Marks and Spencer support new 'Hooters' in Bristol

[JessinAvalon]

Dear all
This is my first post on here so I hope I am doing this right!

I live in Bristol and, last week, 'Hooters' was granted a licence to open in the city centre. The site is virtually opposite 3 apartment blocks, the lower floors of which are social housing and children are living in them.

What's most disappointing is that Marks and Spencer are leasing the site to 'Hooters'. They have been e-mailed by many concerned people to ask if they will reconsider leasing the building but they have just replied saying it is a "commercial decision" (as if that makes it ok!). In Sheffield, a 'Hooters' didn't even make it to application stage because the developer (Ask Pizza) realised that it would be better not to be associated with a company like 'Hooters'.

Marks and Spencer don't seem that concerned, however. Although they have signed up to the "Let Girls Be Girls" Mumsnet campaign they are not concerned about a company which sells merchandise including babygros which say "Future Hooters Girl" and "Does my butt look big in this?"

I have written to Marks and Spencer telling them that I won't be shopping in their stores again. If you feel strongly about this, please e-mail:

[email protected].

'Hooters' tries to sell itself as a family friendly restaurant but it is anything but. The Hooters in Nottingham attracts mainly stag parties and football fans. Hooters Girls take part in bikini contests and iced wet t-shirt competitions (the t-shirts are put in the freezers before the girls wear them). 'Hooters' has links to Playboy magazine....I could go on.....

I think Marks and Spencer should be shamed for facilitating this company's expansion into Bristol. They are selling women and girls down the river by leasing to this company and all just to make a "quick buck".

Thanks everyone.

Atlas, my motherly bosoms have been used twice to feed children and yet are still pert, thanks be. They are actually more attractive (and bigger) now then was I was a strapling.
But I'll not be using them to flog shit food (or anything else) to a bunch of dribbling letches any time soon.

We should all apply to work there and then launch a very public tribunal claim when we object to the terms of the employment at interview and get rejected. Anyone up for it?

I've emailed Michael Rose and got an auto-response.

I haven't got any answer at all yet to my letter. Bastards.

If you want to apply online, as many of us have been!, here's the link:

online application form

The danger with applying for a job is that it gives them validation.

"Look, we've had record numbers of applicants. Clearly women do want to work here and it's a coveted job."

Could seriously backfire, imo.

I had a stock reply to my email, with the promise of soemthing to follow. I'm not holding my breath.

Isn't it time we asked MN HQ to take a stand on this, given the Let Girls be Girls campaign? I wanted to begin a thread on this in the Mumsnet stuff topic, but don't know if that's the right way to go about it. Can a more seasoned Mnetter let me know please? Thanks

Hi Rubberduck - Yes, but if you send in from Sid The Sexist or from Mrs Tiggywinkle asking if they employ owls or from "Expage 3 Stunna" who says she wants the job because she has huge tits then it might not give them that impression...!

Hi Jenny - I agree, it would be great to have MN backing this officially.

I think what would be fun is for a sort of Hooters dream candidate (pretty, waitressing experience, f*cking massive norks) to apply and then refuse to sign the terms of employment and go public about it.... a sort of Rosa Parkes of the anti-Hooters movement.

Sorry Jess, I just really don't see how that's going to help at all and could still seriously backfire in terms of publicity.

Mailed

that's a good idea steth..maybe a student?

I'm with Rubberduck - I don't see how a lot of fake applications would help. A few carefully targeted ones might flush out revealing responses that can be used in publicity. There's something to gain by putting forward a brilliant waitress with a flat chest/rubbish waitress with big norks/brilliant waitress with big norks who won't sign the t&cs and seeing what they do, but I'm not sure I understand the point of large numbers of applications per se?

Not only that, but you can bet that unsympathetic journos will latch onto that and spin the whole "silly little females getting their knickers in a twist" line again. It'll just make us look childish and petulant.

I understand what you're both saying and I would like to answer but, as this is a public forum, I don't want to give away too much!

There is method in the madness!

Jess.

Thanks proles

I've added a comment, but wonder at this stage if we shouldn't t all be emailing HQ about this as a central part of the campaign. A collective rebuke would probably bother them more that our individual emails, important though they are. Surely they can't allow M&S to be associated with the Let Girls Be Girls campaign if they choose to lease the site to Hooters? And HQ can make it a lot clearer that our collective spending power really is at stake here. I sense a lot of disquiet about this, even among people who wouldn't normally go along with the positions outlined in the feminism threads.

I thought HB's name and shame idea was good, setting up a sight to snap the men going in. But thinking about it in more detail, thesedays a new underhanded patriarchal tactic is to scream "libel" whenever feminists try to take a stand against a sexist company or public figure. POwerful companies like Hooters would definitely sue the individual responsible no? Freedom of speech is dead. The WOman We Cannot Name actually tried to shut down MN when a group of mothers didn't like her book whose target audience was mothers

Girls are influenced by this sexist shit though aren't they. Youngsters are going to think that's what females are "for".

I don't think it's up to M & S whether they withdraw or not. It's up to Mumsnet whether to allow them remain.
Supporting a company that effectively teaches girls that a reasonable aspiration in life is to allow a multi-national company to use their body parts to sell shit food to lecherous men for the minimum wage is not in line with the LGBG ethos.

Yes, they might try that Proles, but what about the shocking clothes they market to girls in the States? I've looked in their online shop and they are not - YET - selling children?s stuff on line in the UK. But will they? Can M&S at least be asked to get a guarantee that the kinds of children's items sold in the US will not be made available in the UK? This would at least make them engage with the issue and links it specifically to the MN campaign.

BTW: check out the available sizes for their `White Lycra tank top as seen on your favourite Hooters girl'.

Small = UK 10-12
XS = UK 8-10
XXS = 6-8

This presumably means any woman who applies for the job will be asked to fit into one of these sizes.