The Hooters restaurant chain has made an application to open a branch in Salford, Greater Manchester which goes explicitly against the commitment by The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to tackling sexism, misogyny and gender-based violence and abuse. In this article, the local campaign group, Womanchester, explains why it is impossible for the GMCA to grant the licence application for Hooters without straying from this promise.

In September 2021, after consulting with residents and organisations, GMCA launched their Gender-Based Violence Strategy.

Mayor Andy Burnham, in his introduction, was clear that “women shouldn’t have to change what they do because of unacceptable behaviour by men” (GMCA, 2021:4), that he wanted the strategy to “call out the unacceptable behaviour and misogyny” and that he would “lead a high-profile campaign asking men and boys to think about their behaviour and how it makes women and girls feel…” (GMCA, 2021:5).

Deputy Mayor, Bev Hughes, followed closely, by stating that “some men, too many men, feel entitled to behave however they wish towards women, to disrespect women and to harm them, one way or another...” and that the “attitudes, stereotypes and cultural beliefs that underpin violence towards women have persisted globally and across generations” (GMCA, 2021:7).

As women and girls of Greater Manchester, we welcomed these statements, and the strategy, which stated, along with numerous other aims, that it would:

• Engage with White Ribbon Champions, Expect Respect Advocates and Women’s Aid Ask Me Ambassadors, as well as international research to identify innovative ways of encouraging men and boys to challenge gender inequality and gender-based violence (GMCA, 2021:27)

• Begin a public awareness campaign to call attention to the harm caused by what is often considered to be low-level, sexist behaviour (for example, wolf-whistling, catcalling, stalking, and harassing women and girls in public spaces) (GMCA, 2021:28)

• In employment, to work with all the city-region employers to put into place policies and processes through which bullying, sexual harassment, domestic abuse and discrimination can be raised, tackled, and actioned; regardless of the status of the alleged perpetrator, particularly when they are working in trusted public positions or as responders to victims in need of support (GMCA, 2021:30)

• With children and young people, continue to invest in early help models, to challenge gender stereotypes and victim blaming, to try to reduce the chances of abusive behaviours becoming a pattern of coercive control in later life (GMCA, 2021:42)

• Preventative education with young people, focussing on promoting positive attitudes around women and girls, healthy relationships, sexual citizenship and consent, and will use peer mentoring schemes, advocates and role models (GMCA, 2021:43).

Following on from this, Mayor Burnham was vocal in the media, regarding the campaign around the murder of Sarah Everard, and the push to tackle misogyny in society. In October 2021, he was interviewed in the Manchester Evening News, stating: that a “wholesale culture change” is needed in dealing with violence against women and that "this starts with men and boys… men and boys need to think really carefully about how their behaviour makes women feel".

This led to his much praised #IsThisOk campaign, launched in December 2021, where he challenged men and boys to change their behaviour. Interviewed for the BBC, he said that there had been "heartfelt calls" from women and girls for major change over everyday "abuse, intimidation and violence" and it was not they who should be forced to change their behaviours to feel safe.

"It is men and boys who need to take responsibility for this issue, either by reflecting on and changing our own behaviours or challenging those of people we know. If your behaviour is making women feel uncomfortable or unsafe, our message is simple: it's not OK." He also promised to take the video to schools and colleges in 2022.

Much to feel positive about, we felt, and we looked forward to sexism and misogyny finally being framed as a problem for men to tackle.

Yet, here we are in April 2022, faced with the revelation that the so-called ‘breastaurant,’ Hooters, have made an application to open a restaurant at Salford Quays, part of Greater Manchester.

Brief history of Hooters

The Hooters website describes their start: “Back in 1983 in Clearwater, Florida, six businessmen with no restaurant experience whatsoever got together to open a place they couldn’t get kicked out of. True story.”

The name is a double entendre referring to both a North American slang term for women's breasts and the logo (a bird known for its ‘hooting’ calls: the owl), and although this is usually denied, their logo is also the same kind of ‘joke’. As the founders joked: “Now the dilemma… what to name the place. Simple… what else brings a gleam to men’s eyes everywhere besides beer and chicken wings, and an occasional winning football season.”

