I can't imagine ever doing that, I'm too emotionally involved in the issue.

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

I wanted to organize something when this local Hooter's opened, so I posted something on a feminist e-board and I got exactly zero replies.

Going to Hooters

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

One of my friends/playpartners (though she seems to have forgotten I exist lately) wanted to go to Hooters with me one evening. I still feel slightly odd that I said no, because part of me would like to know exactly what it's really like in there. I've found in the past that things I expected to profoundly offend or even to trigger me (for example, I expected all mainstream porn to be completely crass and rude and close to violent; what I found in one ex-boyfriend's collection looked cheesy and male-centered, but not deeply upsetting to me) didn't really, even if I had deep worries about their general existence for feminist reasons.

Re: Going to Hooters

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I found the Hooters much less offensive than I had anticipated. There were undoubtedly issues with it, but I've never been there with anyone who didn't approach it as ironic at worst or an intriguing sociological experience at best.

Re: Going to Hooters

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

I think my friend really wanted to look at other women with me. Which I found, and find, kind of strange.

[crafting-change.livejournal.com]

My older brother took my younger brother (there is a 16 year difference between them) to Hooters as some great 'male member of our family' experience.

:p

[orkid.livejournal.com]

Did you happen to see that The Daily Show did a bit about Hooters as part of their Evolution-Schmevolution week last night?

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml

[keryx.livejournal.com]

No - I don't have cable now. I'll have to watch it on the website!

[orkid.livejournal.com]

not one of their funniest, but definitely timely!