What It Takes To Be a Hooters Girl Print
Thursday, February 05 2009

Some are wondering whether a name change will be in order for the Hooters restaurant chain should a man be successful in his lawsuit against the company.

A Texas man filed a lawsuit last month alleging sex discrimination in hiring practices after his application to be a server at Hooters in Corpus Christi was rejected because he's a man.  The lawsuit filed on behalf of 22-year-old Nikolai Grushevski seeks unspecified damages in recompense for a claim that “Hooters tries to circumvent the law by referring to its waiters as 'Hooters Girls.'”

"He doesn't want to be a Hooters Girl. He just wants to be a waiter," said Grushevski's attorney Martin Shellist, referring to the women in orange shorts and tight shirts who serve food and drinks to customers.

There was a similar lawsuit filed against Hooters over a decade ago in which the company settled and deemed the positions for kitchen and bartender were “gender neutral.”

"The good news is that when this happened the last time, Hooters benefitted from an avalanche of positive publicity and public support for keeping Hooters Girls, well, girls. If we lose this go around, you can next expect hairy-legged guys in the Rockettes to line up and male models in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. You wonder why people just can't leave good things alone,” Mike McNeil, vice president of marketing for Hooters of America, opined in a written statement.

"This move, of course, begs the question, 'Why would a man want to be a Hooters Girl?'" McNeil added. "In our opinion, he doesn't, and he is simply looking for an opportunity to be the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit so he can try and make some money without working for it."

—Source:  The Houston Chronicle