Hooters Girls – the fantasy vs. the reality

The main Hooters’ website tempts young women to become Hooters Girls, with promises of them being more than ‘just a pretty face’, yet when looked at in more detail, this is what the girls are told they can aim for: ‘Nascar Events, Miss Hooters Pageant, Hooters Swimsuit Calendar, Television Commercials, Local Billboards, Photoshoots’, all alongside pictures of young women in their trademark Hooters outfit, which they have to sign an agreement to wear.

The website job description does not make it seem any less seedy: “Being a Hooters Girl is an honour bestowed upon only the most entertaining, goal oriented, glamorous and charismatic women. Hooters Girls have that special gift for making every guest feel welcome. She’ll have of (sic) all kinds of opportunities – like appearing in the annual Hooters Swimsuit Calendar. She is an American icon the world over. A waitress she is not.”

As an expose in GQ magazine in 2018 revealed, they “require that she be ‘fit and glamorous’, and ‘entertain guests in a fun way’. They're not selling sex, they say, they're just selling wings. And if you happen to read into the revealing outfits, or how the women are trained to sit and flirt with you, the calendars, pageants, or the logo that looks suspiciously like boobs, that's on you.”

Now boasting more than 420 Hooters in 29 countries, they have struggled to make an impression here in the U.K. Previous restaurants opened in Cardiff and Bristol, where there were campaigns against these, in particular, in Bristol. While they did not manage to prevent them opening, the two Hooters bars closed down, just under two years later.

The website for the only Hooters in the U.K., Nottingham, makes this their selling point – but one look at its website, and it quickly becomes clear what they are marketing – “good food and cold beer served by beautiful HOOTERS girls!”. The welcome page is festooned with pictures of the aforementioned ‘Hooters Girls’, with ads for their ‘2022 calendar’ – women in bikinis.

The manager of the Nottingham branch stated in an interview that "the attraction of Nottingham was Robin Hood, Brian Clough and five girls to one bloke."

Although nowhere specifies what the Hooters girls should look like, they have previously been sued for ‘weight discrimination’, when Michigan Hooters waitress was told that her 132-pound body no longer met the appearance standards of a Hooters girl. According to her complaint, the uniforms come in three sizes: small, extra small and extra extra small.

Likewise, the franchise rules state that they cannot employ Hooters Boys, which discrimination lawyers say would be likely to breach the U.K. Equality Act. Whilst sex discrimination in recruitment is potentially lawful, it would only be so if Hooters could show that employing only women is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Lawyers do not consider that sexual objectification of women could be considered a legitimate aim.

In the US, Hooters were sued by two men in 1997; they were turned down by Hooters for server jobs and filed two lawsuits that were eventually combined into a class-action lawsuit in Chicago. Hooters settled for $3.75 million, agreed to open up some "gender-neutral" positions to men, but successfully argued that the Hooters Girls’ position came under the US BFOQ [bona fide occupational qualification]: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act lets companies discriminate on the basis of "religion, sex, or national origin in those instances, where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business or enterprise."

Scratch a little deeper, and you expose the dark underbelly of the ‘family’ restaurant. The Bristol branch, before it closed in 2012, was being investigated for allegedly presenting a 12-year-old boy and his friends with a cake representing naked breasts on which the words “Happy 12th Birthday” were iced and they were also allegedly given “sexualised Hooters merchandise”. Campaigners also claimed the same restaurant staged a competition in which diners judged waitresses in bikinis, while children were present.

Even more concerning, are the numerous sexual harassment and other legal cases that have reported to have been taken out in the US against the chain:

1)    A former Hooters waitress was awarded more than $250,000, after an arbitrator found that racial discrimination contributed to her getting fired

2)    Settlement Reached in Hooters Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

3)    More than 40 women who had hopes of becoming Hooters Girls say they were secretly filmed while undressing, according to a civil suit. The company addressed the incident with additional employee training

4)    Hooters Sued in Florida Over Mass Firing of Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic

5)    Hooters Lose Sexual Harassment Case

6)    Hooters Waitress Says She Was Sexually Assaulted at Work; says she was targeted by a kitchen employee at the chain’s Northeast Philly location.

