Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511240032
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-31 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: RUSSELL ROBERTS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sure, my boss would like me to teach 20 classes a year for $12,000. What prevents him from oppressing me? My alternatives.
There are many potential employers who compete for my services and keep my wages high.
The marketplace makes discrimination costly, but it doesn't always eliminate it.
Some would argue that the persistence of discrimination is why we need government agencies such as the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC.
I can see the point. After all, I'm 5 feet 6 inches tall with stocky, hairy legs. I look lousy in a short skirt and a tank top.
So my career in food service has been hampered by the decision of the Hooters restaurant chain to hire only attractive, flirtatious women as servers and bartenders.
But the EEOC is a vigilant group.
After investigating Hooters for three years, it discovered that, indeed, only women were hired as servers and bartenders.
One of the EEOC's demands is that Hooters establish a fund of over $22 million to compensate any men who applied for a job in the last three years but were turned down.
The EEOC will be in charge of verifying whether claimants are telling the truth. Because Hooters does not keep records of job applicants going back three years, claimants will effectively be on the honor system.
My heart sings to know that my taxpayer dollars are at work prying open job opportunities at Hooters for the likes of me.
I can only hope that in the recent government shutdown, the EEOC workers, essential as they are, stayed on the job fighting for my rights.
You can see the government's logic: If Hooters is left alone to hire whom it sees fit, that sets a scary precedent.
What if the only jobs in the country were in restaurants? And what if all restaurants decided to sell not just food by itself but also ``vicarious sexual recreation,'' as Hooters describes one component of its full-serve product.
We men will be unemployed or relegated to the jobs of busboy and hamburger flipper.
Since I presume that most Hooters patrons are men, the whole economy would collapse like a house of cards.
Fortunately for us men, there are actually restaurants that just sell food - all by itself - rather than combining it with vicarious sexual recreation.
Here's even better news: There are job opportunities outside of the food industry where hairy-legged short men with little flair for sexual banter can find work.
So it makes you wonder why the EEOC is so eager to create an egalitarian workers' paradise at Hooters.
Could it be that the government investigation of Hooters is a smoke screen? Could it be that the real goal of the EEOC is not to prevent the oppression of men but the oppression of women?
Could it be that some find it offensive that women actually choose to dress up in Hooters garb and flirt mindlessly with their equally mindless patrons?
Frightening. Something must be done, I quite agree.
I also long for a world where men don't go to Hooters, don't read the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and refuse to watch ``Baywatch.''
My ideal world is one where men want to do all of those things but refrain because such pastimes degrade both men and women.
It also would be nice if women chose jobs where the expected dress was more demure.
Alas, such a world has not yet arrived. There are, however, many private actions we can take to hasten its advent.
But does anyone really believe that the government and the EEOC can bring such a world any closer?
Russell Roberts is director of the Management Center at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, author of ``The Choice: A Fable of Free Trade and Protectionism'' and a frequent contributor to National Public Radio's ``Morning Edition.''
- Knight-Ridder
by CNB