This cartoon isn’t by me; it’s by my pal Kevin Moore. Click on the panel to read the whole thing.
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I’ve been working as a ‘grownup’ for almost 10 years. I’ve never seen hooters suggested for an official function. I’ve seen people go on their own, but they’re quiet about it. There seems to be a general understanding that hooters isn’t really business appropriate. Does anyone have different experiences?
Basically, this seems out of date to me.
Very funny cartoon though.
From the site on which the cartoon was posted:
“This was inspired by a discussion of challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces on the NPR show “Here and Now” in which it is noted Hooters is a favorite choice for office parties among male coworkers, despite female coworker objections.”
So one can assume that the cartoon was up-to-date when it was made.
o_O
People actually do that? Work parties at hooters? Seriously? Maybe it’s because I only work in white-collar jobs, but in every office I’ve ever worked it’d be utterly unthinkable.
I suppose I could see how it could happen, even without the outright ludicrousness shown in the comic. All male department, all the guys go to Hooters after work. Somehow it gets adopted as an official function… and then a woman joins the staff.
That leaves the department in a bind. Offend the woman by continuing the “Hooters” trips? Or cancel the Hooters trips, which totally isolates and scapegoats the woman no matter what the management says – particularly with the modern backlash against anything that could be perceived as “PC”.
Either way, the thing that bugs me most about Hooters is how many high-school girls seem to work there. Do the customers realize that the meat trotting by is only 16?
At my last job, apparently a client suggested Hooters for business lunch. My boss was a woman, so I’m sure she loved that! But, the company itself never did anything like that, though they did take the client and all involved to Hooters.
“the meat trotting by”???
That one phrase says more about your attitudes toward women than all your anti-feminist posts thus far — and there have been many of those.
“the meat”
I was astonished when the invitation to my first Georgia Tech Alumni Association event specified the meeting place as the newly-constructed local Hooters. This was maybe 10 years ago; I doubt they’ve changed much.
Oh, and Foo: I have no difficulty reading your ultimate sentence as derisive towards the presumed attitudes of Hooters patrons, and not your own personal beliefs.
Sorry, I didn’t follow the link. Where I’ve worked it would be surprising to see hooters suggested for even a group lunch, let alone an official function.
@Bjartmarr
Thanks. I’ll admit that I’ve made some unpopular comments on this blog and others (many of which I regret – I admit to being taken in by some of the MRAs points that I’ve since reconsidered)… but that fact means that some commenters on feminst blogs have such a knee-jerk reaction to anything I say that they can’t even see when I *agree* with them.
I also read Silenced’s comment as derisive of the attitudes of Hooter’s customers.
SiF: I, for one, appreciate the change in the tenor of your comments that’s happened since you started posting here.
(Joe, no prob — I’d be shocked to hear someone suggest it, too!)
@Mandolin
Well, you should be happy to hear that this blog was a big part of it. I was in a string of very bad relationships, and was getting very angry at women in general. Not proud of myself. In the process, I ended up running to MRA blogs. I still have sympathy for some of the problems they describe, but I’m also very concerned about how quickly even the most reasonable MRA bloggers (ie. Sacks) latch onto the same kind of false logic they accuse feminists of using.
Either way, I basically am trying to work through my own issues here, trying to find a holistic view of some real, nasty problems of the human condition within this horribly polarized mess of gender-issue blogging…. and probably causing a great deal of collateral damage in the process.
… but I started a liberal and a feminist, and I’d like to think I’ll end in a way that I can once again consider myself a liberal and a feminist.
And thus ends the Silenced Is Foo show/threadjack.
I’ve worked at places where I wouldn’t have been surprised to have a work meeting called for a Hooters or worse. Particularly if there are no women in that department. Attitudes are still amazingly 50’s or earlier-like among what seems like a majority of men I’ve worked with. My experience is almost entirely in white-collar environments over the last 18 years.
For example, a week ago, two guys were lamenting the loss of the “good old days” when you could smoke in the office & slap women on the ass. Neither of those guys are older than 50 (I’d guess they’re in their mid-40s). This is far from the most offensive comment I’ve heard from white collar men at work. So, no, I’m not surprised that office functions would happen at Hooters. Hell, we’ve seen it on the US version of The Office, so I’m guessing a fair number of people have seen it suggested.
(SiF, I can understand how Cath would have that reaction to your statement – whether or not she’s seen other comments of yours. It is an offensive phrase & it’s very difficult to determine intent in plain text – thus the common use of the “sarcasm” faketags. I’ve been known to misinterpret intent, myself.)