The impact of places like Hooters on its staff cannot be underestimated. A research project, ‘The psychological toll of being a Hooters waitress’, completed by The Conversation online magazine (an independent source of news analysis and informed comment written by academic experts), found some illuminating, but unsurprising, results. They describe Hooters as an example of what “academics term sexually objectifying environments, which are settings, subcultures, or situations that promote, intensify, and sanction the treatment of women as sexual objects.” So in other words, they sexually objectify the female body and equate a woman’s worth with her body’s appearance and sexual functions. They “emphasize women’s bodies while suppressing their humanity and individuality, and two distinct ways restaurants promote sexually objectifying environments are by putting women’s bodies and sexuality on display and by encouraging the ‘male gaze’” (The Conversation, 2015).

They completed two studies, the first a qualitative study where they interviewed waitresses who worked at a so-called ‘breastaurant’:

In the first, the women interviewed described “receiving unwanted lewd comments, sexual advances, and other forms of sexual harassment from customers, which included being grabbed, having pictures taken of their body parts without consent, being propositioned for sexual favours — and, in some cases, being stalked.” They also reported a “host of negative emotions tied to these experiences: anxiety, anger, sadness, depressed mood, confusion, and degradation.”

But to ascertain whether this was unique to this industry, or whether all female waitresses felt this way, they conducted a second quantitative study, where they surveyed a national sample of 253 waitresses who worked in settings ranging from ‘breastaurants’ to family-oriented, casual restaurants.

They found that “waitresses working in restaurants that sexually objectified their employees were more likely to experience a host of negative interactions with customers, ranging from unwanted advances to lewd comments. They were also far more likely to internalize cultural standards of beauty, experience symptoms of depression, and were more likely to be dissatisfied with their job”. They also found a “clear inverse relationship: The more their bodies and sexuality were put on display, the less happy they were with their jobs.”

Listen to the women themselves, quoted in the above mentioned GQ article, “Is There a Place for Hooters in 2018?”:

"It is an entire job based on sexual harassment. You are paid to be sexually harassed and objectified. Everyone at Hooters is aware," Brittanny Anderson, told GQ.

Kirsten Hubbard worked as a Hooters Girl in Pacific Beach, San Diego in 2002: "‘At 19, I was just learning boundaries. And how much energy those question marks take: Is that okay? Is that? Is that? Okay, that definitely bothered me. That was gross or mean. But would my manager care?’ she said. And she certainly couldn't rely on management to help. ‘My managers’ - who were all men - ‘were sleeping with Hooters Girls ten years younger.’”

Not only have the official Hooters Girls experienced this, others have too. “Rebecca worked as a hostess at a Hooters when she was a junior in high school. Rebecca was quickly horrified by what was deemed normal behaviour at Hooters. ‘I saw men fondle servers, I heard management discuss how certain Hooters Girls looked better than others,’ she said. And the fact that she was underage at the time didn't deter anyone. ‘I had instances where I felt particularly uncomfortable and my best defence was “sir, I am 16.” At Hooters, that never made a patron bat an eye. It almost enticed them more.’”

“According to Anderson, she even had to sign away her right to sue if she was sexually harassed on the job. ‘When you are hired you sign a ton of documents, including one that basically states that you will not file a sexual harassment lawsuit against Hooters,’ she said. ‘It also says that if you ever file any kind of legal claim against the company you forfeit your rights to go to court and instead will handle it within the company in arbitration.’”

According to Wikipedia and Julie Bindel, in the piece she wrote when Liverpool council granted the licence for Hooters Liverpool (not yet open) in February of this year, Hooters Girls have to sign up to the following:

- My job duties require I wear the designated Hooters Girl uniform.

- My job duties require that I interact with and entertain the customers.

- The Hooters concept is based on female sex appeal and the work environment is one in which joking and entertaining conversations are commonplace.

As Julie was told, when she interviewed a Security Guard at a US branch, “‘the men that come here are dogs,’ he said. ‘They see the women like meat, as no different from what they shove in their mouths at the table.’”

