I wouldn’t know what it feels like to get a job purely on the size of my boobs – they’re like, tiny. But I guess if the job is a semi-safe way to make some dough using the most sexually desired attributes of your body’s physique, then why not? IF you must know, read on.

The US is infamously home to titty bars and pun-titled breasteraunts, ahem, which, Hooter’s argued in a court case in 1997 that:

being female was essential to the performance of the Hooters Girl’s job responsibilities: because women’s bodies are tools of the trade, they should be exempt from the federal discrimination policy.

Great. But in a sexually objectifying environment where around 75% of the customers are middle-aged men, there is this subconscious creation of a subculture that easily promotes the treatment of women as sexual objects. Other examples of these ‘innocent’ sex-selling trades include beauty pageants, cheerleading squads, modelling and the little sister organisations of fraternities.

I mean, the male gaze is welcomed and encouraged by the short shorts, long legs and low tops – which pretty much equals greater tips. Business Insider conducted research on the effects of these overtly sexualised situations by doing a study on those who work in the breasteraunt environments and this is what they found:

Given the growth and unique characteristics of Hooters-style restaurants, we wondered about the impact – emotionally and psychologically – on the women who worked in these sexually objectifying environments. After all, no one had ever investigated this before.

So our research team conducted two studies to shed light on this topic. The first was a qualitative study where we interviewed waitresses who worked at a so-called breastaurant.

Participants reported that the main reasons they chose to work and remain employed at the breastaurant were (1) to make more money than they could have otherwise, and (2) to have a high degree of flexibility in creating their work schedule.

But they also 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 favors – and, in some cases, being stalked.

All the waitresses reported feeling a host of negative emotions tied to these experiences: anxiety, anger, sadness, depressed mood, confusion and degradation.

Furthermore, participants relayed other negative aspects of their jobs. They felt a general ambivalence toward the work, demeaning and challenging interactions with customers, and poor relationships with unsupportive and competitive colleagues.

Many reported finding themselves in double-binds: situations where they received contradictory messages that created dilemmas that they couldn’t resolve or opt out of. This could mean, for example, receiving an unwanted sexual advance from a frequent customer who’s a hefty tipper, which creates the dilemma of asserting oneself and eliciting an angry reaction.

Alas, there was no other research to compare this study to, so Business Insider’s second study sought to interview just under 250 women who worked in the service industry to see the possibly different effects. Unfortunately, the study just found that over all, the sexual objectification of women is a very demeaning affair, sprouting depression and a high lack of job satisfaction.

Although the male sex drive is a very difficult mindset to curve, it would be great if you at least thought about your actions the next time you openly stare a woman up and down while licking your lips.

[source: businessinsider]