I had my first Hooters experience this weekend. I don’t think I would care to enter that establishment ever again. Not because the food was bad, it was in fact quite tasty, but because I have never felt like less of a human being and more like a malformed object.

I almost hate to harp on it. The subject is so old, so overdone. If I don’t like the restaurant I’m just a prude, I have no sense of humor. After all, it’s only a restaurant right? No, not right at all. It wasn’t something I could bring up at dinner. There was no point to starting the argument, and I did enter the establishment knowing what it was. All it would have done was ruin what was a perfectly fine time amongst friends. Except I felt dirty, under appreciated and, above all, objectified. There was no way to “know” what that restaurant was. How do you explain the feeling of objectification to someone who has no concept of the idea? How do you make mentally stable, heterosexual, white males understand that forgetting a woman is a person isn’t funny? They understand being harassed, or discriminated; they have experienced those situations. Many have felt some pressure concerning their appearance. But they have no concept of what it is to walk down the street and know that every man is immediately making judgments about who you are based on nothing but your appearance. They have never entered a room and seen eyes immediately scorn their too large ass then light up upon viewing a friend’s much slender frame.

Some would say they know those feelings. Some would argue they have had to listen to women oogle men as they walk by. Isn’t that the same? No, it isn’t. There are some similarities. I am guilty of appreciating a man loudly if he is attractive. But I don’t judge. I don’t make assumptions about his personality. While not all men do, it is still a very, very prevalent trait in our society.

If a woman wears too much make up and skimpy clothing she is a whore or ho. If she wears too much clothing and not enough make up she is a prude and boring. If she cuts her hair and wears no make up she is a dike. Men can wear whatever they want; however they want. At most they’ll be called a fag, but if he’s big and strong (or has big and strong friends) he can proclaim that he just wants to do his thing and he is lauded for it. A woman is only judged. Over and over again all because of how she looks.

I’m tired of it. I’m tired of biting my tongue in a restaurant like Hooters because my friends can’t understand why it is incredibly insulting and that while I knew what the restaurant was based on I should still be allowed my outrage. I’m tired of fighting a battle every time I meet someone new. Having to prove to them that just because I’m fat does not mean I am a lazy, nonsexual slob. I’m tired of watching men drool over boobs and short skirts while simultaneously calling them whores but also demanding everyone look that way. Anyone who doesn’t is condemned to be “one of the guys”. Fuck that. Why can’t I just be a woman? My own woman? Why do I have to be a girly-girl or a tomboy? Why can’t I just be me? Why do I have to explain that I don’t like Hooters because every second of every moment I was in there I knew, KNEW, I was being compared and judged to the waitresses. It bothers me that those girls can so easily be forgotten as people, remembered instead as tits and ass.

I will catch shit for this ranting. I know that even as I write it. I’m a feminazi now, some lesser form of woman that can’t be happy and hates men. Well fuck that too. I can be happy, but not with a world where equal pay is NOT a reality and men think with their dicks so often eating disorders still mar the bodies of the young. If that means I’m labeled a lesbian feminazi so be it. I’ll die happy with my vibrator for company, but I will not keep quiet. I will not look the other way. It isn’t right. Objectification is not right. Whether you are male looking at female or female looking at male or any combination thereof. Appreciation is fine. Forgetting they are a person, not fine. If my friends disown me and I only attract women in camouflage then I guess that’s the price I pay. But I cannot stand idly by while these problems persist. Because they are problems and they are real. Just because you don’t want to believe it, just because it doesn’t affect you directly right now doesn’t change the reality. What about when you have a daughter one day? What about a sister or a cousin or a friend? Do you want this for them? Do you want a world that doesn’t let you be what you want to be? That simultaneously demands purity while scoffing virgins? Is that right? Everyone should be allowed to be the best person they can be, physically and mentally. If that means you’re a size 8 or 18 so be it, so long as you can do what you want to do and are happy. When will that be enough? When will we stop judging and just live? Who are you to judge another person? If s/he has not and is not hurting you what right do you have?

I would apologize for offending, but I’m not sorry. I won’t be. I can’t be. This is how I feel because it is real. I refuse to apologize. I refuse to accept my place in society as the fat white girl who is one of the guys. If that’s all I get fuck it. I’ll take my vibrator and go play by myself.