#NoToHootersSalford

As noted above, the GMCA has been praised for its commitment to tackling sexism, misogyny and gender-based violence and abuse. After detailing above, the nature of Hooters, how can they in all honesty grant the licence application, without straying from this promise?

All local authorities have a legal obligation under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) of the Equality Act 2010 to eliminate unlawful sex discrimination and harassment and to promote equality of opportunity between women and men:

(a) Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010; and

(c) Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

These types of venues do nothing to foster good relations between the sexes, when they objectify and commodify our bodies, for male consumption, and which we maintain, therefore, are in breach of this duty.

It also appears to breach other sections of the EA2010: “Section 26: Harassment states, “An employer who displays any material of a sexual nature, such as a topless calendar [author’s additions: bikini calendar/revealing outfits], may be harassing their employees, where this makes the workplace an offensive place to work for any employee.”

Article 1 of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) states that discrimination against women means: “any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field”.

As Helen Saxby notes in her astute piece, ‘Joining the Dots on Sexism’, “A University of Buffalo study in 2011 found that ‘sexualised portrayals of women have been found to legitimise or exacerbate violence against women and girls, as well as sexual harassment and anti-women attitudes among men and boys’”.

As Jackie Patiniotis and Kay Standing observed in their study around lap dancing clubs, there is a “continuum of sexual violence”… [this] links “‘more common everyday abuses women experience with less common experiences labelled as crimes’ (Kelly, 1988) ...this continuum recognises commonalities between them as forms of violence against women which underpin male power and control.”

Councils have sweeping powers to refuse to relicense on the grounds of locality. This is regardless of any change in locality or any other material changes whatsoever. This has been widely confirmed by case law, judges and other experts: “licensing authorities are entitled to ‘have a fresh look’ and may refuse to relicense ‘even where there has been no material change in circumstance’” (Kolvin, QC et al).

When representing local residents at the relicensing hearing of a Chester lapdancing club Philip Kolvin, QC, confirmed: “this year’s committee is entitled to come to a different conclusion from last year” and “merely the fact that a number of people are concerned justifies refusal”. The license was successfully refused on the grounds of inappropriate locality. Some may point out Hooters is not a SEV (sexual entertainment venue); we would argue that a venue that is named after a slang term for breasts, in which the female staff are told they have to use their “female sex appeal” and where the uniform is a revealing outfit, that the objectification of women is the same, and so the impact is indistinguishable.

Salford Policy opposes Hooters

Salford policy states that the licensing authority recognises that the Act allows for the free access of children to all licensed premises, subject to the licensee’s discretion and any conditions applied to the licence. The licensing authority will not wish to impose conditions positively requiring the admission of children to licensed premises, which should remain a matter of discretion for the licensee of those premises, subject to there being no conflict with the licensing objective of protecting children from harm.

However, when considering applications for premises licences, the licensing authority will take into account the history of a particular premises, and the nature of activities proposed to be provided, for example:

- Where entertainment of an adult or sexual nature is provided.

- In such instances, the licensing authority may attach conditions to any licence to:

> Limit the hours when children may be present;

> Restrict the age of persons allowed on the premises;

> Require an accompanying adult;

> Limiting or prohibiting access when certain activities are taking place.

There is nothing in the licence application regarding the safeguarding of children.

See map for locations of two primary schools, one senior school and a park containing a children's play area and sports pitches, regularly used by under 16s teams.

The entertainment inside Hooters is of a sexual nature. At a time when rape culture is prevalent in our schools, allowing a bar to open in such close proximity to children seems absurd. If the entertainment is not seen as sexual, why don’t Hooters employ “Hooters Boys”? And why only choose to employ women of a young age, who are deemed to be “sexy” enough?

Will women be sanctioned by the DWP if they do not apply for or take one of these roles, a role where sexual objectification of women is normalised? Hooters provide a children's menu and claim to be “family orientated” yet, as noted above, in Bristol a 12-year-old boy was presented with a cake depicting naked breasts.

