How old should a person be before it becomes acceptable to treat them as an object? Where do we draw the line of demarcation between the age when you are treated as a human and the age it becomes acceptable to treat you as an object? Most people set the standard at eighteen, the magical age when a person can register to vote and buy lottery tickets. Other people, though, would choose to set the age lower. Much, much lower. Naturally, some of these people can be found at Hooters.
Hooters is a quintessentially American restaurant, the epitome of middle-class degeneracy. The chain of restaurants caters to one of the primal needs of modern manhood: the desire to eat horrible food served by skimpily clad women. Taking its place alongside Maxim magazine and The Man Show, Hooters stands as one of the symbols of our post-emasculated culture. Few sights are as pitiably ferine as watching men licking chicken grease off their fingers while leering at the silicon enhanced mammary glands of post-pubescent girls. It would be cause for outrage if it wasn't so completly pathetic. This new era is even worse -- if that's even possible -- than the days when Alan Alda and Phil Donahue were our country's standards of masculinity. (Come back, Robert Bly! Come back you sissified, drum-beating, Iron John-types! All is forgiven!)
Hooters, however, was apparently unsatisfied with being merely loathsome and decided to veer off into the realm of the downright creepy. How else to explain holding a "Little Miss Hooters" contest for girls five and under? The contest, which required the infants to dress in little orange spandex shorts and a tied up Hooters t-shirt, was to be held at a location in Florida. Whether the pageant was intended as a homage to the children’s favorite skanky waitresses or was a marketing ploy to attract the elusive pedophilic chicken wing-eating demographic remains to be seen.
Fortunately, we won’t have to find out. The event was canceled after Stacy Tabb of Sekimori rallied the blogosphere to complain to Hooters headquarters. Seeing the wrath of one really ticked off blogger unleashed for such a noble cause is quite inspiring and we should all be grateful for Tabb’s willingness to take a stand and do the right thing. One voice, echoed in the blogosphere, can be powerfully effective as one restaurant manager in Florida can now confirm. No doubt he was taken out behind the woodshed and beaten until he promised to only exploit girls who were old enough to vote.
But while everyone else was congratulating themselves for restoring the standards of community decency, Sara Butler, my favorite feminist intellectual, was busy pointing out the elephant in the room:
Now what's interesting, to me, about this, is why people are upset. Is it disgusting because it sexualizes children? Or because we should wait until girls turn 18 before we start treating them like they're only sex objects?
Why does Stacy Tabb, the blogger who wrote about this, feel the need to defend herself from accusations of Puritanism? Check out this exhange between Michele Catalano and one of her readers:
As a former member of the Hooters wait-staff, I find your comments to be judgemental and simplistic. I am not ashamed of what I did; in fact the money I earned was enough to put my daughter through one of the fine private Kindergartens in town. If I cannot share my profession with my daughter by introducing her to the fine patrons and extremely supportive staff at Hooters, then I should never have worked there to begin with. As it is I worked there with pride and I happily anticipate the time when Shelly is old enough to work there herself. If entering her in this harmless contest would help her resume then I do so eagerly. Do you think a Lawyer or Accountant should hide her profession from her daughter? Haven't you heard of take your child to work day? I would suggest you keep your opinions to yourself instead of attacking a whole community of caring and nurturing people.
Posted by: Katie at May 21, 2004 09:26 AM
Katie, pardon my bluntness, but you are an idiot.
Nobody said you should be ashamed of your job. There is absolutley nothing wrong with being a Hooter's waitress.
However, dressing a five year old girl up in spandex shorts and a tied-up shirt and then parading her around as Little Miss Hooters is something to be ashamed of.
The rest of your argument is moot as it's just stupid.
Posted by: michele at May 21, 2004 09:32 AM
Um, doesn't anyone see the issues here? Katie's totally right, if you're going to respect working at Hooters as just another career choice and if sex is always okay as long as it's consensual, you going to have problems explaining why a "Little Miss Hooters" contest is such a big deal (it's kind of funny, but mostly sad, how quickly - just a few comments later - Ms. Catalano uses the word "whore," even though there's nothing to be ashamed of about being a Hooter's waitress and she's not a prude at all). When you treat sex the way our culture does - as a commodity, as a source of "empowerment," as all about pleasure, as having nothing to do with who we are - don't be surprised when you find you can't contain it so that it never makes you feel uncomfortable. It's like Mark Shea says, show me a culture that despises virginity, and I'll show you a culture that despises children.
Sara’s post reminds me of a passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man:
"In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our mist."
Replace the terms “honor” and “traitors” with “modesty” and “sexual exploiters” and you'll have a consummate explanation for the situation we find ourselves in today. We allow woman -- with and without their consent -- to be treated as objects, pieces of meat like the bucket of wings we devour. We allow the media to portray them as sex toys and then act surprised when they are raped and abused. We force upon them an air-brushed centerfold standard of beauty and then mock their weakness when thy starve themselves to meet it. We tell little girls that they are precious and significant, worthy of love and esteem. What we forget to tell them is that it is something they will outgrow. We forget to tell them that their expectations of being treated with dignity ends when they turn eighteen. After all, that’s the day they reach the age of objectification.
