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Busting Out

Let’s just get it out of the way: I used to be a Hooters Girl.

And let’s spoil the ending: I have a Women’s Studies degree.

Worrying about the juxtaposition of these two facts has been a longstanding battle. And yet, the whole thing is side-splittingly funny—if it were, I think, in a movie.

I graduated from high school a strong woman who could change a tire, yell at leering men, and rock the halls in pajamas and platforms. But after graduation, when I realized that the $100 in my bank account wasn’t going to get me very far, I knew I needed something to help pay tuition and living expenses for college. And instead of the sandwich shops I had worked in while in high school, I knew I needed something that didn’t require a hat or involve standing behind a counter handing out cups. I wasn’t ready for the monotony of retail yet, so I settled on waitressing for college-funding tips.

I set out one day after lunch, intent on nailing a waitress job of some sort. As I began to cruise down the local restaurant row, I came upon Hooters. Yes, Hooters, the orange-clad, pantyhose-and-Lycra wing heaven. I strode in, balls to the wall…er, boobs to the wall?

I think I just wanted to see if they really measured your chest as part of the application, or if they offered a discount on boob jobs. I thought of myself as an early undercover Gloria Steinem—sort of. I walked in, thinking what a great joke this would be when I told my friends later that night. But I didn’t get to tell them later that night.

As it turned out, I happened to walk in on the afternoon they were training Hooters newbies. They gave me the once-over, had me fill out the paperwork, and sent me straight into the back to begin training. I came home at 9pm with pairs of XS orange shorts, scrunchy white socks circa 1994, and the order to come back in a few days with a pair of clean white sneakers.

This had entirely bypassed the joking stage and had come to a screeching halt in the “would you like your wings hot and naked?” stage. But I needed the job, I needed the quick money. I had not yet cultivated a belief for total revolution.

In my naïve way, I figured I could knock men and stereotypes on their ass in one summer. At the age of 18, on the verge of moving for the tenth time in my life, all I knew was that I felt like it was my last chance to break out, be a bombshell, to make an impression on a place. But three months of suntan pantyhose and blond highlights gave me a greater understanding of the world, and the world’s expectation of me. 

The thing is, I’ve always liked being what people don’t expect. I’ve been enticed by the notion that people are complex beings, that two ideas could seem incompatible and yet coexist. I loved making people rethink their own expectations. So I kept the job. I wanted see what the other girls were like, I wanted people to see that I had a nice rack and I was witty, intelligent, and off to college with their money in my pocket.

It wasn’t so bad. I survived it. I met football players, Little League champs, and brick factory workers. I met young girls who were reluctant dinner dates and girls who wanted to prove they were “one of the boys.” I waited on the kids who tipped in pennies and my own family who tipped not much more than pennies.

Over four years later, with a degree in Women’s Studies, the real problem is owning up to it.

I never did speak up in my classes. I couldn’t justify my employment. I guessed that I wouldn’t be able to laugh it off in a roundtable discussion where the whole purpose of the class was to examine the gendered nature of our lives. Wouldn’t I just be That Traitor? I sat and nodded my head enthusiastically as we discussed the politics of sex. The exploitation of the female body, the manipulation of sensuality and sexuality. How we were being cheapened, marketed, used. It was all so depressing, and yet, eye-opening.

Was I an accomplice? Did I reinforce this? Each time I would giggle or lean over too far as I presented the check, was I just a wolf in sheep’s clothing? I contemplated my “coming out.” Bimbo, whore, idiot, stupid, crazy, slut. What else would they think and not say? It would run through my head before I could work up the nerve to speak. The judgment of my peers, even good, nonjudgmental friendly feminist peers, paralyzed me with fear. I paid lip service to this sisterhood, this community of woman power, but my secret former life did not.

I struggled with my choice to remain silent on the issue. I tried to reason with myself: “I can tell them! I have valid points to make!” But always, I grimaced and let the discussion pass around me. Saying I was a former Hooters Girl was like saying, “Hey, could you stare at my boobs and then roll your eyes at me?” I didn’t want to be the inside joke of anyone. I didn’t want to advertise myself anymore.

I blocked it from my mind. I laughed it off as a joke. That was how it started, that was what it would remain. Perhaps if my little secret only came out as a big joke, everyone could laugh it away. Including myself.

Now the joke’s on me. If I had opened my big mouth, we might have had some real discussion in my classes. But instead, by discounting my own choices, I failed to fully realize a crucial tenet of feminism and my years of Women’s Studies: our own experiences are women’s experiences. All of our stories are compelling examples of life as we know it.

When women fear the choices they’ve made—no matter if they were good or bad choices—we lose. The self has built in mechanisms to joke, to ignore, to minimize those things which we are not yet ready to examine. But it is the eventual examination of ourselves that free us—from fear, from regret, from punch lines.

At some point, I admitted that although I wouldn’t do it again, maybe I do miss the streamlining industrial-strength suntan pantyhose and the way they hid three day leg stubble. I miss tricking men into believing that the one brunette in the calendar was me—then glamorously autographing “Tina,” or “Michelle,” whatever her name happened to be. And in a funny way, I miss walking out of that “Delightfully Tacky, Yet Unrefined” restaurant and realizing that the silly title and a name tag could be removed a lot easier than those hot sauce stains.

Margaret Pilarski is an Editorial Assistant for Skirt! magazine. She can still fit into her orange shorts, but has thrown away the white scrunchy socks for good.

~Margaret Pilarski