To repeat Salford’s OWN policy: “The licensing authority will not normally grant licences which involve a sex-related element near schools, nurseries, places of worship, hospitals, youth clubs or other sensitive premises where significant numbers of children are likely to attend.”

Note: this article reflects our view on Hooters and all the above has been sourced from online news sources and other opinion pieces. As such, we are not responsible for any information contained in these articles, and share here merely to demonstrate the unsuitability of a Hooters branch in Greater Manchester.

We ask Salford council to refuse to grant the licence to Hooters. Greater Manchester has a fine history of fighting injustice, solidarity and strong women, 'making more noise' - the girls and boys of Greater Manchester deserve better than this outdated and sexist establishment.

Who We Are:

Womanchester is a grassroots women's rights organisation from Manchester and Salford. We launched #HeartsForMurderedWomen in 2019, and have raised more than £3600 for women’s organisations since then. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook and our email is womanchestermmn@gmail.com. We work alongside our sister groups in Greater Manchester and the North-West, and some of us volunteer for FiLiA.

During the last few weeks, we have gathered the following organisations in support of our objection to Hooters:

Greater Manchester:

Yes Matters https://www.yes-matters.co.uk/

Trafford Rape Crisis https://traffordrapecrisis.com/

Manchester Feminist Network https://manchesterfeministnetwork.wordpress.com/

Women’s Equality Party Greater Manchester https://linktr.ee/WEP_Greater_Manchester

Greater Manchester Doulas CIC http://greatermanchesterdoulas.com/

Sisterhub Chester https://www.sisterhub.co.uk/

Manchester Women’s Rights Network https://twitter.com/WRNmanchester

Stockport Women’s Rights Network https://twitter.com/StockportCoven

Northern Rad Fem Network https://www.northernradfemnetwork.org/

End Abuse, Wigan https://www.endabuse.co.uk/

Manchester Women's Aid https://www.pankhursttrust.org/

National:

FiLiA https://www.filia.org.uk/

Legal Feminist https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/

Safe Schools Alliance UK https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/

Men at Work CIC https://menatworkcic.org/

Male Allies Challenging Sexism https://engageconferenceuk.wordpress.com/

Leeds Resisters https://twitter.com/leedsresisters

Leeds Spinners https://twitter.com/LeedsSpinners

Yorkshire Women’s Rights Network https://twitter.com/WRNYorkshire

https://www.womensrights.network/

Huddersfield Rad Fems https://twitter.com/FemsRad

Sheffield Women of Steel https://twitter.com/WoSReSisters

Scottish Resisters https://twitter.com/ScotReSisters

Resist Porn Culture https://twitter.com/ResistPorn

Not Buying it https://notbuyingit.org.uk/

Not Buying It Sheffield https://twitter.com/NotBuyingItShef

The Freedom Programme https://freedomprogramme.co.uk/

Know the Line South Yorkshire https://twitter.com/knowthelineSY

Nordic Model Now https://nordicmodelnow.org/

Along with countless individual people who replied to our social media and have been submitting online objections.

We also received this supporting comment from Woman’s Place UK, a group of women from a range of backgrounds including trade unions, women’s organisations, academia and the NHS.

“WPUK fully support those objecting to the licence application by Hooters for a premise in Salford, Greater Manchester or elsewhere in the UK. Women's objections are not limited to Manchester alone and we also send our support to Labour Councillor Maria Toolan, who is campaigning against a proposed branch of Hooters in Liverpool. She has launched a petition against the plans, referring to Hooters as "archaic and chauvinistic".

Hooters, and similar brands, are fortunately a dying brand. We struggle to see why any city would want to associate themselves with the outdated image of skimpily clad, objectified women serving a mostly male customer base. Openly sexist in its policies, this is not an acceptable working condition for the waitresses. Currently there are 10 rapes reported daily in the Greater Manchester area and convictions at an all-time low. If Andy Burnham is serious about his campaign '#IsThisOK' to challenge the underlying attitudes that lead to the assault of women, then refusing Hooters would be a very basic ask.”

https://www.change.org/p/liverpool-city-council-say-no-to-hooters-liverpool?

