34 Comments
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Ann Harman's avatar

Hooters has closed 40 of its restaurants in the US. Perhaps they are hoping to have better luck elsewhere. As an American, I apologize for our exportation of the worst of our culture.

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Brigid LaSage's avatar

Another mortified American here who remembers exactly when this started in the early eighties, part of a tsunami backlash to seventies feminism. I was a young teacher at the time, and I'll never forget the guilty/triumphant smirk on my preteen student's face when he told the class he'd been to the new restaurant: "Hooters." It was about the same time Victoria's Secret hyper sexy lingerie stores began taking off in malls. I remember wondering what happened to the messages of natural Our Bodies, Ourselves beauty. The pendulum swings of male domination versus female freedom seem inevitable to me at this point, rooted as they are in our biology and our respective roles in reproduction. The struggle for justice and dignity is eternal.

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Sharon's avatar

They planned to open one in Salford just a few hundred yards from a secondary school. You can only conclude that our local councils are systematically misogynistic and our government doesn’t care.

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Faith B's avatar

l think any venue that encourages or condones sexualisation of women is offensive. The very name is pathetic- why not just call it tits?

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Radhwa Evans-Clare's avatar

Why not call it Pricks?

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Redpeachmoon's avatar

Better!

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Faith B's avatar

why not indeed. People who frequent such a place are pricks

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Jo's avatar

I unfortunately pass said hellhole on my daily commute home. It's vile.

I can't believe it's still operating today. I remember being at Uni in the early 2000's and a few classmates got 'scouted' to work there. Luckily for them they had other options of making money, without having to be sexually harassed whilst serving low-grade, factory farmed chicken wings. Female exploitation all round.

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Deborah Brenner-Liss's avatar

Someone was asking what's the point of posting something from 2008. My reaction upon seeing that this was already published in 2008, and being aware that things have only gotten worse not better, was to feel a mixture of sadness and outrage about the values of this society. I feel pain and demoralization that we as humans (and to call a spade a spade, particularly males, but really all of society is accepting and therefore condoning this behavior) seem to continue to tilt toward hatred, ugliness, violence, degradation, power-over, subjugation, exploitation, and greed. I deeply wonder if anything can motivate us humans (male and female) to turn around this pattern and point more toward dignity and self-respect, boundaries and responsibility?

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- Ann's avatar

Nothing on this planet could make me spend as much as a minute in Hooters

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Ian Mordant's avatar

Hooters sounds to me like the old page 3 of The Sun. Given that, I'm surprised that they didn't try expanding in the UK sooner. Or did they, but fail to?

Ian Mordant

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Sly Fawkes's avatar

Some 20 years ago, when I was still trying to be one of the "cool girls," I took a small group of male friends and family members to Hooters on my dime. None of them misbehaved. In fact, most of the male patrons seemed to be pretty sedate in this particular Hooters. Things probably got worse on weekends. The reason for the waitresses' scanty attire to serve overpriced chicken wings and beer eluded me. Well, not entirely. I understood they were dressed that way to entice male patrons into returning for more overpriced chicken wings and beer. Perhaps dismayed me is a more apt turn of phrase.

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Richard Scratcher's avatar

The point of re-posting an article from 17 years ago?

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Sheila's avatar

*What is the point of reposting an article from 17 years ago?

Because it’s still relevant today. That Hooters written about is still open.

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Kevin Donnellon's avatar

and there is one in Liverpool :(

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Terf vibes's avatar

And another in Manchester, despite strong opposition.

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Sheila's avatar

When I left the uk the one in Nottingham claimed to be the last open, as said in this article, if I remember rightly after closing all other branches. I didn’t know they managed to get permission to open more 😑 Urg.

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Terf vibes's avatar

Yep. I just Googled it. The Manchester one was approved in 2022. :(

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Sheila's avatar

Gah 😫 There are only sounds to how I feel about that.

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Sheila's avatar

😑😢

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Richard Scratcher's avatar

And? Have you been back?

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Al's avatar

Late to the party as usual, but as a 50-odd year old man who drank in the Bigg and Cloth markets in the 80s as a young un, it leaves a sinking feeling that decades of work and investment to get rid of the stag does from Newcastle seem to have been for nothing. I hope this is just an abberration but probably not.

Also what's with the whataboutery from this Dilettante Polymath fella? If a post is as relevant today as it was then it deserves to be heard. Ironic, as his posts are all about the past. I decided to glance at his posts and likes. All my questions were answered...

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Bob Shannon's avatar

Well done, anyone who wonders why so many young women are messed up about things like body image and so on, need look no futher. The ability of American business to commodify anything wins again, unless people take a stand

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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

The hand-wringing and/or outrage is pathetic.

The author and commentors here should hang their heads in shame…..

…….where was/is your outrage about young white girls getting systematically, brutally raped?

You all disgust me.

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Faith B's avatar

lm pretty sure everyone who has commented here will have been disgusted and outraged by the rape gangs and thus commented. You are not the keeper of what we can find offensive? It is possible to be appalled by more than one issue at a time you bloody moron

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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

I’m a ‘bloody moron’?!?

You are the ones jumping up-and down and shrieking about young women working at places like Hooters.

Precisely NONE of them were forced to do the job…..and doubtless enjoy it until they don’t and then they quit.

Who the hell are you to tell young women what they can and cannot do with their lives anyway? It’s none of your business is it?

If feminism is about women making independent choices and not be bossed around by men…….why should women be bossed around by women?

Somehow, I doubt you have the capacity to contemplate the question - never mind answer it.

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Faith B's avatar

l dont recall mentioning anywhere that women shouldn't work wherever they choose.

l very much doubt that you can guarantee NONE of them have been coerced into working there either, unless you have spoken to every single one.

and l really don't care what you doubt about my mental capacity.

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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

🤣🤣🤣🤣

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Mary F's avatar

Julie was the first journalist to report on this issue that you seem to feel eclipses all other women’s concerns. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/three-girls-drama-child-sexual-exploitation-rochdale-blackpool-pimping-a7739006.html

An apology would make you look less of an idiot.

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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

In May 2017?!?

Absolutely pathetic.

These dreadful, appalling, brutal crimes had been going on - on a large scale - for nearly 20yrs before then, and on a small scale right back to the 1970s (take a look at Lord Ahmed’s case).

Are you saying that there are ‘womens’ issues’ that are more important than the hundreds of thousands of rapes that young, mostly, white girls endured over the past 40yrs?

If there are apologies to be made, they should be made by self-absorbed women’s groups.

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humans have real bodies's avatar

Wow, the only absolutely pathetic thing here is your reading comprehension. Let me help you out. From the 2nd sentence in the third paragraph of Ms Bindel's article linked by Mary F, above: "despite the quality of material I had amassed, it took me until 2007 to get my first piece published because some editors feared an accusation of racism." Here is the link to that first piece: https://www.thetimes.com/article/mothers-of-prevention-v6wn7b8vrjc

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Deborah Dawkin's avatar

I am a feminist...but I have to say I have some sympathy with this perspective. As a young woman in the 70s the sexualisation of women was rife. Yet I never felt unsafe among men who would look at page 3 or attended strip clubs or the good humoured workmen who whistled at me in the street. Not sure that going hard on this stuff is what will make women safer. Just saying....

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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

Women had participated in their OWN sexualisation in the 1960s…….

…….as ever, you want it both ways.

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Feb 9
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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

No I didn’t.

No she wasn’t.

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