I never had a problem going to Hooters with the guys. I guess as a bisexual I wasn’t quite so conservative about things like this.
My first thought on this was that this was a very white office indeed.
@Jake – thinking it over, I think it’s a matter of industry. I’m in software (gee, twitchy complainer who spends too much time on blogs is a coder? Shocker), so my oldest coworkers have always been in their mid-30s.
Could also be a regional thing. I’m in Southern Ontario, which has a rep for obsessively stuffy workplaces (business magazines love to lampoon Toronto for being no-fun to visit). The only time I can remember anything like the “meetings at hooters” type of thing was when working at a hardware company Niagara Falls – most Ontario cities near the border have a reputation as “Sin Cities” in upstate NY – lax stripper laws, lower drinking age, and lax gambling laws all contribute to this. In that case, after work apparently some visiting customers from the South drafted my boss into showing them around the “legendary” local strip clubs.
He was as shocked by it as I was when he told me the story. But he did oblige. Which wasn’t to say that the local guys had never been to the local strip clubs – but it was freaky for it to come up in the context of business (even peripherally, as an after-work “friendly” activity).
Or I could just have some serious blinders on.
@Jake – thinking it over, I think it’s a matter of industry.
Nope, I’m in the same industry. I’ve often worked as a consultant, but my experience includes both those working for the same company as me & men working for our customers. I’ve seen it in NY & OR &
WA as well as in DE, OH, MA & CA. Wherever I go, there it is. Honestly, some of the most offensive things I’ve heard have come from fellow programmers. IME, industry doesn’t affect the likelihood of crap spouting co-workers. It’s very disturbing.
The plural of anecdote is not data but this is a little funny. My work group just got back from lunch. There were three white men ages 28-35, one white woman who I think is in her mid 30’s, and one Indian/American man in his late 20’s.
When discussing where to go I lied and said a friend of mine was going to hooters with his group. I asked if anyone wanted to go to Hooters. I wanted to see what the reaction would be. They all looked at me as if I’d farted loudly and now they’re making fun of me for suggesting it! I haven’t tried to say that I just wanted to see the reaction.
It did lead to odd lunch conversation. Apparently the woman likes strip clubs because she doesn’t have to pay cover and usually drinks for free. One of the other guys told me privately to let him know if I wanted to stop with him on my way home from work some time. He apparently didn’t want to make this offer in front of everyone else. Everyone agreed that hooters wasn’t appropriate for ‘group’ lunches and that suggesting it frequently would be a bad thing career wise.
Also, I thought sif was being sarcastic also.
@Jake
Oh, I’m not arguing that coders aren’t a vulgar, mentally unstable (and occasionally hateful) lot. Just never seen it in an _official_ capacity. Only reason I specified coders is because we’re predominantly young, and obviously had a more… modern upbringing. But obviously, like you said, plural of anecdote is not data. I tend to think that most of my workplaces would get similar reactions to what Joe described.
(SiF,
I feel that. When I was in college, I ended up in a group of friends who were all gay men, and who were almost all misogynistic. I won’t go into details, but what happened was really traumatizing, and eventually led to me leaving college.
Afterward, I had kind of an allergic reaction to visibly gay men [amusingly, since the more flamboyant guys had also been the least jerky, while the more straight-acting ones were the more virulently problematic]… I still respected their rights politically, but I had a hard time trusting visibly gay guys. I knew I was being a jerk, but it still took a couple years for the reaction to go away — but, thankfully, it did. )
I’ve gone to Hooters I’d say about 8 times (there’s one very near where I work) in the 7 years I’ve worked here. About 3 times it was because the vendor (who was paying) took us there. The other times I had a craving for fried shrimp. I like their shrimp, even though it’s way greasier than is good for me.
OTOH, I’d never suggest that we hold a work function there and I’ve never heard anyone do so. My particular group does network support (both internal and outsourced), and we are about 90% male. But if you have some respect for the people you work with you don’t put them into a bad position, which includes putting them in the position of having to either mask their misgivings or making them the “bad guy” by raising an objection.
It may interest all of you to know that Miss Manners is at least somewhat opposed to office parties in general, whether it’s a single-sex environment or not. Why? Because it blurs the line between co-workers and true friends. After all, we’ve all known at least one co-worker we wanted to associate with as little as possible. Formal politeness is a perfect way of covering up your contempt for someone you’re forced to see every day (while still managing to work together efficiently), and office parties are, by definition, somewhat informal, which can make things awkward.