Template for objections - copy and paste the below:

Licence application is here:

https://www.salford.gov.uk/licensing-and-permits/licensing-act-2003-notice-of-application/hooters-restaurant/

Make a representation here – available until 03/05/2022.

NB: you do not need to be a Salford resident but they may share your contact details with the applicant. You can use their online form, email licensing@salford.gov.uk or postal address here:

https://www.salford.gov.uk/makeacomment

 "NB: The online application only allows 1000 characters per answer, so you may need to edit/shorten, or send via email to the address below."

Step 1 of 2:

Name of premises making a representation about:

Hooters Restaurant

Address of premises making a representation about:

3 Capital Quay, Salford, M50 3WL

Step 2 of 2:

Your representation must relate to one of the four licensing objectives below:

1]      Prevention of harm to children:

As per Salford’s own policy, “the licensing authority will not normally grant licences which involve a sex related element near schools, nurseries, places of worship, hospitals, youth clubs or other sensitive premises where significant numbers of children are likely to attend.”

The premises has three schools within a 0.6 mile area, two primary schools and one senior school. Directly opposite the location are sports pitches, used daily by under 16 teams and the park also has a designated children's play area.

Hooters provides entertainment of a sexual nature, for example: girls in skimpy outfits, best bikini on a Hooters girl competitions judged by diners in the presence of children. The Bristol branch opened in 2010 and was closed in 2012, not before complaints, including one where a 12-year-old boy was allegedly presented with a birthday cake emulating naked breasts and other inappropriate merchandise allegedly being given to the children.

The entertainment inside Hooters is of a sexual nature. At a time when rape culture is prevalent in our schools, allowing a bar to open in such close proximity to children seems absurd.

2]      To prevent public nuisance:

Public transport: Hooters proposed opening hours are 09:00-01:30 am Monday-Sunday. The last tram into the city centre is at 00:26 from Salford Quays and the last bus leaves Exchange Quay, Trafford Road at 22:54. How will customers leave the densely populated residential area without causing noise nuisance?

Parking: states it is available outside location, however, it is shared with a family-orientated pub. There are residential properties on both sides of the location as well as the surrounding area being high-density apartments. On match days (Manchester United’s ground is close by) the traffic around the venue is at standstill, it is often the same at rush hour. How do the management intend to implement a queuing system on match days when the car park out front is overfilled and pavement spacing is very limited outside the venue entrance? This directly impacts on local infrastructure.

3]      Prevent crime and disorder:

How do the management intend to ensure customers leave respectfully and quietly? Can they assure local women they will not be harassed by Hooters’ customers leaving the premises? Especially after being inside Hooters, whose concept is based on female sex appeal, an environment where female objectification is normalised and joked about. If the entertainment is not seen as sexual, why don’t Hooters employ “Hooters Boys”? And why only choose to employ women of a young age, who are deemed to be “sexy” enough? This policy goes directly against UK equality laws.

4]      Public safety:

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) have been praised for their commitment to tackling sexism, misogyny and gender-based violence and abuse. After detailing the nature of Hooters, how can they in all honesty grant the licence application without straying from this promise?

Greater Manchester, as a public body, has a duty to maintain its Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and namely the below requirements under this duty:

(a) Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct that is prohibited by or under the Equality Act 2010; and

(c) Foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

These types of venues do nothing to foster good relations between the sexes, when they objectify and commodify our bodies, for male consumption, and which we maintain, therefore, are in breach of this duty. Will women be sanctioned by the DWP if they do not apply/take one of these roles, a role where sexual objectification of women is normalised? Why are we still having this discussion in 2022, after #MeToo and the campaigns around women’s right to safety and respect?

Final part of Step 2: suggested conditions – it asks for ideas as to how the licensee can open, under what conditions:

• Provide employment for male hosts at a 50/50 ratio to the female hosts.

• Change the uniforms to something less revealing, change policy to be less misogynistic in values e.g. no advertising for things like Hooters girls’ calendars, a ban on judging women in bikinis, based on their apparent "sexiness", inclusive hiring policies.

Step 3 of 2 (confusingly) – You can attach files as evidence here.