Buzz
Being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t work at Hooters. I’ve always been a walking contradiction, which explains how a lifelong feminist like me ended up waitressing at a place famous for both wings and women.
After I tried for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, I found myself looking up at the owl-eyed logo of Hooters just 200 yards away. It was 2003, and at 19, I was already done with the constant sexism in my life. Catcalls on the street and crude comments from male classmates were everyday occurrences. Hooters seemed like a cheeky way to profit from the sexism that disgusted me. At least there, they’d have to pay me to smile at their nonsense.
They hired me right away.
The first time I squeezed into the Hooters uniform, with its tank top, orange shorts, and pantyhose, I felt exposed. I wasn’t used to showing so much of my body. Despite applying for the job, I was still uneasy about my looks, and having so much exposed made me feel self-conscious.
I’ve always hated pantyhose, but for some reason, they became my shield. They gave me a false sense of modesty, making my legs feel less bare and the uniform more manageable. Even when they snagged, and I had to hand over tip money for new pairs, they offered a bit of comfort.
“Is Ashley really your name?” customers would ask. At Hooters, I was anyone but myself. Stepping onto the restaurant floor, I shifted from a shy, introverted student focused on law school to an outgoing, bubbly stranger whose job was to have fun.
And sometimes it was fun. I bonded with my coworkers, creating an exclusive sisterhood. The intense work brought us together. Waiting tables and serving drinks wasn’t rocket science, but it was the hardest labor I’d ever done. The restaurant was busy on weekends and holidays, with waitresses running around for seven hours straight.
Though I rarely worked double shifts, many of my coworkers worked 12-14 hours out of necessity. For them, Hooters wasn’t a side gig—it was a job that paid the bills. While I was thinking about spending tips on a night out, others were worried about making rent and feeding their kids.
My coworkers and I bonded through frustration with “regulars.” We dubbed one customer “Jesus” because he’d evangelize between drinks. He thought giving me a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” one day and chocolate strawberries the next canceled each other out.
Regulars tended to pick favorites based on who they found attractive, rewarding those waitresses with the most tips. How much attention a waitress received often correlated with how much time and effort she was willing to put into talking to the customers. Since small talk isn’t my thing, I didn’t have many regulars. I was courteous but kept the relationship strictly professional. Anything beyond that felt phony.
It was impossible to be friends with customers because there was always an underlying power dynamic. The mere act of being at Hooters seemed to give them permission to treat me like an object, scrutinizing my appearance, making uninvited advances, and offering unsolicited judgments about my looks and intelligence.
Once, I waited on four men who looked like they could’ve been at a MAGA rally. As I cleared their table, one grabbed my arm and smirked: “We have a question about our bill, but I doubt you can handle basic math.”
It wasn’t the words that stung, but the way he looked at me as he spoke, his expression meant to hurt and belittle. He wasn’t making a clumsy joke or casual remark; he was trying to degrade me. But instead of feeling sad, all I felt was anger.
The anger I felt had no outlet. I couldn't talk about my job because it was a secret few knew. It felt easier to conceal it than to expose it. I feared that if people found out where I worked, they'd label me all sorts of things: a slut, ignorant, immoral, anti-feminist... the list went on. Yet none of those things were true of me, nor my co-workers.
Unable to talk about my job, I poured my emotions into my studies. I took every women and gender class I could find and used assignments as an opportunity to explore feminist ideas. For my college’s honors program, I had to write a thesis, much of which was done while I worked at Hooters, sitting behind the bar and waiting tables.
From my second year of college until graduation, I worked a shift or two a week, earning more money than I needed while still finding plenty of time to focus on academics. By the time I left Hooters, I had graduated magna cum laude and earned a full scholarship to law school.
I never regretted working there, but I never fully embraced it either. Even now, 15 years after my last shift, most people are unaware that before becoming a lawyer and a feminist writer and activist, I was once a Hooters Girl.
So why bring it up now?
Recently, I watched an interview with feminist icon Gloria Steinem on Jimmy Fallon’s show. Steinem discussed how her decision to go undercover as a Playboy Bunny to write an exposé had been used by critics to undermine and discredit her. After clarifying she wasn’t actually a Bunny, she shared how she didn’t want to reject the women she worked with at the Playboy Club.
“Disavow?” I muttered to myself.
Did my own silence signify a lack of solidarity with my co-workers? As a feminist writer and activist, what did my failure to publicly acknowledge my past say about me?
No woman should ever be condemned for her paid work, especially when her earnings are so much less than those of men. The problem isn’t women in tank tops and orange shorts. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a woman’s body, no matter the context. The real issue is the patriarchal system that shows little respect for women — not just their bodies, but their minds and spirits as well.
The misogyny I encountered at Hooters was tough to stomach, but it wasn't much different from what I dealt with outside of work: a man rubbing my shoulder without asking “just to see what my shirt was made of,” or a guy telling me I should eat a hamburger because I was too thin. Were these men not objectifying and violating me in the same way as my customers? The situations may not have been identical, but their effect on me was.
It doesn’t matter what women do — how much we contort ourselves to fit into a “man's world” or how we try to hide our physical forms to avoid being sexualized. We’ll never achieve true equality until these fundamental issues are addressed, and that requires far more vision, courage, and effort than simply blaming women, their bodies, or their jobs for the problems.
I’m no Gloria Steinem. My experience as a Hooters Girl isn't the same as hers as a Playboy Bunny. Steinem wasn't a Bunny out of choice; I, however, was a Hooters Girl. In that respect, I represent every woman who’s worked in an industry where her body was exploited for profit.
I can't disavow these women because I am them, and they are me. Being a former Hooters Girl doesn’t make me less of a feminist; it makes me a better one.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost in March 2021.