BTW, Miss Manners also pointed out once that even consensual sexual flirtation – or affairs – at the office tend to interfere with work productivity, so “welcome advances” are not truly welcome as far as anyone outside the couple is concerned.
Finally: Ampersand, I tried to use the general contact form but it didn’t pop up. Here’s the question. When are you going to use your brilliant mind to write about the issue of whether American men really want better male birth control methods? That is, if they DID want to protect themselves against unwanted fatherhood, wouldn’t we hear about it on TV at least as much as we hear about men trying to get out of paying child support for kids they never wanted? (I did a search in your blog, and I couldn’t find any columns specifically about that.) Also, here’s a very interesting article about why one of the best methods of male BC may never arrive in the U.S. – UNLESS men start demanding it LOUDLY!
http://www.alternet.org/story/17432/
That is, if they DID want to protect themselves against unwanted fatherhood, wouldn’t we hear about it on TV at least as much as we hear about men trying to get out of paying child support for kids they never wanted?
Nope. It wouldn’t make as entertaining/conflict-laden TV as some lout trying to duck child support does.
“Nope. It wouldn’t make as entertaining/conflict-laden TV as some lout trying to duck child support does.”
Um, my point was, have any activist men even been TRYING to campaign for this issue on TV? Or demonstrating in the streets? Seems to me some funny costumes ought to do the trick when it comes to getting attention. Take that man dressed as Batman who, in 2004, scaled Buckingham Palace to draw attention to father’s rights. That got shown around the world. Who’s bothered to try anything like that regarding male BC?
I’ll believe the interest/market is there when I see it outside of the Net.
I never had a problem going to Hooters with the guys. I guess as a bisexual I wasn’t quite so conservative about things like this.
As a bisexual, I don’t assume that “also likes women” means “immune to sexism”.
Hooters isn’t even a strip bar. It’s a restaurant chain that tries to skirt adult-venue laws by being a slightly dumbed-down version of a strip bar.
“I guess as a bisexual I wasn’t quite so conservative about things like this.”
*rolls eyes* Gee, I missed that gem. Ferg, that’s insulting to both straight women and your fellow bisexuals — frex, me. Perhaps you could stop assuming that orientation determines personality.
Also, your oh-so-clever one liners grow wearisome. I hope that you will start contributing to the blog in a more meaningful way.
In ’97 I was on a project that involved driving around the country, and upgrading the computing equipment in the 50+ points of sale of a particular manufacturer. It mostly took me a day per site, and the warehouse managers felt obligated to take me to lunch. About two out of three took me to Hooters (I started from Miami) until I said that I had enough. In South Carolina I explained I was tired of the food, and as they obviously communicated among each other, I ended up being taken to places that offered chicken salads. As I reached Georgia, someone got the bright idea that they needed to take me to ‘gentlemen clubs’ in the evening. That one was easier to get out of, as I was doing a lot of driving and needed the sleep.
But I did not think it was appropriate to comment on their tastes, or even on what they thought my tastes were. I do not think that there was one single woman working in any of the warehouses.
Last year, I went through this company’s West Coast warehouses again. Still no women working there, but I guess they did not anymore think that the ‘Eastern European geek’ needed this kind of immersion in ‘American Culture’.
I’m a lesbian, and though I don’t often go to lesbian bars I’ve been astonished and a little worried by how often there are strippers at them (this is in London). I’ve also been surprised by my own ambivalence about it. I don’t think it’s right and will argue passionately about this, but I am conscious of how tempting it can be, as a woman, to objectify women in this way because it seems to lend a ‘realness’ to ones sexuality, to be the antidote both of cultural narratives that erase lesbianism and of those lesbian-feminist visions of women chastely holding hands and nurturing each other without any nasty sexualising taking place. And I’ll acknowledge that sometimes I can talk about women in an objectifying way with my straight male friends, because it feels so satisfying to be expressing my sexuality alongside them, to allow myself some of the freedom and uncomplicatedness about it that they’ve been accultured to. I’m not arguing that it’s right, but I do acknowledge how seductive it is and that I sometimes yield to that. And I can see how a bisexual woman might feel those kinds of pressures very strongly too, especially when she risks having half of her sexuality seen as less ‘real’, a diversion – sometimes it feels difficult having to rewrite all the rules at once.