In late-April, news broke that Manchester — a city home to a rich history of feminist activism, including suffrage campaigners such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Lydia Becker, women’s rights and peace activist Betty Tebbs, and many more — has decided that the best way to build on this history in 2022 is to…open a Hooters restaurant in Salford Quays. 

Hooters — the name itself being an esoteric, subtle, and highbrow allusion to women’s breasts — has a long history of being at the forefront of the women’s rights movement. For example, in July 2000, the chain was made to pay nearly $300,000 to a waitress who had been subjected to sexual harassment by restaurant managers; another waitress was awarded a similar figure due to suffering racial discrimination; and during the Covid-19 pandemic, the restaurant was charged with terminating the employment of nearly 700 members of staff with no prior warning or notice. Clearly, this is a chain with women’s best interests at heart. 

The fact that Hooters has been so successful in the United States is perhaps unsurprising, given the fact that the country is currently debating whether to punt women’s legal rights back to the Stone Age, but the silence that has come from Mancunian officials should give more pause for thought.   

Tackling misogyny requires the recognition of its existence at all levels

Whilst Manchester has a history of feminist activism running through its veins, the city has also been at the forefront of more recent — and well received — campaigns engaged in tackling issues such as misogyny, male violence, and wider sexism. For example, in 2021, the city launched its Gender-Based Violence Strategy, which sought to: “[set]out a comprehensive, responsive programme of service delivery to enhance the safety of women and girls, while preventing gender-based violence from occurring in the first place and challenging the attitudes and inequalities that enable it.”

Following this, in December 2021, Mayor Andy Burnham launched #IsThisOkay, a video depicting a woman’s day-to-day experiences of sexual harassment and misogyny, ultimately asking the question of men and boys who engage in, or are aware of, this behaviour: “Is this okay?”. Burnham went on to state: 

For too long, women and girls have had to put up with behaviours in public spaces that have made them feel uncomfortable, frightened or threatened. Rather than women being 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.

In the immediacy, Burnham started the campaign well by recognising that it should be incumbent upon men to change our behaviour — as well as challenging the misogynistic behaviour of other men — and not simply forcing women out of public life or expecting them to “put up with it”. But the failure to speak out against the imminent arrival of a restaurant where the main selling point is basically a frat joke that wasn’t funny in the 80s, and certainly isn’t funny now, flies in the face of this commitment to tackling male entitlement. 

“The exact type of sexual objectification that sets the stage for sexual violence”

For some, the link between the opening of a Hooters, and its alleged-contradiction to the city’s commitment to combating misogyny may not be entirely clear. It has become far too easy in recent years to be lured in by the false dichotomy of what does and doesn’t constitute a Real Issue when it comes to tackling male entitlement and misogyny. We only need to look at instances of Men’s Rights Activist relegating issues such as catcalling or men imposing themselves on women’s personal space in public to the bottom of the activism pile when compared to “Real Issues” such as opposing Female Genital Mutilation in the developing world. 

But this constant goalpost-shifting is flawed on two levels: firstly, it ignores the fact that people are actually allowed to care about more than one thing at a time. I know some men may have bought into the trope that men are simply unable to multitask, but believe me fellas, it is actually possible to have two thoughts in your head at a given time! 

On the issue of Hooters, some will undoubtedly point to more visceral examples of misogyny — such as the possible rolling back of abortion rights in the USA — as a reason why we shouldn’t focus on “just” women wearing revealing clothes in the workplace. But tackling misogyny requires the recognition of its existence at all levels, not just the more egregiously obvious examples of it. 

Secondly, this position ignores the very real links that environments like Hooters have on propagating and contributing to misogyny in its restaurants and the local area. It is almost tautological that the fact scantily-clad women are paraded around to be leered at by customers is itself objectifying of them. Their bodies are there very specifically to fulfil a certain pornified and sexualised conception as to what a woman should look like, and they are utilised in order to sell a product. 

But further, this normalisation of sexualising and objectifying women’s bodies will travel with the customers out into “the real world”. There are numerous studies demonstrating that the sexualisation of women’s bodies is linked to the viewer — or in this case, the customer — perceiving them to be “objects, not agents, of action compared to clothed women”. And it is this reduction of women into objects that “is the exact type of sexual objectification that sets the stage for sexual violence”. 

These dehumanising attitudes plant the seeds for behaviour that those Real Issue Purists might more readily recognise as dangerous: the fact that those who are more prone to objectifying women and girls are also more likely to express an intent to rape; more likely to stand on the side-lines if they witness a sexual assault; more likely to engage in victim blaming behaviour; and more likely to commit acts of sexual violence. 

The thing is, the City of Manchester is not — or should not be — run by these Real Issue Purists, and even if it was, it cannot be said that the local authorities have not been put on notice by the outcry against the proposed opening of Hooters. Organisations such as FiLiA and Womanchester have put forward forensic and detailed opposition responses to the possible granting of a licence, as have a small number of men who also object to the possible opening. 

If the City of Manchester and those in charge — particularly Mayor Andy Burnham — are genuinely and authentically committed to tackling male violence, misogyny, and sexism, perhaps it’s time for them to sit down to consider the opening of Hooters, and ask themselves: Is this okay?