Recently I wrote a post Boys, Babes and Balls: Hooters mascots for U16 boys footy about Hooters restaurant entering a sponsorship deal with a Gold Coast Under 16 boys club. The deal included money and two cheerleaders in tight clothes cheering the boys on. I argued that ‘…embedding busty mascots in with 15 and 16 year old boys [teaches] them that women are really part of the entertainment and rewards of playing the game. Why can’t boys just get on with the game without the dancing girls? We have seen so many times, evidence of demeaning views about women by too many sportsmen in this country. And too often, abusive behaviour has been made possible through a culture of collusion within male dominated sporting bodies.’
I quoted from terms and conditions in the Hooters Employment Handbook which employees had to agree to, including:
The Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and entertaining conversations are commonplace and I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements, or work environment to be offensive, intimidating, hostile, or unwelcome.
In other words, sexual jokes and possible harassment is really just part of the job, and as a Hooters employee there is no room to complain.
Now the AFL has stepped in and dismantled the arrangement.
According to an article in Gold Coast.com – complete with breast-related nudge nudge wink wink lines such as ‘Hooters support goes bust’, players ‘deflated’, and in accompanying video ‘You’re looking swell girls’ – AFL Queensland, having consulted with AFL Australia and the State Government, recommended the deal be stopped.
AFL Queensland chief executive Richard Griffiths said it had concerns over the ‘appropriateness of the respective organisation’.
“Following discussion it was agreed with the club that the nature of the arrangement was not in the best interests of the club and the code at a junior level,” he said.
… Bernie Kern, who brokered the deal, believes the organisation felt the restaurant was at odds with AFL’s promotion of female equality.
The Miss Australia Hooters contest video linked on Gold Coast.com provides further evidence of the impact of Hooters culture and the attitude to women it perpetuates.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/12063549[/vimeo]
Co-host Mike Goldman urges his fellow host Jaime Wright to “Get em out! Do it! Get em out!”. This behaviour would normally constitute sexual harrassment, but because it’s a Hooters event, that seems to make it OK.
The winner is asked what gave her the winning edge. What are ya? Stupid? “Hooters is a restaurant but at the end of the day everyone thinks of hooters as hooters and that’s what got me over the line”. She then goes on to add, as though an after-thought “and my personality and presence”.
In one fell swoop, she cuts through the company’s “family restaurant” spin.
While the AFL has done the right thing, there’s a hell of a lot more it needs to do to address the behaviour of its players.
My friend and colleague Melinda Liszewski has blogged on the Hooters incident on the Collective Shout website.
6 Responses
That video is so incredibly degrading! They really must think we’re stupid claiming ‘family restaurant’ status. As the model said, it’s all about the hooters! It’s disgusting that they are being so sexist with their terms of employment and they are getting away with it. I think that deserves a challenge too.
I think it’s important for boys to play sport, but there are limited choices for those who don’t want their boys to become part of this boof-head scene of booze and women.
I feel sorry for those boys, what chance do they have when these guys constantly getting in trouble are their role models and where women are presented as eye candy? We’re going to be seeing more football players before the courts if something doesn’t change. As for Hooters, I wouldn’t be caught dead in that place.
Since when do women have men’s babies? When our male supremacist system promotes myth that women are just empty vessels waiting to be filled with a man’s child.
‘She’s now pregnant with one of the player’s child.’ Amazing a man creates a child all on his own and then finds a woman to ‘carry his child.’
The correct terminology should read as follows: one of the male St. Kilda players (because we can never overemphaise the biological sex of males because men are the default human and only women have to be identified as ‘women’) who became sexually ‘involved’ with a 16 year old schoolgirl has now fathered a child with this young woman.
However, if as is claimed this young woman is carrying the man’s child (sic) then obviously the child belongs to the father and he not, the mother must take full responsibility for raising this child. The mother after all is only the vessel carrying the man’s child (sic).
Wow. 3:34 of footage and only a snippet at the end dedicated to the winner… apart from the token interview, she seemed totally incidental. Poor Kylie, to be queen of a pageant that was so focused on the ‘quality’ of the competition that the ‘winner’ could have so little relevance.
And Jennifer – women and men have each other’s babies. I was pregnant with my husband’s child as equally as he fathered mine. I was surely the vessel but his responsibility cannot be evaded – in a society where women are sex objects, it is important that men are held accountable linguistically to be held accountable legally.
YAY!
lets hope these sorts of ‘sponsorships’ have even less time to do damage in the future. THANKS Melinda – and thanks everyone who told those involved what they needed to hear.
I’d like to see some attention paid to women’s brains…
I couldn’t bring myself to watch the Hooters competition video, but am not surprised that Mike Goldman is involved …
ANYWAY … GREAT NEWS that the club decided to right their wrong, although it feels pathetic having to “congratulate” them for reversing a terrible, terrible initial decision. Really, why can’t adults just be adult?