3
Hey Joe,
Even I've got to agreee with you on this one.
4
Remember when the police ran that sting operation, and sent a group of organized crime figures free tickets to the NFL game? And when the guys showed up, they were arrested on the spot?
I'm hoping for something similar here. Children's Services is using this as a gimmick to identify the truly horrible parents in the area, so as to put the children into good homes.
posted on 05.24.2004 9:25 PM5
Children's Services have so many bad reports that I don't tend to think of them doing a good job of placing those children that they don't lose.
I presume by 'object' you mean 'depersonalized' not as opposed to 'subject'. There are people who treat everyone else as subjective in their own existance, or awareness, rather than as objective people. People are -objects- as being real, outside of ourselves, and valuable in and of themselves.
But in your context, I suspect that 'depersonalization' is what you mean by 'objectivication' and that you also don't mean Randist philosophy.
posted on 05.25.2004 12:16 AM6
Steve,
But in your context, I suspect that 'depersonalization' is what you mean by 'objectivication' and that you also don't mean Randist philosophy.
You're right. But then again, under Rand's philosophy it probably wouldn't change much. "Other people" aren't exactly considered intrinsically valuable under her worldview.
posted on 05.25.2004 12:41 AM7
I hope you didn't mean Rand! Then we would all have to collectively slap you silly :-) She really was a piece of work...
posted on 05.25.2004 1:41 AM8
infants...in little orange spandex shorts and a tied up Hooters t-shirt
I've heard children so exploited by their parents refered to as "prosti-tots."
9
Good post, Joe. Good points. But the Little Miss Hooters situation reminds me of the images of JonBenet Ramsey at age five or six prancing around in junior beauty pagents; I'd argue they both sexualize or objectify children to a certain extent.
One distinction between the contest and working at Hooters as a waitress that doesn't seem to be raised here is the issue of individual choice: the adult has a choice, the child is frequently parent-directed into activities.
posted on 05.25.2004 8:41 AM10
That Hooter's attempted this is not surprising at all.
It is just another example of the decline of our society perpetrated by the anything goes left.
posted on 05.26.2004 12:37 AM11
It should never be acceptable to treat someone as an object. It could be argued that the Hooters wait-staff "deserve" to be treated as objects because they intentionally put themselves "out there" in a situation where, most likely, they WILL be treated as objects. But that is not sufficient justification. For that matter, I don't think there's any sufficient justification for treating someone as an object.
Dan, I disagree. The decline of our society is not perpetrated by the "anything goes" left. The decline of our society is a direct result of the sin of humanity.
posted on 06.02.2004 7:28 AM12
oops. How did I end up typing "Dan?" I meant David (the last commenter). David, I disagree.
posted on 06.02.2004 7:30 AM13
"How old should a person be before it becomes acceptable to treat them as an object?"
When they are old enough to walk away.
posted on 06.03.2004 4:15 PM14
I am a christian that also happens to work at hooters. As Mike McNeil , our VP of marketing said, Hooters doesn't expliot women, we EMPLOY women. Get a grip. I am not treated as an object... I am empowered by my orange shorts and don't see a problem AT ALL with the lil miss hooters pageant as long the child wanted to do it.. I see so many of these two faced bible bashers who say this is so bad beating their children when they don't smile right or sit up straigh in church.. How bout the childs right to choose faith? Who are any of you to judge?? I believe theres only one who has that right.. The Almighty Lord.Get a life and get off your high horse. If there was only a way to spit on people via email.......
posted on 07.01.2004 1:08 PM15
The longer I sit here and read this ignorant ranting the more enraged I become. Hooters caters to children and if a child enters my restaurant they never leave without a smile, a balloon, and a great memory. And the food IS good, and I DO NOT have any silicone in my body.. We recently raised $5,000 for a child in our store who was dying of cancer and visit him in the hospital regulary.. His mother said it was his only wish to be let out of the hospital to come back and see his favorite girls again. It's people like you that let the Boys and Girls club of Rochester TURN DOWN $12,000 donation from another one of our many charitable events because of their false perceptions. Take a trip to your nearest hooters before you buy into this bull.I will make it my goal to have a little miss hooters pageant at my restaurant and donate all the proceeds to my church.. I'm sure they would happily accept our money.. And please!! Protest!! Thats just more publicity for us,more money in my pocket, and more money for whichever charity will take our money!!!!!!!Thanks...now go pray for something meaningful, like the sterilization of Joe Carter and anyone else who agrees with him so no child can be brainwashed with this crap!!! God bless you all and I'll be praying for you all to open your eyes.
posted on 07.01.2004 1:35 PM